Adam Itzel Jr. (November 30, 1864 – September 5, 1893) was a 19th-century American conductor, pianist, and composer active in Baltimore.
He attended the Peabody Institute's Conservatory of Music, earning a certificate of proficiency in 1880 and (along with Hermine Hoen) the conservatory's first graduate degree 1882.[1] He was the conductor of the Academy of Music's orchestra, and directed the touring McCall Opera Company.[2] In 1890 he was hired to teach and conduct at Peabody.
Itzel's best-known composition was the light operaThe Tar and the Tartar. It premiered in Chicago in April 1891 with Digby Bell and Helen Bertram in the leads,[4] then ran for 152 performances at New York's Palmer Theater. The show was not a critical success, but enjoyed popular success due to Bertram's scandalous barefoot dance. The show was performed across the continent by at least six companies.[5][6] After his death, it ran again for a week in 1894 at New York's Union Square Theater with Milton Aborn in the lead role.[7]
Adam Itzel died at the age of 29 of consumption in Baltimore, Maryland, September 5, 1893.[5] A memorial concert was held at Peabody in February 1894; Daniel Gilman gave the commemorative address.[8] The Peabody Archives at Johns Hopkins University hold his archives.[9]
The Baltimore (song, "Dedicated by The Sun of Baltimore to the gallant worship that beras the name of the Monumental City", commemorating the launch of the USS Baltimore (C-3))[11]
^ abThomas Allston Brown, A History of the New York Stage: From the First Performance in 1732 to 1901 (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1903), v. 3, 343.
^Hildebrand, David; Schaaf, Elizabeth M. (2017). Musical Maryland: a history of song and performance from the colonial period to the age of radio. William Biehl. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 110. ISBN978-1-4214-2240-4.