Casanova in Fort Saint-André (L. east)

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Casanova in Fort Saint-André is a comedy in three acts by Ludwig Osten from 1837. The original was a French vaudeville from 1836.

action

1st act

In Fort Sant'Andrea

Casanova is arrested in Fort Sant'Andrea and is preparing to escape. Two years earlier he had made a woman acquaintance at a masked ball, with whom he had been in anonymous correspondence until six months ago. One day the fortress commander Busoni Casanova introduces his wife Severine. In Casanova she recognizes the acquaintance from the masked ball. Casanova does not recognize her, however. Severine uses a messenger to request the return of the letters she had sent to Casanova. Casanova receives a visit from his friend Gambetto. Due to a misunderstanding, Casanova thinks his fiancée Claudia is the acquaintance of the masked ball. He wants to conquer her for himself and for this purpose escapes from arrest on the island of Murano , where a masked ball takes place in the Villa Murano on the occasion of the marriage between Gambetto and Claudia.

2nd act

In the Villa Murano

Casanova is recognized by various people present at the festival, but can initially convince everyone that they are mistaken. After the marriage contracts have been signed, Casanova, disguised as his own messenger, sends Claudia a letter in which he asks her to go on a rendezvous so that he can hand over two more letters from Severinen. Gambetto is angry because he suspects Casanova's actual plans. He now also believes that Claudia had an affair with Casanova. Gambetto then wants to hand the messenger a request for a duel to Casanova and discovers that it is Casanova himself. In the following argument, the misunderstanding regarding Claudias is cleared up. Gambetto offers to establish the identity of his affair for Casanova, and it turns out that it is Severine. However, in a dispute with her husband Busoni, she can divert suspicion from herself. From all the guests of the masked ball more and more indications of Casanova's presence come, whereupon a search for him is undertaken. Severine hides it in a cupboard, but a servant of Busoni locks the cupboard and takes the key.

3rd act

In Fort Sant'Andrea

To their astonishment, Busoni and everyone else find Casanova lying in bed in his detention room. He tells Casanova what happened last night at Villa Murano. For his part, Casanova can divert Severine's suspicions on Claudia with a made up story. It turns out that Gambetto has returned to Murano to get papers locked in the same closet as Casanova. Casanova took the opportunity to escape and be back at the fort in time. Casanova's pardon is delivered by a messenger. He can skillfully use the embarrassing situations of the two couples to get out of the whole matter unscathed.

Submission and editing

Osten translated and edited the French vaudeville " Casanova au Fort Saint-André " by Charles Voirin a . a. from 1836, based on an episode from 1747 from Giacomo Casanova's memoirs . The action taken by Voirin differs greatly from the events described in the memoirs (which Osten points to in his preface). Only the basic elements (arrest in Fort Sant'Andrea, feigned injury to the foot, removal from arrest at night, beating a servant) were taken over. Osten converted some of the numerous couplets of the French model into prose and verbatim speech or dialogue.

The vaudeville as a template for further processing

The Vaudeville was also a template for Carl Lebrun's eponymous comedy of 1840 and Lortzings comic opera " Casanova " by 1841. Ultimately, also based Paul Lincke's operetta Casanova from 1913 (about Lebrun processing) on the vaudeville Voirin.

The events in Casanova's memoir

Because of alleged misconduct in the seminary , Casanova was arrested in 1747 by his legal guardian Alvise Grimani in Fort Sant'Andrea on the island of the same name a few kilometers from Venice. He can move freely in the fort itself. On an errand to Casanova, a servant of Grimani insults Casanova so severely that he wants to take revenge on the servant. Casanova feigns a foot injury, leaves detention at night and beats the servant . On his return, Casanova wakes up some of the fort's servants to strengthen his alibi . The allegations against him for the night robbery are dropped because of the alibi.

literature

  • Ludwig Osten: Casanova in Fort Saint-André. Magdeburg, Ernst Wagner & Richter, 1837.
  • Wilhelm von Schütz (arr.): From the memoirs of the Venetian Jacob Casanova de Seingalt or his life, as he wrote it down at Dux in Bohemia. Leipzig, FA Brockhaus, 1822–1828.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ East takes on the French title despite the Italian setting.
  2. ^ In Ostens scene instructions: Fort St. André
  3. ↑ According to other information, 1743. In his memoirs, Casanova mentions the body of Marshal Matthias Johann von der Schulenburg , who died in 1747, which was still laid out .
  4. ↑ Alvise Grimani was a brother of the much better known Senator Michele Grimani (see entry of the Italian Wikipedia it: Michele Grimani ), whom Casanova also regarded as his biological father.