A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Mantius, Eduard

MANTIUS, Eduard, a German tenor singer of great reputation in Northern Germany, was born at Schwerin in 1806. He studied law, first in 1825, at the university of Rostock, and afterwards at Leipzig. It was at the latter place that his fine voice attracted general attention and that he began to study singing under Pohlenz. After having sung with great success at a festival at Halle, conducted by Spontini, he went to Berlin, and by his interpretation of the tenor parts in Handel's oratorios (Samson, Judas, etc.), soon became the declared favourite of the Berlin public. How much his talent was appreciated in the house of the Mendelssohn family may be gathered from many passages in the published letters and other books relating to Mendelssohn. It was Mantius who sang the principal tenor part in the Liederspiel 'Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde' ('Son and Stranger'), at the celebration of the silver wedding of the elder Mendelssohns (Devrient, p. 89). In 1830 he made his first appearance on the stage at Berlin as Tamino in the Zauberflöte. In 1857 he gave his farewell performance as Florestan in Fidelio. During 27 years he had appeared in no less than 152 characters. After quitting the stage he devoted himself with much success to teaching, and he died at Ilmenau, in Thuringia, in 1874. Mantius had not only an exceptionally fine voice, which he knew how to use in a truly artistic and musical manner, but was also a remarkably good actor. His representations of the tenor parts in Mozart's and Gluck's operas were justly regarded as models of their kind.

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