''Die Geisterinsel'' is a singspiel in 3 acts by

Johann Friedrich Reichardt Johann Friedrich Reichardt (25 November 1752 – 27 June 1814) was a German composer, writer and music critic. Early life Reichardt was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, to lutenist and ''Stadtmusiker'' Johann Reichardt (1720–1780). Johann Fr ...

to a libretto by

Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter (3 September 1746 – 18 March 1797) was a German poet and dramatist. Biography He was born at Gotha. He started out studying law, but early on was influenced to write for the theatre. After the completion of his univer ...

based on '' The Tempest'' by

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

. The libretto by Gotter, after an earlier version by his friend Friedrich von Einsiedel, had already been hailed as a masterpiece by

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...

and first set by Fleischmann in 1796. Goethe also promoted Fleischmann's setting but the opera was not a success. The years 1798-1799 saw six more operas based on The Tempest, of which Reichardt's, commissioned by August Wilhelm Iffland for the Nationaltheater, Berlin, was both the most successful and the most successful of Reichardt's operas as a whole. It was premiered 6 July 1798.Francien Markx ''E. T. A. Hoffmann, Cosmopolitanism, and the Struggle for German Opera'
p.61
/ref>

References

1796 operas Operas German-language operas Operas based on The Tempest {{German-opera-stub