Ali Baba
Ali Baba ( Arabic علي بابا) is a character from the 270th story from the collection of stories Arabian Nights , entitled Ali Baba and the Forty Robbers (Arabic: Ali Baba wal arba'een harami ). This story was not yet included in the Arabic version of A Thousand and One Nights . It was included in the first European translation by the French orientalist Antoine Galland , who allegedly heard it in Paris in 1709 from a storyteller from Syria .
action
Ali Baba makes a living as a lumberjack. With the help of the clever slave Mardschana (also Morgiana ), Ali Baba succeeds in gradually defeating a gang of forty robbers and in getting possession of their treasure hidden in a rock cave. Marjana is released in thanks and married to Ali Baba's nephew.
In the Orient, the number 40 stands for “a lot” or “many” and not for an exact number. This number appears again and again in the Bible. The magic formula “Sesame, open yourself!” ( Arabic إفتح يا سمسم iftah ya simsim ), with which the rock gate of the treasury is to be opened.
What is striking is the similarity to the fairy tale Simeliberg ( ATU 954 ) in the collection of children's and house tales by the Brothers Grimm (KHM 142), which says: "Berg Semsi, Berg Semsi, open up."
reception
The story of Ali Baba influenced European culture in many ways. The motif was taken up, for example, by Johann Strauss in the operetta Indigo and the 40 Robbers , it was described in dramas and processed in various films. It also appears in the fine arts, for example with Max Slevogt and Arik Brauer . Ernesto Lecuona composed the Rumba Ali Baba in 1929 as part of his Zarzuela Alma de Raza . The Comedian Harmonists sang this song on October 28, 1933 with French lyrics by André Tabet and Robert Chamfleury on shellac record.
There are a variety of film versions of the story.
In 1916, after Ali Baba and the forty robbers, the musical Chu-Chin-Chow was created, which was also made into a film:
- Chu-Chin-Chow , GB 1923
- Chu-Chin-Chow , GB 1934
- Chu-Chin-Chow , GB 1936
- Chu-Chin-Chow , USA 1945
- Ali Baba ve Kirk Haramiler , TR 1944
- Ali Baba and the forty thieves , USA 1944
- The son of Ali Baba , USA 1952
- Ali Baba and the Forty Robbers , USA 1953, remake
- Ali Baba and the 40 robbers , USSR / India 1980
- Ali Baba and the 40 thieves , France 2007, two-part television film
Web links
- Text version of the fairy tale
- Fairy tales as a free audio book ( Memento from October 22, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
- Ali Baba in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third series. 1958, p. 580 ( limited preview in Google book search).
- ↑ Eberhard Fechner: The Comedian Harmonists. Heyne, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-87315-7 , p. 399.
- ↑ Wolfgang Schneidereit: Discography of the vocal interpreters of the light muse from 1925 to 1945 in German-speaking countries. Volume 1. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2019, ISBN 978-3-7528-2834-4 , p. 244 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
- ^ Ali Baba - Comedian Harmonists on YouTube