Everything wants to see the prophet

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Data
Title: Everything wants to see the prophet
Original title: The adventure in Nestheim
For the first time: Der Profet, great opera by Mayerbeer, not a parody of the "prophet"
Genus: Farce with singing in three acts
Original language: German
Author: Johann Nestroy
Literary source: Guest house adventure by Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer
Music: Carl Franz Stenzl
Publishing year: 1850
Premiere: May 4, 1850
Place of premiere: Carltheater
Place and time of the action: a small provincial town
people
  • Liborius Knollich , Mayor of Nestingen
  • Berta Veronika Rosenblüh , owner of a hotel
  • Eduard Braun , businessman
  • Kilian Sitzmeyer , jeweler
  • Gabriele
  • Nanett , her maid
  • Falk
  • Rollberg
  • Friedrich , head waiter in Mad. Rosenblüh's Hotel
  • Anton , waiter in Mad. Rosenblüh's Hotel
  • Mr. von Glanzbach , Rentier from the province
  • Mrs. von Glanzbach
  • Minona, Emma, ​​Andolin , their children
  • a public servant
  • a guardian
  • a journeyman soap boiler
  • First, second, third, fourth singer
  • First, second prima donna
  • Theater servant
  • Inspicient
  • hair stylist
  • Cloakroom
  • Lodge servants
  • [Gentlemen] and women, waiters, policemen, cloakrooms [assistants]

Everything wants to see the Prophet'n is a farce with singing in three acts by Johann Nestroy . The original title was The Adventure in Nestheim , then For the first time: Der Profet, Great Opera by Mayerbeer, not a parody of the "Prophet" . The premiere took place anonymously on May 4, 1850 in the Vienna Carltheater .

content

The small town hotel of Madame Rosenblüh is overcrowded with guests streaming in from everywhere, because artists from the capital will perform the Meyerbeer opera “The Prophet” as a benefit for the poor house. The rich jeweler Sitzmeyer wants to see his former lover Mrs. Rosenblüh again; Gabriele (in male disguise) raves about a singer and Eduard has therefore followed her jealously; the crook Falk (alias Müller) on a burglary tour pretends to be a high police superintendent; the Glanzbach family absolutely wants to get theater tickets; Mayor Knollich tries very ineptly to ensnare Madame Rosenblüh. The vain and fearful Sitzmeyer considers his roommate Eduard, disguised because of Gabriele, to be the wanted criminal Müller:

“His facial features are reminiscent of street robberies; to the forest of beard - you can seh'n the heart no one. " (Act II, 8. te  Scene)

When the real Inspector Rollberg, who is also Gabriele's father, appears, he is now mistaken for the criminal. The real rascals Falk and Mouse try in vain to escape with their prey. Gabriele reveals herself in order to save Eduard, who is wrongly suspected. Falk lets Knollich believe that he is in truth the composer Meyerbeer incognito, and the deceived mayor secretly brings him out of the house and into the theater.

"The Genius sublime, the most fortunate mayor of his time" (III. Act, 12 th  Scene)

The opera performance is a great success, the festival souper is to take place in the Hotel Rosenblüh, the guests will be announced by Sitzmeyer:

"From Is's! Everything flows and teeming, especially the Sweaty, in the middle of the pressed and behind the Erdruckten. " (III. Act, 23 st  Scene)

Falk in the stolen prophet costume is mistaken for the singer and brought in on a triumphal procession, but immediately recognized as a swindler and arrested by Rollberg. Sitzmeyer sums up:

"It is strange, no one has a true prophet, the devil makes a wrong therefore." (III. Act, 25 st  Scene)

Factory history

The basic idea of ​​the work has similarities with Adolf Bäuerle's The False Catalani , Roderich Benedix 's The Profile and Karl Meisl's The Adventure in Strümpfelbach - which is what the original title of Nestroy's work suggests. However, none of these served as a source for Nestroy.

The actual model was the play Gasthaus-Abentheuer by Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer (under her pseudonym Th. Oswald), which appeared in 1848 and had been played a lot, especially in Germany. Nestroy adhered to this source very precisely, especially in the first two acts, only he moved the place of the action from Bonn to a small Austrian provincial town. A new addition is that the upcoming performance of Giacomo Meyerbeer's Le prophète (The Prophet; premiere on April 16, 1849 in Paris ; premiere in Vienna on March 1, 1850 in the Theater am Kärntnertor ) causes great excitement in the town - in Birch- Pfeiffer's original only wants the lovers Otto / Eduard and Emma / Gabriele to attend a concert by Franz Liszt in Bonn - as well as the short slapstick scenes with the Glanzbach family and the finale with the theater ensemble.

Nestroy found it - presumably rightly - necessary to put the note on the theater bill: No parody of the “prophet” . He had to assume that the audience would expect him to be a parody of Meyerbeer's opera rather than a farce where the performance of the Prophet was merely the cause of the action.

Johann Nestroy played the jeweler Sitzmeyer, Wenzel Scholz the mayor Knollich, Franz Gämmerler a singer.

A title page in Nestroy's handwriting - For the first time: the Profet, great opera by Mayerbeer (sic!) . Posse with singing in Drey Acten. No parody of the “prophet” - with a list of people and the apparently accompanying text manuscript have been preserved. Some fragments of the manuscript have also been preserved. A theater manuscript and prompting book with the permission to perform from April 30th from the Carltheater's fund has the title, corrected by another hand,: The Adventure in Nestheim.

The piece was only performed four times, no more took place during Nestroy's lifetime or afterwards; a radio adaptation was broadcast under the direction of Ernst Wolfram Marboe on ORF on Shrove Tuesday, February 15, 1969 and repeated on June 3, 1974. The localization was changed to Baden near Vienna instead of Nestingen and Bad Vöslau instead of Bad Eisenquell.

Contemporary reception

Since the reviews were devastating for the piece, it was only repeated three times.

In the foreign paper of May 5, 1850 (No. 107) the first negative reaction was already on the morning after the premiere:

"The author did not name himself, and verily, it was not necessary either, because the audience was not at all tempted to call him at the end."

On May 7th - it was the day of the fourth and last performance - the Nestroy always well-meaning Wiener Theaterzeitung (No. 109, p. 485) from Adolf Bäuerle also wrote negatively:

“Instead of the remark on the note that this farce is not a parody of the opera 'Der Prophet' - one should have confessed better and more sincerely that this occasional piece is a rather superficial treatment and extension of Benedix's comedy: 'The profile' and one Berlin posse. "

Moritz Gottlieb Saphirs The humorist from May 7th, as always, formulated very negatively:

“So this in and of itself already miserable subject has already been worked through three times, and what does this neat piece of work offer us? [...] One offends taste, one abuses patience. Any better requirement is prevented. [...] No plot, no life, no joke, no equipment - and therefore another evening lost. […] The Fama names Mr. Nestroy as the author of this farce. Mr. Scholz was excellent in this standing role as a stupid mayor, he is the only one who can be named. "

Also, The Wanderer sharply criticized but praised in contrast to the humorists all performers, especially Nestroy and Scholz.

Later interpretations

Otto Rommel claims that everything wants to see the Prophet had a better success than the other three premieres of 1850 in the Carltheater, namely you shouldn't have it , cartoon charivari with the purpose of a marriage and a complicated story! . "The quiproquos (mix-ups) that arise in the overcrowded hotel in a small town" were reasonably well received by the audience (quote).

Helmut Ahrens only briefly notes that these four premieres in 1850, mentioned by Rommel, all suffered from diarrhea - all of them together would actually only be “comedians on the back burner” (quote).

Both Rommel and Ahrens assume that Nestroy intended to parody Meyerbeer's prophets for this play - despite the note on the theater bill.

In Otto Forst de Battaglia you can read that Nestroy was at this time a noticeable decline in his creative power, but the essential points of the piece are to be seen positively, because the farce:

"[...] mocks the Meyerbeer hype and, by the way, the squawks of a provincial violent man, the flair of a crazy Sherlock Holmes [...]"

literature

  • Helmut Ahrens: I'm not auctioning myself off to the laurel. Johann Nestroy, his life. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-7973-0389-0 .
  • Fritz Brukner / Otto Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. Historical-critical complete edition, thirteenth volume, published by Anton Schroll & Co., Vienna 1929; 479-585, 689-718.
  • Walter Obermaier (Ed.): Johann Nestroy, pieces 29. In: Jürgen Hein , Johann Hüttner , Walter Obermaier, W. Edgar Yates : Johann Nestroy, Complete Works, historical-critical edition. Franz Deuticke Verlagsgesellschaft, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-216-30340-3 .
  • Otto Rommel: Nestroys Works. Selection in two parts, Golden Classics Library, German publishing house Bong & Co., Berlin / Leipzig / Vienna / Stuttgart 1908.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nestingen = allusion to Nest as a synonym for insignificant small town
  2. ↑ changed by order of the censors on Rolleau , the reason is unknown
  3. ↑ Theater servant = "As a messenger between the direction and the staff of a stage, etc." (Herloßsohn / Marggraf: General theater lexicon or encyclopedia of everything worth knowing for stage artists, amateurs and theater fans, Altenburg / Leipzig 1846, vol. 7, p. 79 f.)
  4. ↑ stage manager = "that official of a stage who is responsible for arranging the materials necessary for every performance and rehearsal [...] the entire extras, etc." (Herloßsohn / Marggraf: Allgemeine Theater-Lexikon wo, vol. 4, p. 288 f .)
  5. ↑ Obermaier: Johann Nestroy, pieces 29, p. 40.
  6. ↑ Obermaier: Johann Nestroy, pieces 29, p. 67.
  7. ↑ Obermaier: Johann Nestroy, pieces 29, p. 76.
  8. ↑ Obermaier: Johann Nestroy, pieces 29, p. 79.
  9. ↑ a b Rommel: Nestroys works. S. LXXIX and note 1.
  10. ↑ Content in Brukner / Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. P. 713.
  11. ↑ Facsimile of the print in the collected dramatic works by Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer, Vol. 10, Leipzig 1867; in Obermaier: Johann Nestroy, Pieces 29. pp. 387–426.
  12. ↑ Facsimile of the theater slip in Obermaier: Johann Nestroy, pieces 29. p. 379.
  13. ↑ Manuscript collection in the Vienna City Hall , call numbers IN 33.404 and 36.765.
  14. ↑ Manuscript collection in the Vienna City Hall, call numbers IN 33.405, 33.406, 33.407, 33.408, 33.409, 33.411.
  15. ↑ Manuscript collection of the Austrian National Library , old theater number 152.
  16. ↑ Obermaier: Johann Nestroy, pieces 29, p. 208.
  17. ↑ Obermaier: Johann Nestroy, Pieces 29. pp. 199–204. (for the entire chapter on contemporary reception )
  18. ↑ Pièce = French for play, (theater) piece
  19. ↑ The reviewer of the theater newspaper is wrong here, see the chapter on the history of the works
  20. ↑ Ahrens: I'm not auctioning myself off to the laurel. P. 327.
  21. ↑ Otto Forst de Battaglia: Johann Nestroy, appraiser of people, magician of the word. Leipzig 1932, p. 92.