Amalia Carolina Louisa Benda

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Amalia Carolina Louisa Benda (baptized October 6, 1795 in Weimar , † 1846 in Weimar) was a German actress. and member of the Benda family of musicians and actors. No facts are known about her own theater career, but she has been described several times - possibly as a mistake - as an actress.

The city church in Weimar (steel engraving by L. Oeder around 1840)

Life

Amalia Carolina Louisa was the only viable child of the Weimar court singer and actor Hermann Christian Benda . She was the granddaughter of the composer Georg Anton Benda . Duchess Anna Amalia , Hereditary Prince Carl Friedrich and Princess Caroline Louise , represented by the chamber singer Luise Rudorf, took over the sponsorship . At the beginning of the 1970s, the biographer Franz Lorenz meticulously searched Amalia Benda under this name (also as a death entry in church registers, e.g. in Weimar and Berlin), but found nothing definite apart from speculations in theater almanacs. However, according to the Goethe diaries 1801-1808 , Amalia Carolina Louisa Benda appeared in January 1801 on the occasion of Goethe's recovery alongside the singer FM Matiegzeck, accompanied by the court orchestra under music director Johann Friedrich Krantz.

In the "Royal Municipal National Theater of Brno " under the native Weimar Heinrich Schmidt she played in December 1823 and in January 1824 as "Guest of the Royal Saxon Court Theater in Dresden" in the plays: The tournament of Kronstein ( Holbein ), The forest near Sibiu ( Frau von Weißenthurn ), The Roebuck ( Kotzebue ), The Storming of Smolensk ( Frau von Weißenthurn ), Ubaldo ( Kotzebue ), Hedwig ( Körner ). And in October 1824 she was described in the Wiener-Moden-Zeitung and the magazine for art, beautiful literature and theater, Verlag Strauss , as a member of the ensemble of Johann August Stöger in Graz.

The actress and author Karoline Bauer claims in her memoir that her favorite artist in Karlsruhe was Amalie Benda, who she adored so much as a child that she later chose the stage herself. However, it looks more like a link between the names of Amalia's cousin Sophia Carolina Benda (1787–1844) and another Karlsruhe actress, Amalie Morstadt / Neumann / Hai (t) zinger (1800–1884), posthumously - against the widower's opposition - additionally decorated by publisher Arnold Wellmer and brought onto the market in 1878/80: According to this, Amalie Benda collapsed lovesickly on the stage in Stella von Goethe in 1816 and later left Karlsruhe for good with a letter of recommendation from Rahel Varnhagen von Ense . She restlessly joined various acting groups and finally died in 1825 in the St. Sebastian Hospital in Salzburg after a long illness. Karoline Bauer claims to have visited Amalie's grave there in 1834 - and in the autumn of 1834 Karoline Bauer actually made guest appearances in Graz and Brno. The question remains, the fate of which young actress Karoline Bauer or Arnold Wellmer served as a role model for "their" Amalie.

Dresden, Reisewitzscher Garten around 1780, summer theater from 1844

In contrast, Amalia Benda and Carl (August) Schmidt ("actors in Dresden") found themselves as the deceased parents of the bridegroom Adolph Benda , "grand ducal opera singer and actor, entitled to live in Weimar " (church book St. Johannes in Magdeburg from September 17, 1856) .

See also

literature

  • Karoline Bauer: From my stage life: Memoirs , published in 1871 by Arnold Wellmer, Verlag der Königlich Wissensen Ober-Hofbuchdruckerei (R. v. Decker)
  • Karoline Bauer: Lost Heart Stories / Leftover Memoirs , here: Stella , edited by Arnold Wellmer, 1878/80, Louis Gerschel Verlagsbuchhandlung Berlin
  • Eduard Devrient: History of German Drama , Verlag Langen Müller, 1967
  • Franz Lorenz: The Benda family of musicians (Volume 1: Franz Benda ), 1967, de Gruyter Berlin
  • Franz Lorenz: The Benda family of musicians (Volume 2: Georg Anton Benda ), 1971, de Gruyter Berlin, ISBN 3-11-003568-5
  • Hermann Arthur Lier:  Bauer, Karoline . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 55, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1910, pp. 667-671.
  • Walter Kunze:  Bauer, Karoline Philippine Auguste. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 642 ( digitized version ).

References and comments

  1. ↑ not to be confused (as the first name was often left out in literature and the press) with:
  2. ↑ according to Franz Lorenz baptism entry Stadtkirche ( Herderkirche (Weimar) )
  3. ↑ Year and place of death according to death list 1846 in Allgemeine Theater-Chronik , text at Google Books
  4. ↑ She signed her request to the Grand Duchess Pavlovna of February 26, 1845 ( Grand Ducal House Archive A XXV No. 1076 at the Thuringian Central State Archives in Weimar) with "former actress".
  5. ↑ Joh. Friedr. Krantz in Goethe: the poet in his time , p. 857 at Google Books
  6. ↑ Goethe Diaries 1801-1808 , p. 552, 1291 excerpts from Google Books
  7. ^ Robert Steiger: Goethes Leben von Tag zu Tag , Artemis Verlag, 1986, ISBN 3760827349 , p. 170, excerpt from Google Books
  8. ^ Brno Theater (1823, 1824), text from Google Books
  9. ^ Page 1259 full text on Google Books
  10. ↑ with partial utilization of contemporary literature, e.g. B. detailed description of "Amalie Benda" s appearance ( Stella , p. 10), compare Joseph von Eichendorff's diary comment on Carolina Benda from October 1809: "The older Mlle: Benda with the beautiful, whale (d) animal eyes ... "
  11. ↑ Salzburgwiki , there: "Bruderhaus" in St. Sebastian, a hospital for the poor
  12. ^ Carl Schmidt at the Dresden Hoftheater 1842/1844 ( History of the Dresden Court Theater ) , page 654f.
  13. ↑ Dresdner Adress-Handbuch Volume 1842, p. 238 (“Italian village” at the Zwinger) at SLUB Dresden
  14. ↑ "Herr Schmidt" and "Mad. Schmidt “ , Sommertheater Dresden- Reisewitz , 1844, Almanach for Friends of Drama , page 327
  15. ↑ traditionally owed to the mother's place of birth
  16. ↑ State Archives Magdeburg, Wernigerode branch
personal data
SURNAME Benda, Amalia Carolina Louisa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actress
DATE OF BIRTH baptized October 6, 1795
PLACE OF BIRTH Weimar
DATE OF DEATH 1846
Place of death Weimar