German opera in the context of Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft

The Seyler Theatre Company, also known as the Seyler Company (German: Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft, sometimes Seylersche Truppe), was a travelling theatrical company founded in 1769 by Abel Seyler. It was one of the most famous and ambitious theatrical companies of Europe in the years from 1769 to 1779, and played a crucial role in theatrical innovation, the development of a serious German opera tradition, and the Sturm und Drang movement. The Sturm und Drang period is named for a play commissioned by the Seyler company.

Germany claims some of the most renowned composers, singers, producers and performers of the world. Germany is the largest music market in Europe, and third largest in the world.

German classical music is one of the most performed in the world; German composers include some of the most accomplished, influential, and popular in history, among them Georg Friedrich Händel, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Carl Maria von Weber, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner, Johannes Brahms and Richard Strauss, many of whom were among the composers who created the field of German opera.

Romantische Oper (German for 'romantic opera') is a genre of early nineteenth-century German opera, developed not from the German Singspiel of the eighteenth-century but from the opéras comiques of the French Revolution. It offered opportunities for an increasingly important role for the orchestra, and greater dramatic possibilities for reminiscence motifs – phrases that are identified with a place, person or idea and which, when re-used in a work, remind the listener of the place, person or idea in question.

Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz (1821) inaugurated the genre, which increasingly became associated with a distinctively German national style, as exemplified by composers such as Heinrich Marschner (e.g. Der Vampyr and Hans Heiling), Albert Lortzing (e.g. Undine) and Louis Spohr. Themes explored included nature, the supernatural, the Middle Ages and popular culture, specifically folklore. Musically, German folk music also served as an inspiration. Spoken dialogue continued to be used between musical numbers.

Oberon, or The Elf King (German: Oberon oder König der Elfen), or simply Oberon, originally known as Huon and Amanda (German: Hüon und Amande), is a romantic Singspiel in five acts by Friederike Sophie Seyler, inspired by the poem Oberon by Christoph Martin Wieland, which itself was based on the epic romance Huon of Bordeaux, a French medieval tale. It has been named for two of its central characters, the knight Huon and the fairy king Oberon, respectively. Musicologist Thomas Bauman describes the work as "an important impulse for the creation of a generation of popular spectacles trading in magic and the exotic. Die Zauberflöte [The Magic Flute] in particular shares many features with Oberon, musical as well as textual."

The opera was published in "Flensburg, Schleswig and Leipzig" in 1789, the year Seyler died. Seyler was married to the prominent theatre director Abel Seyler, the founder of the Seyler Theatre Company and a noted promoter of both German opera and William Shakespeare. The opera was dedicated to their common long-time friend and collaborator, the actor Friedrich Ludwig Schröder. Seyler's opera and a plagiarized version by Karl Ludwig Giesecke both enjoyed popularity from the late 18th century. The opera had a central role in the development of Emanuel Schikaneder's theatre and its focus on fairy tale operas which culminated in The Magic Flute, and was one of the influences that the latter's libretto built upon.

Die Dafne (1627) is an opera. Its libretto was written by Martin Opitz (which survives) and its music was composed by Heinrich Schütz (which is lost). It has traditionally been regarded as the first German opera, though it has also been proposed more recently that it was in fact a spoken drama with inserted song and ballet numbers.