Karl Ludwig Giesecke
Carl Ludwig Giesecke FRSE[1] (6 April 1761 in Augsburg – 5 March 1833 in Dublin) was a German actor, librettist, polar explorer and mineralogist.
Whittaker suggests that he chose "Giesecke" (also spelled "Gieseke") in admiration of the poet Nikolaus Dietrich Giseke [de].
[7] Giesecke achieved an early success with his adapted version of Sophie Seyler's Hüon und Amande, based on an earlier work by Christoph Martin Wieland and set to music by Paul Wranitzky.
"[9] In later work, Giesecke translated the Italian libretti of Mozart's operas Le nozze di Figaro (1793) and Così fan tutte (1794) into German.
[5] When Giesecke ultimately departed from Vienna (1800), he did so under a shadow and perhaps in a hurry, as surviving court records show proceedings against him for non-payment of a year's rent.
[11] The departure from Vienna coincided with a major career shift: Giesecke abandoned the theater and switched to mineralogy and mineral trading.
[12] Later, under the title of Royal Prussian Mine Counsellor (Königlicher Preussischer Bergrat),[13] he conducted surveys in Sweden from 1803 until 1804 and in Norway in 1805.
[12] He obtained approval from the Danish king Christian VII to explore the geology of the Faroe Islands, which he visited in 1805, and Greenland; the latter journey began in 1806.
His eventual return to Europe in August 1813 was picturesque; according to Dent "he landed at Hull, looking probably rather like Papageno, for his European clothes had worn out, and he was dressed as an Eskimo in fur and feathers.
On his return he was consulted by mariners such as John Franklin and William Scoresby, who played a role in the eventual discovery of the Northwest Passage, the famously elusive sea route around the northern edge of North America.
[20] Giesecke collected specimens of the Greenlandic bellflower, which he found deviated much from the European forms, and sent them to the botanist Lorenz Chrysanth von Vest.
Lastly, Giesecke contributed to the ethnography and human history of Greenland through his observations of the Eskimos and of the extinct Viking settlements there.
[26] In the same year 1814 he was admitted to the Order of the Dannebrog by King Frederick VI of Denmark; henceforth in Ireland he styled himself "Sir Charles Lewis Giesecke," so indicating the Danish honour, and using the English versions of German "Carl" and "Ludwig".
[27] He recovered, however, and continued onward to his birthplace of Augsburg,[27] and eventually back to his old haunts in Vienna, with stops in various German cities on the way.
The main purpose of Giesecke's Vienna journey was to donate a collection of mineralogical specimens to the Emperor of Austria, Francis I.
The tenor and opera manager Julius Cornet was present at such an encounter (Ignaz Seyfried, an old member of the Schikaneder troupe, was also there).
And above all the truly German Magic Flute by Schikaneder and Giesecke, a member of the chorus who made the plan of the plot, the division of the scenes and the well known simple ('naïve') rhymes for him.
[29]Subsequent scholarship has involved extensive disagreement about whether to believe Cornet, ranging from wholehearted endorsement of his report to utter rejection of it accompanied by aspersions on Giesecke's character.
"[31] However, there is also a reasonable possibility that Giesecke was an unacknowledged collaborator with Schikaneder; the troupe frequently practiced coauthorship as a means of speeding the creation of new works.
During the 1820s Giesecke embarked on field trips in rural Ireland for the purpose of mineralogical research: 1825 (Galway, Mayo, the island of Achill), 1826 (Donegal), and 1828 (Londonderry, Antrim, Tyrone, Down);[27] see Works, below.
His demise was sudden; according to Dent, "on March 5, 1833, though in failing health, he went out to dine with a friend in Dublin; after dinner, as they were sitting over their wine, he fell back in his chair and died.
