The house of temperaments
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| Title: | The house of temperaments |
| Genus: | Posse with singing in two acts |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Johann Nestroy |
| Music: | Adolf Müller senior |
| Publishing year: | 1837 |
| Premiere: | November 16, 1837 |
| Place of premiere: | Theater an der Wien , Vienna |
| Place and time of the action: | The action takes place at the same time in two rooms on the first and in two rooms on the second floor in one and the same house |
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The House of Temperaments is a farce with singing in two acts by Johann Nestroy . The play was written in 1837 and was premiered on November 16 of this year at the Theater an der Wien as a “benefit performance” for Nestroy.
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The House of Temperaments consists of four apartments that are inhabited by four families with different temperaments : the choleric Herr von Braus lives upstairs with his daughter Walburga and his son Robert, next to them is the phlegmatic Herr von Fad with Agnes and Edmund; The melancholic Herr von Trüb lives downstairs with Guido and Irene, and next to it the sanguine Herr von Froh lives with Felix and Marie. Throughout the entire piece, everyone always acts according to their temperament. Nestroy shows in his posse in a cross-section of this house the four families whose characteristics are characterized by their temperaments and whose children fall in love with each other with the opposite temperament. Entanglements and intrigues are cleverly threaded by the clothes cleaner Hutzibutz and the hairdresser Schlankel as well as the housemaid Isabella.
The daughters Walburga, Agnes, Irene and Marie are each promised to the childhood friends of their fathers, Storm, Sleep, Pain and Happiness, and should be engaged to them when they visit. In secret and behind the fathers' backs, however, there are love stories with the sons of the other - opposing - families and thus temperaments: Walburga Braus with Edmund Fad, Agnes Fad with Robert Braus, Irene Trüb with Felix Froh, Marie Froh with Guido Trüb, die returned home from Prague after months of absence. The communication of the secret amours runs through the clothes cleaner Hutzibutz. The hairdresser Schlankel is jealous of this and begins to intrigue:
- I have always been the guardian spirit of love, at least as often as something has been seen; now I have to act as an evil demon, as a ghost of revenge, as a Eumenid fury. That is how far conditions can take a Balbirer. (First act, nineteenth scene)
At first he lets all relationships explode, but is then pulled over to the side of the young couples by the housemaid Isabella, with whom he is in love. The arriving childhood friends from Strasbourg are led into the wrong apartments, where they promptly fall in love with the wrong daughters and attract unpleasant attention to the supposed boyfriend due to their "changed nature", while the sons try to make themselves popular with their future fathers. When the “mistake” becomes known, the childhood friends insist on their “new” fiancé, but ultimately the fathers consent to the wishes of their children. However, Schlankel, who was cheated out of his hoped-for love wages, predicts an uncertain future for them:
- If I don't get out of all the divorces in six weeks, then I don't want to be called Schlankel any more, and hang the intrigue box on Nagl for my life. (Second act, last scene)
Factory history
The House of Temperaments was created in 1837 and premiered on November 16 of this year at the Theater an der Wien under the direction of director Carl Carl . There was no literary model for this work by Johann Nestroy, even if the game with the opposites of the four classical temperaments had been used by many authors earlier. An English play, namely Jonathan Bradford, or, The Murder at the Roadside Inn (1833) by Edward Fitzball , had a four-part stage, but no resemblance to Nestroy's work can be identified in terms of content, so it is probably not a source.
The play is still a theatrical challenge today due to the four-part stage. Nestroy had previously written a farce for a two-part stage, namely on the ground floor and first floor , the new work can therefore be seen as a further development of the basic idea. The scene instructions for the apartments in Das Haus der Temperamente are: bright red for the choleric room, light yellow for the painting for the phlegmatic, gray with dark decorations (kept as gloomy as possible ) for the melancholic, sky blue or rose red for the sanguine.
Johann Nestroy played the hairdresser Mankel / Schlankel, Wenzel Scholz the clothes cleaner Hutzibutz, Ignaz Stahl the Herr von Braus, Alois Grois the Herr von Fad, Friedrich Hopp the Herr von Froh, Franz Gämmerler the Felix, Eleonore Condorussi the choleric Walburga, Nestroy's partner Marie Hamlet the chambermaid Isabella.
Soon after the first series of performances, the work was shortened and in 1852 it was reduced to a one-act play.
An original manuscript of Nestroy has not survived, only the censored version by another hand exists (with some handwritten corrections by Nestroy and the handwritten note by Director Carl: submitted for the kkp Theat. Ad Vienna, Vienna d. 20 t Oct. 1837 )., And the entire handwritten score by Adolf Müller.
Contemporary criticism
The audience was enthusiastic, the premiere was a great success, the play was played 84 times by 1860. The theater criticism was also very positive.
The humorist wrote about the actors from Moritz Gottlieb Saphir , who was often very hostile to Nestroy, on November 20, 1837 (No. 171, p. 683 f.):
- "Next to the excellent and effective game of Messrs. Scholz and Nestroy, as boot cleaner and barber, [...] Mad. Gerlach, and Dlle. Condorussi made merit in their various temperaments. Dlle. Weiler performed some vocal numbers quite nicely. "
In Adolf Bauerles Viennese theater newspaper could be read after the premiere already on November 18, 1837:
- “Who doesn't like to own a piece of cassa, a piece by Nestroy, […]? Here is another piece like this, but it is ten times harder to play and stage than any magic opera . "
The Wanderer of November 20 ( "[...] the author's mastery certified in the full sense." ), The Telegraph of the same day ( "[...] that he must be given the greatest praise for it." ) And other critics came into the same horn. The second version of the review in the theater newspaper , also from November 20, was very original - the newspaper was divided into four like the stage prospect and in each of the four sections a choleric, a phlegmatic, a melancholic and a sangoonic wrote down their (positive) opinion about the play .
An example of modern criticism is the quote from Gustav Manker , who directed the play himself in 1965, in Paulus Manker's book Der Theatermann Gustav Manker. Searching for traces :
- “The farce 'Das Haus der Temperamente' is one of Nestroy's masterpieces. The dramaturgical structure, extremely complicated by the four-fold action being carried out almost simultaneously, has not been surpassed by Nestroy even in such mathematical precision. "
Later interpretations
Otto Rommel puts this piece in the group of antics that are not "falsified" by moralizing or teaching, to which he also wants Eulenspiegel or Schabernack über Schabernack (1835), The Monkey and the Bridegroom (1836), A Joke for the period up to 1845 he makes himself (1842), love stories and marriage matters (1843) and railway marriages or Vienna, Neustadt, Brünn (1844) counts. The most refined of the Commedia dell'arte is clearly The House of Temperaments . The old antics of the reluctant father, the loving couple and the cleverly helping schemers are varied here fourfold. It was Nestroy's brilliant idea to show everything at the same time on a four-part stage, so that all appearances are directly related and all intrigues and love scenes can be viewed in parallel. There is no relation to the play The Four Temperaments by Fr. W. Ziegler performed on January 15, 1837 .
Franz H. Mautner states that the conception and implementation of the idea of bringing the four classical temperaments onto one stage at the same time clearly show Nestroy's intellectual, abstract way of seeing. The piece is well constructed, the people are only puppets of their character, real reality is sacrificed to abstraction, the work thus becomes a didactic piece of type psychology. As a reading, it gives a rather indifferent impression, while the vivid, simultaneous contrast on the stage is an entertaining sight. The theater newspaper already quoted noted on November 18, 1837:
- "How much the thinking [...] audience perceives the value of this piece is evident from the fact that after several scenes that had no effect other than the contrast or the situation and in which he was not even occupied, Mr. Nestroy noisy once and twice. "
Nevertheless, the piece is not one of Nestroy's great successes.
text
- Text on zeno.org
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 ; Pp. 193-197.
- W. Edgar Yates (Ed.): Johann Nestroy; Pieces 13. In: Jürgen Hein / Johann Hüttner : Johann Nestroy, Complete Works, Historical-Critical Edition. Jugend und Volk, Vienna / Munich 1981, ISBN 3-7141-6958-X .
- Franz H. Mautner (Ed.): Johann Nestroys Komödien. Edition in 6 volumes, Insel Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 1979, 2nd edition 1981, 3rd volume. OCLC 7871586 .
- Otto Rommel: Nestroys Works. Selection in two parts, Golden Classics Library, German publishing house Bong & Co., Berlin / Leipzig / Vienna / Stuttgart 1908.
- Otto Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Collected Works. Historical-critical complete edition, third volume, Verlag von Anton Schroll & Co., Vienna 1948–1949, new edition 1962; Pp. 5-156, 702-706, 718-720.
Web links
- Table of contents, list of people and music on nestroy.at/nestroy-stuecke/35
Individual evidence
- ↑ In pre-March Vienna, in addition to the hairdresser, a clothes and shoe shiner came into the house; Hügel knows a saying: "Yes, at the Hutzelputzel" as a negative answer (Franz Seraph Hügel: Der Wiener Dialekt. Lexikon der Wiener Volkssprache. Verlag A. Hartleben, 1873)
- ↑ Schlankel , Viennese for rascal, rascal; changed from censorship first to Schlunker , then finally changed to Mankel for performances
- ^ W. Edgar Yates: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 13. p. 68.
- ↑ Mariage (French) = wedding
- ^ W. Edgar Yates: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 13. p. 190.
- ↑ Facsimile of the theater slip in W. Edgar Yates: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 13. p. 201.
- ↑ Manuscript collection of the Vienna library in the town hall , IN 160 801 = Ic 149 535.
- ↑ Music collection of the Vienna Library in the City Hall, MH 716.
- ^ W. Edgar Yates: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 13. pp. 202-209. (for the entire section on contemporary criticism )
- ↑ Dlle. , Plural Dlles. is the abbreviation for Demoiselle (s) (= Fräulein), the name that was customary at the time for the unmarried women of an ensemble; the married actresses were titled Mad. ( Madame )
- ^ Paulus Manker: The theater man Gustav Manker. Search for clues . Amalthea, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-85002-738-0 .
- ^ Otto Rommel: Nestroys works. S. XLVII-L.
- ^ Franz H. Mautner: Johann Nestroys Komedien. P. 357. (for the entire paragraph Modern Interpretation )