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Born Emanuel Johann Joseph Schikaneder to domestic servants, he was educated in Regensburg, where his mother had relocated the family after his father's death. To support the family, he earned money as a street musician. In 1773, he joined a traveling theatrical troupe, gaining experience as an actor, singer, composer, producer, and playwright. In 1775, he premiered his first work, the Singspiel Die Lyranten, in Innsbruck, which was well received. Less than a year later, he and his wife Eleonore, an actress, joined another troupe. Schikaneder eventually purchased this troupe for 2,000 Gulden and, after arriving in Salzburg in 1780, became friends with the Mozart family.
In May 1789, Schikaneder came to Vienna's Theater auf der Wieden at his wife's invitation. She managed a troupe there that she had run with her late lover. During this time, Schikaneder fathered at least two children with two different women despite being married. The couple merged their companies, which included Mozart's sister-in-law, and achieved a series of successes. Although the film Amadeus (1984) portrays Schikaneder as staging elaborate productions for the general public, it overlooks that he was one of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's closest friends and the librettist of Die Zauberflöte, in which he performed the role of Papageno 223 times.
On June 13, 1801, Schikaneder opened the Theater an der Wien, which still exists today. On November 20, 1805, he premiered Ludwig van Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio. However, as audiences grew more sophisticated, he was unable to replicate the success of Die Zauberflöte. Schikaneder passed away on September 21, 1812, in Vienna.
In 2016, the musical Schikaneder by Stephen Schwartz and Christian Struppeck, directed by Trevor Nunn and based on the idea that Die Zauberflöte emerged from Schikaneder's turbulent relationship with Eleonore, premiered in Vienna.
