Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer, lithograph by Joseph Anton Bauer , 1855
Portrait, lithograph 1831
Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer, 1864. Graphic by Adolf Neumann.

Charlotte Karoline Birch-Pfeiffer (born June 23, 1800 in Stuttgart , † August 25, 1868 in Berlin ) was a German actress and writer .

Life

Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer at the desk in her Berlin apartment, around 1850

Birch-Pfeiffer was the daughter of the Bavarian War Council Friedrich Ferdinand Pfeiffer and his wife Johanna, a native of Vienna . In 1805 she witnessed her father's arrest for “German convictions” and his sentencing to several years imprisonment at Hohenasperg fortress . At the request of the Bavarian King Maximilian I Joseph , the father was released the following year and was able to emigrate with his family to Munich. Since her father went blind shortly afterwards, Birch-Pfeiffer acted as his reader and got to know a lot of classics.

There Birch-Pfeiffer had acting lessons from Franz Anton Zuccarini (* 1754 or 1760; † 1823) from 1812 . With his support, she was able to successfully debut on June 13, 1813 in the play Moses' Errettung at the Isartortheater . It was at this theater that she met theater director Carl Carl , who encouraged her to go on a small tour of Bavaria. In 1815 she had her artistic breakthrough with the "Maid of Orleans" and in 1817 she was seen at the Deutsches Theater in Prague . Between 1818 and 1826 she had a permanent engagement at the Munich court theater .

On the occasion of a guest performance at the Hamburg Thalia Theater in 1823 , Birch-Pfeiffer met the Danish writer Andreas Christian Birch . Through their mediation, he got a job at the Munich court theater the following year . Another year later she married him in Munich. With him she had a daughter, who later became the writer Wilhelmine von Hillern .

From July 1, 1828 to June 30, 1830 she was under contract at the Theater an der Wien with director Carl Carl and also went on tours for a time, on which her husband almost always accompanied her. In 1828 Birch-Pfeiffer made her successful debut as a writer; her debut Herma or the Son of Vengeance premiered on October 8, 1828 in Vienna. Between July 1830 and July 1837 she was seen on various stages in Germany. In 1834 she met the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer in Berlin and worked with him very successfully until 1860.

In November 1834 she was engaged at the Königsstädtische Theater (Berlin) and stayed there until April 1835. During this time she also worked as a director and was able to successfully stage her own play The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in March 1835 . A year later, on March 11, 1836, their daughter Wilhelmine was born. In the winter of 1837/38 she separated from her husband, but did not get a divorce. In April 1837 Birch-Pfeiffer appeared again in St. Gallen and there accepted the offer to take over the management of the City Theater in Zurich . She held this office very successfully until October 1, 1843.

In 1844 she was engaged by the artistic director Karl Theodor von Küstner at the Königl. Oper Unter den Linden to Berlin, where she was part of the ensemble until her retirement in 1865. She was enthusiastically celebrated there as the successor to Amalia Wolff . In 1855 her husband, who had been financially dependent on her all his life, returned to her. On June 13, 1863, Birch-Pfeiffer celebrated its 50th anniversary on the stage. On this occasion the first volumes of her collected dramatic works were published .

In 1865 Birch-Pfeiffer gave her farewell performance and withdrew into private life. Until the end of her life she only worked as a writer. She died eight weeks after her 68th birthday (presumably from a stroke ) on August 25, 1868 and found her final resting place in Cemetery IV of the Jerusalem and New Church congregation on Bergmannstrasse in Berlin-Kreuzberg .

reception

Birch-Pfeiffer's entire literary work comprises almost 90 titles. Most of them, however, are works by others, which she had rewritten for her own purposes or adapted for the stage. She often published under the pseudonym “C. Birchpfeiffer ”,“ Waldherr ”or“ Franz Fels ”. Since August von Kotzebue she had the greatest success on German theaters in the 19th century .

Roles (selection)

Works

Dramatizations of foreign prose works

own plays

  • The gold farmer . Berlin, approx. 1860. online
  • Iffland . Berlin 1858. online
  • In the home . New edition 2015 online
  • Child of happiness . on-line
  • The lyre man and his foster child . on-line
  • Thomas Thyrnau
  • How to build houses . on-line
  • mother and daughter
  • Rubens in Madrid . on-line
  • Father worries . on-line
  • Hinco or König und Freiknecht , before 1839.

Libretti

stories

Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer memorial plaque at the Schauspielhaus Zurich (Heimplatz)
Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer memorial plaque at the Schauspielhaus Zurich (Heimplatz)

Honor

Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer was honored for her work on the occasion of the Sechseläuten 2011 by the Gesellschaft zu Fraumünster . There is a memorial plaque at the Schauspielhaus Zurich.

literature

  • August Förster :  Birch: Charlotte B., née Pfeiffer, usually called Birchpfeiffer . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, pp. 654-656.
  • Maya Widmer: Birch-Pfeiffer, Charlotte. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  • Eugen Müller: A heyday of the Zurich city theater. Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer 1837–1843 . Orell Füssli, Zurich 1911.
  • Else Hes : Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer as a playwright. A contribution to the history of theater in the 19th century , Stuttgart 1914.
  • Alexander von Weilen (Ed.): Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer and Heinrich Laube represented in the correspondence based on the original manuscripts . Self-published by the Society for Theater History, Berlin 1917.
  • Roland Ziersch : Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer as the actress . University of Munich 1930 (dissertation).
  • Karl Richter:  Birch-Pfeiffer, Charlotte Johanna. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 252 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Gunnar Meske: The Fate Comedy . Trivial drama from the middle of the 19th century using the example of the successful pieces by Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer . University, Cologne 1971. (Dissertation)
  • Catherine A. Evans: Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer. Dramatist. UP, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 1982. (Dissertation).
  • Gisela Ebel: The child is dead, the honor is saved. An exchange of letters from the 19th century between Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer [...] her daughter Minna von Hillern [...] and the chamberlain and court judge Hermann von Hillern about a child born at an inopportune time. Tende, Frankfurt a. M., 1985.
  • Ingrid Hiort af Ornäs: “There is a boy lost in my Lottie”. Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer as a playwright. A study of the successful and trivial drama of the 19th century. (Writings of the German Institute, Stockholm University; 24). Stockholm University 1997 (dissertation).
  • Birgit Pargner: "... because as long as I live, my imagination also lives". Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer (1800–1868). A woman rules the stage . Aisthesis Verlag, Bielefeld 1999, ISBN 3-89528-264-2 .
  • Doris Maurer : I gave orders, screamed and raced. The amazing life and writing of Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer, whose art of stirring once dominated the stages between Vienna and New York. In: The time . No. 25, June 15, 2000, p. 82.
  • "Can you be more honorable than I am ??" Letters from theater director Carl Carl and his wife Margarethe Carl to Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer. On the 150th anniversary of Carl Carl's death. A publication by the International Nestroy Society. Edited by Birgit Pargner and W. Edgar Yates . Lehner, Vienna 2004. ISBN 3-901749-37-3
  • Andreas Münzmay: The bell ringer of Notre-Dame . Scope and problems of drama music practice around the middle of the 19th century, in: Die Musikforschung 58 (2005) Heft 2, pp. 113–130, ISSN  0027-4801 .
  • Maya Widmer: Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz . Volume 1, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , pp. 207 f.
  • Susann L. Pflüger, Veronika Klaus Buchegger: New Year's sheet of the society to Fraumünster for the year 2012, (sixth piece). Edition Gutenberg, Volume 6, No. 6, Zurich 2012, ISSN  1663-5264

Web links

Commons : Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Birch-Pfeiffer, Charlotte
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Birch-Pfeiffer, Charlotte Karoline (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actress and writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1800
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH August 25, 1868
Place of death Berlin