Seedo

Seedo (also Sidow) (c.1700-c.1754 Potsdam) was a German composer who worked primarily in England. He was the son of Samuel Peter Sidow, a musician employed by the Elector of Brandenburg. By the mid-1720s Seedo was working at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket. In 1727 he married the singer Maria Manina, who had small parts in London’s Italian operas beginning in 1711. Between 1731 and 1734, Seedo worked on Drury Lane imitations. He wrote several successful stage works of which his ballad opera, "The Devil to Pay", was the most successful. When the work initially premiered it was a failure, but when the composer cut the work significantly from a full opera of 42 airs to an afterpiece of 16 airs it became a hit. Apart from "The Beggar’s Opera", "The Devil to Pay" was by far the most popular ballad opera of the eighteenth century. The work was given regular London performances until well into the 19th century and a translation by von Borcke became popular in Germany as well. Von Borocke's translation was a major influence on the development of singspiel.

ources

*Roger Fiske/Irena Cholij. The "New Grove Dictionary of Opera", edited by Stanley Sadie (1992), ISBN 0-333-73432-7 and ISBN 1-56159-228-5