The spice clover leaf
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| Title: | The spice clover leaf |
| Original title: | The Gewürzkrämerkleeblatt or The Innocent Guilty |
| Genus: | Posse with singing in three acts |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Johann Nestroy |
| Literary source: | Trois Épiciers by Lockroy and Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois |
| Music: | Adolf Müller senior |
| Publishing year: | 1845 |
| Premiere: | February 26, 1845 |
| Place of premiere: | Theater an der Wien |
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Das Gewürzkrämerkleeblatt or Die Innocent Guilty is a farce with singing in three acts by Johann Nestroy . The premiere took place on February 26, 1845 in the Theater an der Wien as a benefit performance for the poet.
content
The three spice buyers sulfur, tree oil and zichori are close friends, but each of them is convinced that he must keep an eye on the wives of his two friends, as their volatility is evident. The clerk Peter sees a simple reason for this:
- "All three are strong fifties and have weak twenties for women." (First act, fifth scene)
Therefore, in conversations with one another, they always make corresponding hints, which the partners always refer only to the other spouse. On the other hand, they are firmly convinced of the loyalty of their own:
- Tree oil: "My wife is a pattern!"
- Schwefel: "My wife is a prototype!"
- Zichori: "My wife is half mirror of virtues, half genius!" (First act, fifteenth scene)
All three women are interested in the young and charming clerk Viktor who has just joined Baumöl - albeit for different reasons: Madame Baumöl believes he knows about earlier family secrets, Madame Zichori fears that he has an unfavorable image from her youth, and Madame Schwefel thinks that he had her love letters to another man.
A ticket from Viktor with the meeting point for returning letters to Madame Schwefel is intercepted by her husband and read to everyone. Each of the women now believes that she is the one addressed. In Peter's inherited house - the meeting point - everyone involved comes together, plus Brumm with Luise, who is in love with Viktor, but is supposed to marry the house owner Peter. When the three shopkeepers arrive, the women hide and are discovered by a different husband. So all three are still convinced that they have immaculate wives themselves, only the others would be punished with reckless ones. Viktor got his Luise and blasphemed the gullibility of the three shopkeepers, their wives were angels:
- "Faith makes you happy." (Third act, eleventh scene)
Factory history
The source for Nestroy's play was the three-act French vaudeville Trois Épiciers (Three Shoppers) by Lockroy and Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois , which premiered on January 20, 1840 at the Théâtre des Variétés in Paris . The original was kept relatively precisely by the poet, only a few songs were removed, and dialogues and character characteristics were locally recolored. A disadvantage, however, was that Nestroy adjusted the very different characters of the shopkeepers in the original and thus waived some tension. The premiere of the Gewürzkrämerkleeblatt took place on February 26, 1845 in the Theater an der Wien, very soon after the first performance of the previous play The Two Gentlemen Sons on January 16 of this year.
Johann Nestroy played the Zichori, Alois Grois the Schwefel, Andreas Scutta the Baumöl, Wenzel Scholz the clerk Peter, Franz Gämmerler the clerk Viktor, Ignaz Stahl the Brumm and Nestroy's partner Marie Weiler the Madame Schwefel.
A handwritten manuscript by Nestroy has been preserved; the title page originally contained therein with a list of people has been missing since 1922. The first and second acts, recognizable by the paper used, were written down earlier than the third, which also shows pre-censorship marks by the poet. The original score by Adolf Müller has also been preserved.
Contemporary reception
The audience's reaction to the only four performances fluctuated between applause from the scene for Nestroy's couplet and the quodlibet and demonstrations of disapproval, and the criticism was also rather unfriendly.
In the Wiener Theater Zeitung of Adolf Bäuerle was read in an unusually short review:
- "Although Messrs. Nestroy, Grois and Scutta as shopkeepers gave all their spices from the Komik pantry and Messrs. Scholz and Gämmerler [Viktor] as clerks supported them to the best of their ability in this endeavor, this farce couldn't on the first evening properly effect; but it is certain that some cuts will earn it greater applause on the following evenings. The women of the shamrock, by Mad. Rohrbeck [Madame Zichori] and the Dlles. Weiler and Herzog [Madame Baumöl] played, had little opportunity to show their talents. "
The prediction of the better received next performances did not come true, despite reworking in the play.
The Viennese magazine Friedrich Witthauer expressed its rejection in two dialogues, on the one hand two enthusiastic Parisians from 1840, on the other hand two indignant Viennese from 1845. The reviewer of the Sunday papers expressed himself less theatrically but with the same tenor . The collector looked for the reason for the lack of success in the much too short preparation time for the new piece and also criticized the composer Adolf Müller:
- "The music couldn't have been more unpleasant."
In as almost always negative Nestroy opposite humorist of Moritz Gottlieb Saphir , the piece was "one of the mattesten, schalsten and inane work Nestroy and certainly the spaßloseste" means. Only the critic of Wanderer found a few words of praise and summed up:
- “The failure of this really good farce remains a mystery. [...] one should respect and appreciate the good, at least until the better emerges. And where would be the better so far? "
Later interpretations
Otto Rommel points out that the partly serious partiality of a few critics, especially Saphir in his magazine Der Humorist , which has been noticeable for some time , apparently had so unsettled Nestroy that he after the first performances of the pieces The Two Gentlemen Sons and Das Gewürzkrämerkleeblatt made significant corrections. As a result, however, he had become dependent on the criticism, a state he did not know before.
In Brukner / Rommel's historical-critical Nestroy edition, it is criticized that the effect hoped for by tripling all characters and motifs has in no way materialized. The repetitions of the situations quickly create an impression of monotony. The renunciation of ambiguities that existed in the original is praised.
Helmut Ahrens calls the work “a comedy tinkered together in the colportage manner ” and assumes that Nestroy's family difficulties arising at this time would have had an indirect influence on the rather weak piece. As with the previous The Two Gentlemen's Sons , the inconveniences of his (late) divorce from Wilhelmine Nespiesni in Das Gewürzkrämerkleeblatt were to blame for Nestroy's unconvincing poetry and acting. The flirtatious Madame Zichori let Nestroy sing mockingly about the men in a couplet for this reason:
- "And they boast of fortitude that I don't laugh -
- 's is a strong sex, but weak, but weak! " (second act, eighth scene)
literature
- Helmut Ahrens: I'm not auctioning myself off to the laurel. Johann Nestroy, his life. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-7973-0389-0 .
- Fritz Brukner / Otto Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. Historical-critical complete edition, twelfth volume, published by Anton Schroll & Co., Vienna 1929; Pp. 441-534, 669-687.
- Otto Rommel: Nestroys Works. Selection in two parts, Golden Classics Library, German publishing house Bong & Co., Berlin / Leipzig / Vienna / Stuttgart 1908.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tree oil = an outdated expression for olive oil
- ↑ Zichori = root chicory , en coffee substitute
- ↑ sniff = from sniffles ; also in the sense of being upset = offended, offended
- ↑ Regerl = dialect pet form for Regina
- ↑ weak twenties = double meaning: 1. barely twenty years old, 2. twenty-year- olds with weak character
- ^ Brukner / Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. P. 450.
- ^ Brukner / Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. P. 465.
- ^ Brukner / Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. P. 534.
- ↑ Manuscript collection of the Vienna library in the town hall, call number IN 33.351
- ↑ Music collection of the Vienna Library in the City Hall, call number MH 855
- ^ Brukner / Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. Pp. 678-685.
- ↑ effektuieren = French to make effective
- ↑ the married women of an ensemble were titled Mad. (Madame); Dlle., Mz. Dlles., Is the abbreviation for Demoiselle (= Fräulein), the name used by unmarried actresses at the time
- ^ Otto Rommel: Nestroys works. S. LXIII-LXIV.
- ^ Brukner / Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. Pp. 677-678.
- ↑ Helmut Ahrens: I'm not auctioning myself up to the laurel. Pp. 265-266.