(born Nov. 18, 1786, Eutin, Holstein—died June 5, 1826, London, Eng.) German composer. Son of a musician and a theatre manager, and first cousin to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's wife, he was born with a deformed hip and was never strong.
He took composition lessons with Michael Haydn (1737–1806) and with Abbé Vogler (1749–1814), who recommended him for a post in Breslau (1804–06). His operas began to have success, and he took over direction of the Prague Opera (1813–16), which he saved from ruin, but finding little time for composition, he resigned. Showing signs of the tuberculosis that would kill him, he began to compose more prolifically. Appointed kapellmeister for life in Dresden, he began work on his masterpiece, the opera The Freeshooter (1821), the premiere of which made him an international star. The libretto for his next opera, Euryanthe (1823), was so clumsy that its admirable music never succeeded, and his final opera, Oberon (1826), composed for London, was a success there but not elsewhere.
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