The Flying Dutchman

 ”Actor and Singer Carl Gunther in the Role of the Flying Hollander,“ Lithograph 1843, from the collection of The Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation, Riga Latvia

Our ancestor, Johann Karl Ludwig Maddaus, arrived in Riga in 1840 at the age of 20 and established a 38 year career of teaching art and drafting and producing various portraits and other works of art.  One of his earliest works was the lithograph of Carl Gunther in the role of The Flying Dutchman in the Wagner opera of the same name.

Wagner himself had moved to Riga (then part of the Russian Empire) in 1837 amidst serious financial and romantic difficulties.  Although reunited with his love Minna, his troubles continued in Riga and they departed for London in 1839 to avoid creditors.   As the story goes, the sea voyage to London served as inspiration for Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman).   Whether this is true was cast in doubt when Wagner acknowledged he had taken the story from a Heinrich Henne work.  The work is regarded as the beginning of the mature canon of the composer.

Wagner premiered the opera in Dresden,  in January 1843 and later that same year, Johann Karl Ludwig Maddaus completed the lithograph  to coincide with a Riga performance.   Maddaus and Wagner shared a connection in that they both came to Riga after some time in Magdeburg and indeed, Maddaus's move to Riga followed Wagner and many others.

Our family connection with the opera was continued with the naming of Johann's granddaughter Senta, after the herione of the opera.  

The Artist

A month after returning from a much needed vacation in Latvia (and Sweden), I 'm still processing the new information uncovered regarding my paternal ancestors who lived in Latvia in the 19th century. The search began at my older brother John's initiative in the early 1990's, in interviewing our father Ingo and documenting as much family history as possible in preparation for a Maddaus family reunion in 1995.

I'd always been interested in the connection with Latvia, since the word Riga rolled off Aunt Frieda's tongue during a family vacation she shared with us in Wells Beach, Maine in the early 60s. Technically a great aunt, she was born there in 1881, as were 5 of her 6 siblings. Riga was part of the Russian Empire at the time and the family patriarch, Johann Karl Ludwig Maddaus, had been one of a number of Germans who settled there. Born in Hamburg, he was an art teacher and artist, specializing in portraits and religious art.

Brother John discovered, with the help of University Southern Maine Professor Juris Ubans, that 2 of Johann Maddaus's paintings were in the collection of the Latvian National Museum of Art, including a self-portrait. The latter is the only image we have of our great great grandfather, but to date it's one of 9 paintings I've had the opportunity to see in Latvia and Estonia during my travels there in 2005 and 2009.

The breakup of the Soviet Union and end of its occupation of Latvia, as well as the advent of the internet, has led to the web publication of a tremendous store of Latvian history in the past 15 years. I've been able to identify members of Johann's family in addition to our Great Grandfather Oscar Wilhelm Maddaus (who emigrated to the US in the latter part of the 19th century) and locate the family burial site in Lielie Kapi (The Great Cemetery) in Riga.

Another revelation was the identity of Oscar's in-laws, the family of Augusta Dorothea Rathminder, the details of whom had been lost sometime after their move to the USA.

There's quite a bit of research to digest, but I'm hoping to record more of it here and in a family history at some future date.