The hat is to blame for everything!

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Opera dates
Original title: The hat is to blame for everything!
Cast sheet for the premiere, Stuttgart 1917

Cast sheet for the premiere, Stuttgart 1917

Shape: Fairy tale game in three acts
Original language: German
Music: Siegfried Wagner
Libretto : Siegfried Wagner
Literary source: Grimm's fairy tales and other collections
Premiere: December 6, 1917
Place of premiere: Royal Court Theater Stuttgart
Playing time: approx. 2 ½ hours
people
  • Little hat, a goblin ( soprano , only sings at one point behind the scene, child actor of around 12 years)
  • Der Frieder ( tenor )
  • Das Katherlies'chen (soprano)
  • Frieder's mother ( mezzo-soprano )
  • Trude ( old )
  • A female witch ( coloratura soprano )
  • The village judge (tenor Buffo )
  • Death ( baritone )
  • The Devil ( Bass -Buffo)
  • The devil's grandmother (mezzo-soprano)
  • The King's Son (baritone)
  • A host (baritone)
  • His wife (old)
  • The miller (bass)
  • The miller's wife (soprano)
  • The sacristan (tenor buffo)
  • The fairy tale woman (soprano)
  • The ogre (bass)
  • Sun (old)
  • Moon (bass)
  • Star (soprano)
  • The singing, jumping Löweneckerchen (soprano)
  • Jacob Grimm (speaking role)
  • Siegfried Wagner (speaking role)
  • Frieder's sisters, girls, neighbors, devils
Announcement of the world premiere, Stuttgart 1917

The hat is to blame for everything! is an opera (original name: "Märchenspiel") in three acts by Siegfried Wagner ( music ) with its own libretto . It bears the opus number 11 and was premiered on December 6, 1917 at the Royal Court Theater in Stuttgart .

action

The opera is a conglomerate of around forty fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm and other collectors. The framework plot is based on the main characters from Frieder and Katherlieschen . Frieder and Katherlies'chen are in love, but Frieder's mother decides that Frieder should marry the rich Trude. They will have to part unless they do a number of tasks. Everyone experiences a series of fantasy adventures in a dream world. In the third act, dream world and reality merge and the two come together. In the course of the plot, the goblin hat, invisible to the others, causes a series of confusions until he is finally revealed.

first act

1st scene. In a room in Frieder's house, Katherlies'chen pushes a large cheese to the garden to let it roll down the hill. He's supposed to get back the other cheeses that rolled down before - but that doesn't work. Frieder joins them. The two decide to get married.

2nd scene. Frieder's mother comes from the garden and scolds Katherlies, who has to turn the pieces up again. She announces the visit of the rich Trude, whom she has planned to be Frieder's bride. Frieder makes a "boot test" by pouring water into a boot. If it runs out, he saves the expensive wedding feast. It flows through.

3rd scene. A carriage drives up and Trude gets out. Frieder is very dismissive to her. Trude thinks she'll tame him. The mother and Frieder go.

4th scene. Katherlies'chen mocks Trude and calls her "schiech". She walks away laughing.

5th scene. Trude looks at herself in the mirror. She doesn't think she is beautiful, but she is clever. A witch woman appears and tells her how she can win over Frieder through witchcraft: She needs a brew of mugwort, diamonds and toads, a golden egg from the singing, jumping lion, and three golden hairs from the devil and then has to perform all kinds of rituals.

6th scene. Katherlies'chen comes in laden with dishes. Little hat tickles her nose with a peacock feather and disappears again. She drops the dishes. Then she discovers Trude's bag and mirror. The temptation is great, but she tries to be good, puts the bag back down and bends down to pick up the broken pieces. The cone reappears, puts Trude's pouch in her pocket and disappears. Trude returns. She misses her pouch and calls for help. The mother comes with some neighbors. The bag is found in Katherlies'chen's bag and locked it up.

7th scene. Katherlies'chen doesn't understand what happened. She desperately wants to kill herself and take poison. Hütchen swaps the poison pot with honey unnoticed while she writes her will on a slate. She eats the unexpectedly tasty “poison” and lies down on the floor to die.

8th scene. Frieder enters with an ax to free Katherlies. He explains to her that she did not take poison, but honey.

9th scene. Frieder's mother, Trude, the judge and neighbors enter and prevent the escape. Trude promises to forgive them if Katherlies'chen brings her the singing, jumping little lion with the golden egg and Frieder brings three golden hairs of the devil. If he then also solves three prepared puzzles, she wants to release him. The mother and the village judge make them swear that from now on they will have nothing to do with each other and will never think about marriage: “We avoid each other, we divorce! We can't stand each other! ”Hütchen rubs her hands happily under the table. Frieder and Katherlies'chen say goodbye to each other. The choir regrets them.

Second act

The second act is about the adventures of Frieders and Katherlieschen. In contrast to those in the other two acts, the scenes here are referred to as “images” and given titles.

1st picture. Sky prospect. In the sky, Katherlies'chen asks the star, moon and sun, one after the other, where she can find the little lion corner. The sun refers them to the ogre. For his part, Frieder asks the moon, star and sun who can solve three difficult questions. The sun sends him to the devil.

2nd picture. The little Catherine and death. In the forest in front of a rocky mountain range, Katherlies'chen encounters death, who was beaten up in Siegfried Wagner's opera Banadietrich and lies in the ditch. She helps him up and as a thank you receives an ointment with which she can heal the sick, provided she does not already see him standing by their bed.

3rd picture. The realm of death. Death gives a sign, after which the mountain opens and the realm of the dead becomes visible. There lies a sick prince whose light of life is fading. Against the wish of death, Katherlies'chen gives him light from her lantern and thus extends his life.

4th picture. Katherlies and the prince. The scene turns back into the forest. It is day The still terminally ill prince is carried on a stretcher. She smears the ointment on him. However, when she sees death standing at the bottom of the stretcher, she turns the stretcher and tells the porters to hit the place with sticks where they see him. He disappears. The healed prince offers her marriage, but Katherlies'chen continues to love Frieder. They say goodbye.

5th picture. The peace in hell. Change of scene. In Hell, Frieder meets the devil's Ellermutter, who is mending her grandson's laundry in an armchair. Frieder asks her for help, which she gladly gives him. He shows her the slip of paper with the three questions. When the devil comes crashing in and yells for food, Frieder hides. The grandmother asks the devil to put his head in her lap and rest. She tears out three golden hairs one after the other and asks him one of the three questions, which she pretends to be dreams to be interpreted. The devil knows all the answers and is finally asleep. Frieder comes out of hiding and writes down the answers. Before he knows how to go away, however, the devil wakes up and wants his helper devils to throw him into a cauldron. Frieder manages to force her to dance with his flute and finally to flee. Only the devil remains behind. He promises to do nothing to Frieder if he teaches him to play the flute. Frieder agrees, but uses a ruse: Under the pretext of wanting to shorten his claws, he lets the devil put his hand in the vice. The devil is trapped. In return for his release, Frieder demands the “Tischlein, deck dich”, the “Goldesel Bricklebrit” and the “Stick aus dem Sack” as well as free withdrawal.

6th picture. Forest encounter. During the day, Frieder lies asleep in the forest. Katherlies'chen finds him and speaks to him. Little hat drips juice on his forehead and disappears again. When Frieder wakes up, he does not recognize Katherlies'chen. She leaves sadly. Hütchen comes back and drops another juice on his forehead, so that Frieder remembers again. Hütchen plays with him by imitating Katherlies'chen's voice from different angles.

7th picture. The miller and the sacristan / The raven as diviner. During a nocturnal storm, Katherlies'chen seeks protection in a mill. She has a raven with her that she wants to keep healthy. Meanwhile, the miller's wife is waiting for her lover, the sacristan. She believes that stupid Katherlies will not notice anything and sends her to sleep in a corner. The sacristan comes in and hugs the miller's wife, while Katherlies'chen pretends to be asleep. The miller's wife and sacristan sit down at the table to eat. Then they notice how the miller returns unexpectedly. Wine, roast and cake are quickly hidden and the sacristan is hidden in a cupboard. The miller enters. Katherlies'chen comes out of her corner. She claims that her raven can prophesy and, by seeming to translate his croak, gradually reveals to the miller the hiding places of the food. She demands money for the last line and then explains that the devil is in the closet. She opens the closet herself. The sacristan has had enough time to prepare and rushes out, his head covered in his black skirt, while the miller hardly dares to look. Katherlies'chen has proven that she is not stupid.

8th picture. The thieving landlords. Frieder spends the night in an inn. He uses his little table for a meal and lets the donkey fill the bag for him before he goes to rest. The innkeepers have observed him and are carving copies of the table and the donkey, which they then swap for his objects - and Frieder observes them again. Since they do not know the magic words, they cannot use the items properly. Frieder enters and explains the secret to them, but also the third miracle: "Stick out of the bag" - whereupon an invisible stick beats the thieves. After all, he also uses his flute to force it to dance to St.

9th picture. The singing, jumping lion beak. It is day In the forest, Katherlies'chen finds the little lion corner with the golden eggs in a cage near a house. The ogre comes out of the house to eat them. Katherlies'chen can outsmart him so that he gets caught in his own noose. In return for his release, she receives the bird, which flies away as a hat opens the cage door. Frieder joins them. But this time she doesn't want to recognize him. He is slowly moving away. A toad crawls up to Katherlies'chen and leaves a nut with the inscription "Break me open if you need trouble!"

Third act

1st scene. At home, the mother expects Frieder's return for his wedding to Trude. The house is festively decorated. When she heard the carriage coming, she called the maids and neighbors together. Frieder climbs out of the carriage, splendidly dressed, has the table, donkey and sack perform and shows the three golden hairs of the devil and the sheet of paper with the answers. When a scream is heard, everyone turns backwards. Meanwhile, Hütchen exchanges the items for imitations with some other goblins. Frieder's demonstration fails miserably. Trude is conscious of victory. Now he has no choice but to marry her.

2nd scene. Katherlies'chen appears disguised as a star child. She found the dress in the toad's nut - which is not explicitly mentioned in the libretto. Trude envies her dress and offers a lot of money for it. Instead, Katherlies'chen demands a night in Frieder's room. Trude agrees - but gives Frieder a drink so he doesn't wake up.

3rd scene. Frieder throws himself restlessly on the bed. He wonders what could have gone wrong and eventually falls asleep. Katherlies'chen enters the room, but cannot wake it. Little hat sneaks in and tickles Frieder's nose with a peacock feather. Frieder half wakes up. Only when little hat pours water over his head does he start up. Katherlies'chen stands in front of him in a star dress. You decide to flee.

4th scene. Trude tries to bewitch Frieder and Katherlies'chen with a magic whip. Frieder freezes and goes blind, but Trude's art does not work for the Sunday child Katherlies'chen. She takes the flute out of Frieder's pocket and forces Trude to dance. Toads and mice fall out of their mouths. In the background witches dance around a fire. They come running and drag Trude away with them. When Katherlies'chen puts down the flute, the magic disappears, but Trude is no longer to be seen either. Katherlies'chen heals Frieder with the ointment and weeps tears over his eyes, whereby he regains his eyesight.

5th scene. The wedding feast begins with a wild dance in which little hats and other goblins create a great mess and provoke everyone to quarrel. There is a fight. Cone cheers. Jacob Grimm hurries in with gestures of desperation, followed by Siegfried Wagner . Hütchen is happy to have found new victims, and these two quarrel with each other and leave. The fairy tale woman ( Dorothea Viehmann ) steps between the arguing and reveals: “It's all the fault of the hat!” You can lure the invisible goblin with a bowl and then hit him with a broom until his cap flies off his head. Then he will become visible. That's how it happens. Hütchen is caught and Katherlies'chen gives him the right opinion. It is now clear who caused all the failures. The neighbors furiously demand his death, but Katherlies'chen shows pity and lets him escape. When the neighbors now turn against Katherlies'chen, the house collapses and buries everyone except for Frieder and Katherlies'chen under the rubble.

6th scene. At sunrise, death and the devil appear again in search of prey. But Frieder only needs to show his sack with the club to put her to flight. Katherlies'chen smeared the buried people with her ointment and brought them back to life. Everyone praised her for her cleverness and swore to her and the hat that appeared again that they would be good from now on. During the final choir, tendrils of flowers descend and form an arbor around the lovers.

layout

music

The musical style is based on the Italian and French opera, but also on the orchestral works by Franz Liszt . The music stands between post-romanticism and impressionism and is easy to understand. The goblin motif is characterized by a sharp, swirling line and diminished triads . The music is formally subordinate to the plot. The closed forms themselves become a means of expression, such as B. in the beatings scene of the third act, realized as a fugue . Another essential stylistic element is the melody, which comes to light through song forms, melodic dialogues instead of duets, dance movements and certain effects in characterizing people.

The entire plot of the opera is anticipated in the prelude. It consists of four sections and introduces the various topics. In the first section, Katherlies'chen's purity of heart dominates. At first it is only played by the string quartet, but then gradually recorded by the other instruments. The second section mainly contains the topics of the cone, which could already be heard in fragments towards the end of the first section. This part stands out due to the col legno playing of the string instruments, which are accompanied by woodwinds and the harp. Frieder's theme is heard in the horn at the beginning of the third section. Other important topics follow, such as the dance style with which the devil is forced to dance, or the theme of Frieder's "love tendons". Various motifs by Frieders and Hütchens sometimes rival each other fiercely. The beatings scene of the third act is also represented by a fortissimo of the violas. After a general break , the last section of the prelude follows. Here some of Frieder's and Katherlies'chen's themes are repeated until the Hütchens' theme also fits in peacefully.

A quote from Siegfried Wagner's Der Bärenhäuter can be heard in the seventh picture of the third act: the sacristan, mistaken for the devil by the miller, is marked in the flutes by themes of the devil and hell of this opera.

Instrumentation

The orchestra consists of the following instruments:

  • Three flutes (piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons (contrabassoon)
  • Four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba
  • Timpani, bass drum, triangle, cymbals, tam-tam
  • harp
  • Strings

libretto

Unlike most of the other fairy tales quoted in the opera, the title character of the “little hat” does not come from the children's and household tales of the Brothers Grimm , but from their German sagas. It is about a ghost called Hütchen (or " Hödeken " in Lower Saxony ), who is said to have lived at the court of Bishop Bernhard I of Hildesheim . He was basically friendly and helpful, but could also take cruel revenge if he was insulted. In the opera, his pranks are usually directed against Katherlies. They have mostly negative consequences, but they also help the couple at times. The situations this creates mean that both can prove themselves and grow up. After Hütchen himself announced the morality of the piece at the end (“All suffering / all pain / forces a childishly pure heart!”), The villagers, who were previously vengeful, also show themselves to be forgiving. You see the greater purpose of his pranks.

With the rough formal sequence of the scenes, it is noticeable that the first and third lifts each form a unit. These acts take place entirely in Frieder's room or in his house. The second act, on the other hand, consists of a large number of different images, which are also referred to in the libretto and have an additional title. As in a free rondo shape, these images alternate between forest scenes playing during the day and more dangerous incidents. At the beginning and the end are heaven and hell, while the realm of death is the focus. The scenes in the mill and in the tavern are set on earth. The number of scenes in the three acts is reminiscent of the German canzone strophe . The first act with nine scenes as the first tunnel is followed by the second act with nine images as the second tunnel. The swan song is the third act with six scenes.

Used fairy tales

The following fairy tales can be found in the libretto:

The following additional sources have been identified in recent research:

  • The Hexenkirchweih ( Alexander Schöppner : Sagenbuch der Bayerischen Lande, Volume 3, No. 1309)
  • The treasure in the Höllenloch ( Anton Birlinger : Legends, fairy tales, popular superstition. Folk things from Swabia, Volume 1, No. 118)
  • The vendace ( Ulrich Jahn : Folk tales from Pomerania and Rügen, No. 54)
  • Geist Mützchen (Ludwig Bechstein: German Book of Legends , No. 620)
  • The Mahr (Ludwig Bechstein: Deutsches Sagenbuch, No. 150)
  • The Little Mouse (Ludwig Bechstein: German Fairy Tale Book, No. 56)
  • The old magician and his children (Ludwig Bechstein: German fairy tale book, No. 10)
  • The dwarf hats ( Wilhelm Busch : Ut ôler welt. Fairy tales and legends, No. 8)
  • The three field shearers (Brothers Grimm: Children's and Household Tales, No. 118)

Further sources come from Lohrengel, Hildegard von Bingen and from Wilhelm Vollmer's Complete Dictionary of the Mythology of All Nations.

history

Siegfried Wagner began composing in September 1914. A work concept with the basic ideas had already been drawn up some time before. The first act was completed on September 22nd (sketch) and November 1914 (score), the second act on January 10th and April 12th, and the third act on June 11th and August 26th, 1915.

The first performance took place on December 6, 1917 at the Royal Court Theater in Stuttgart. Franz Ludwig Hörth directed and Erich Band was the musical director. The singers were Helene Heim (little hat), Erna Ellmenreich (fairytale woman), Else Betz (Katherlies'chen), George Maeder (Frieder), Emma Scheidl-Haußer (mother / landlady / sun), Siegfried Onegin (Trude), Helene Berden ( Hexenweibchen / Stern), Felix Blankets (village judge), Theodor Scheidl (death), Albin Swoboda (the devil), Johanna Schönberger (the devil's Ellermutter), Felix Fleischer (king's son / Müller), Otto Helgers (landlord), Roda von Glehn ( Müllerin), Rudolf van Schaik (sacristan) and Reinhold Fritz (man eater / moon). Already here, as in later productions, the spoken scene between Siegfried Wagner and Jacob Grimm was left out because it was perceived as "alienating". The performance was a great success, the audience numbers almost approached that of the bearskin .

There were further performances in Halle in 1929 (production and equipment: Heinrich Kreutz, musical direction: Erich Band), 1939 in Leipzig (production: Wolfram Humperdinck , musical direction: Gilberto Graf Gravina, equipment: Wieland Wagner ) and in 1944 in Altenburg with a guest performance in Bayreuth (production and equipment: Wieland Wagner, musical direction: Kurt Overhoff , choreography: Gertrud Wagner) and in various other German theaters in the 20s and 30s.

After 1945 the piece was initially forgotten. After a partial performance of an excerpt from the second act in 1979 in Wiesbaden, it was not until 1996 that the Hagen Theater returned to a highly acclaimed production of the entire opera. The production came from Peter P. Pachl , the musical director was Gerhard Markson , the set and costumes came from Hank Irwin Kittel.

On October 18, 2015, the opera was staged once in the AudiMax of the Ruhr University Bochum . The production was again by Peter P. Pachl, the stage by Robert Pflanz and the costumes by Christian Bruns. The musical director of the Bochum Symphony Orchestra had Lionel Friend . This production was also shown in the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth in August 2019 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Original spelling "Katherlies'chen" with apostrophe according to the libretto and performance material
  2. ↑ a b Achim Bahr: The silence of the toad. Program of the performance in Bochum 2015. P. 31 f.
  3. ^ A b Albert Gier: Criss-cross through fairyland. Program of the performance in Bochum 2015. P. 23 ff.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Peter P. Pachl : “And what you rebuilt: Forty fairy tales concocted!” - or: “Do you want total grim?” In: Siegfried Wager on the 85th anniversary of his death. Brochure of the International Siegfried Wagner Society e. V. XLVI, July 2015. p. 20 ff.
  5. ↑ a b c d The hat is to blame for everything! Op. 11 - Siegfried Wagner in the Wagner portal. , accessed on August 23, 2019.
  6. ↑ Description of the performance material on theatertexte.de accessed on October 28, 2015.
  7. ↑ Dieter Heinz: Scenic structure and proportion. Program of the performance in Bochum 2015. P. 11 ff
  8. ↑ Peter P. Pachl : And who is to blame this time? Program for the performance in Bochum 2015. P. 19 f.
  9. ↑ Stefan Schmöe: The hat is to blame for everything. Review of the performance in Hagen 1997. In: Online Musik Magazin , accessed on October 29, 2015.
  10. ↑ Gordon Kampe: Grimm and Cheese - "The hats are to blame for everything" in the Audimax Bochum. Review of the performance in Bochum 2015. In: Neue Musikzeitung , October 20, 2015, accessed on October 28, 2015.
  11. ↑ Friedeon Rosén: Bochum / lecture hall: At all hat is to blame. Review of the performance in Bochum 2015. In: Online Merker, October 18, 2015, accessed on October 28, 2015
  12. ^ Frank Piontek: horror and cosiness. Review of the performance in Bayreuth 2019. In: Der Opernfreund , August 10, 2019, accessed on September 17, 2019.