Josef Staudigl

When he won a professional appointment with the Wiener Hofoper, and had gained a great success there, he brought his studies as a medic to an end.

He did some teaching, and one student worthy of mention is Karl Beck, the tenor who in 1850 created the title role in Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin.

Staudigl was already singing in London in 1842, when he appeared at Covent Garden in the German Company in the first English performance of Les Huguenots, in the role of Marcel.

Hatton, who was Staudigl's accompanist at London concerts and also chorusmaster at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, to compose an opera (libretto by Edward Fitzball), Pasqual Bruno, and performed in it (in a German translation largely his own) in Vienna in 1844.

During his engagement at Her Majesty's, he established a close relationship with Michael William Balfe, then the company's conductor, and upon returning to Vienna Staudigl helped to arrange German-language performances of Balfe's operas Keolanthe, The Bohemian Girl (as Die Zigeunerin), and The Bondman (as Die Mulatte).