Alzire

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Data
Title: Alzire, ou les Américains
Genus: tragedy
Original language: French
Author: Voltaire
Premiere: January 27, 1736
Place of premiere: Paris
people
  • D. Gusman , Governor of Peru
  • D. Alvarez , Gusman's father, former governor
  • Zamore ruler of a part of Potoze
  • Montèze ruler of another area
  • Alzire , daughter of Montèze
  • Emirs , retinue of the Alzirs
  • Cephale , retinue of the Alzirs
  • Spanish officers
  • American
Alzire, EA with Jean-Baptiste-Claude Bauche, 1736
First page of the epitre to Èmilie du Châtelet of type A

Alzire , fully entitled Alzire ou les Américains , is a tragedy in five acts by Voltaire . Voltaire wrote the manuscript from the end of 1733 to August 1734. The piece was premiered on January 27, 1736 in Paris . The Alzire is the first American play in France and has become one of the author's most popular plays.

action

The action takes place in Lima in Peru after the Spanish conquest. The new governor Gusmann, who was persecuting Christianity with all severity, put down an uprising of the pagan indigenous population, in which supposedly their leader Zamore fell. Gusman asks Zamore's already Christianized bride Alzire to marry him. Zamore as the opposite pole to Gusman takes up the fight against the conquerors and attacks Lima. Zamore is captured from which he cannot escape. Alzire, who has meanwhile married Gusmann following her father's wishes, asks Zamore to kill her with a dagger. However, Zamore manages to stab the newly arrived Gusmann with the dagger. The dying Gusmann realizes that he is misguided by religious hatred and forgives Zamore.

Contemporary reception

Alzire Act 3 Scene 4 Engraving by Antoine Louis Romanet after Jean-Michel Moreau

The Paris premiere was a success. The material was recorded in three parodies: in L'Alzirette by Panard, in Les Sauvages by Romagnesi and Riccoboni, and in an anonymous piece for the puppet theater La Fille obéissante . Giuseppe Verdi set Voltaire's original for the opera entitled Alzira to music .

Performances

The tragedy Alzire premiered on January 27, 1736 at the Comédie-Française in Paris. The material was recorded in three parodies: in L'Alzirette by Panard, in Les Sauvages by Romagnesi and Riccoboni, and in an anonymous piece for the puppet theater La Fille obéissante .

Addition

Voltaire preceded the Alzire with an Epître dédicatoire to Émilie du Châtelet , in which he emphasized her scientific interests and knowledge. In the following preface, the Discours préliminaire , Voltaire goes into detail about his intentions.

“In almost all of my writings one will find that humanity which must be the first characteristic of a thinking being; you will see the wish for happiness, the abhorrence of injustice and oppression, and that is the only thing that has saved my works from the darkness in which their mistakes have enveloped them. "

Going to press

The first print of the Alzire was published by Jean Baptiste Bauche at the same time as the world premiere in Paris in early 1736. Unusually, the printer signed most copies of the first print on the first page. The first editions contain the Epître dédicatoire in three versions, A, B and C. Eight book editions are known from the year of the first performance in 1736.

First editions

  • Alzire, / OU LES AMERICAINS., TRAGEDIE de M. DE VOLTAIRE . Representée à Paris pour la premiere fois / le 27 Janvier 1736. / Errer est d 'un mortel, pardonner est divin. / Duren. trad. de Pope. / Le prix est de trente sols. / A PARIS, / Chez Jean-Baptiste-Claude Bauche, / près les Augustins, à la descente du Pont-Neuf, / à S. Jean dans le le Desert, 1736, (12), VIII, (2) 79, ( 1) S. [1]
  • Alzire, / OU LES AMERICAINS., TRAGEDIE de M. DE VOLTAIRE . Representée à Paris pour la premiere fois / le 27 Janvier 1736. / Errer est d 'un mortel, pardonner est divin. / Duren. trad. de Pope. / La (sic!) Prix est de trente sols. / A PARIS, / Chez Jean-Baptiste-Claude Bauche (recte: London, after Maslen print by Bowyer), / près les Augustins, à la descente du Pont-Neuf, / à S. Jean dans le le Desert, 1736, ( 16), VIII, (IX-X) 79, (1) S. [2]
  • Alzire, / OU LES AMERICAINS., TRAGEDIE de M. DE VOLTAIRE . Representée à Paris pour la premiere fois / le 27 Janvier 1736. / Errer est d 'un mortel, pardonner est divin. / Duren. trad. de Pope. / Le prix est de trente sols. / A PARIS, / Chez Jean-Baptiste-Claude Bauche (recte: London, after Maslen, print by Woodfall), / près les Augustins, à la descente du Pont-Neuf, / à S. Jean dans le le Desert, 1736, ( 12), VII, (VIII) 79, (1) S. [3]
  • Alzire, / OU LES AMERICAINS., TRAGEDIE de M. DE VOLTAIRE . Representée à Paris pour la premiere fois / le 27 Janvier 1736. / Errer est d 'un mortel, pardonner est divin. / Duren. trad. de Pope, Amsterdam, Étienne Ledet et Compagnie, 8 °, XXX, 94 pp.
  • Alzire, / OU LES AMERICAINS., TRAGEDIE de M. DE VOLTAIRE . Representée à Paris pour la premiere fois / le 27 Janvier 1736. / Errer est d 'un mortel, pardonner est divin. / Duren. trad. de Pope, Amsterdam, Jacques Desbordes, 8 °, XXVII; (5), 93 pp. [4]

literature

  • Theodore Besterman : From Newton to Friedrich (1734–1738), in: Voltaire, Winkler, Munich, 1971, pp. 152–155.
  • Eric van der Schueren: Alzire ou les Américains, in: Dictionnaire Voltaire, Hachette Livre, 1994, p. 17 f.
  • Siegfried Detemple: Voltaire: Die Werke, catalog for the 300th birthday, Berlin, 1994, p. 49 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the detailed table of contents in: Theodore Besterman: Von Newton bis Friedrich (1734–1738), in: Voltaire, Winkler, Munich, 1971, p. 153 f.
  2. ^ Voltaire: Die Werke, catalog for the 300th birthday, Berlin, 1994, p. 50.