Life is a Dream

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Detail of the monument to Calderón in Madrid

La vida es sueño (Spanish) with the German title “Life is a dream” or “Life is a dream”, sometimes also “Life is a dream”, is one of the most famous verse dramas by the Spanish playwright and poet Pedro Calderón de la Barca . In three acts it deals with the question of free will and fate.

The drama was written in 1634/35 and premiered in 1635 in Madrid's Palacio Real . It first appeared as a print in 1636 at the instigation of Calderón's brother in the two volumes of dramatic works.

action

Main strand

Basil, the King of Poland and amateur astronomer, reads from the stars that the birth of his only son Sigismund (in the original: Segismundo ) is under bad omen. Concerned that his son would proclaim a tyrannical rule over Poland as his successor, he had Sigismund thrown into a tower dungeon as a child, in which he got to know the world exclusively from the stories of Clotaldo, who had been appointed his teacher. As Basilio gets older and the question of succession arises, the king decides to put his son and the stars to the test. Under the influence of a sleeping pill, Sigismund is brought to the royal palace for the first time and suddenly and equipped with all the means and conveniences of power. Enlightened about his true identity and history, Sigismund makes his father's fears come true. As soon as he came to power, the son rules with murder and attempted rape. Sigismund is thrown into the dungeon again. To comfort him, the day of his reign should appear to him only as a short dream, from which he now wakes up again in captivity. When the insurgents freed Sigismund from his prison again a short time later and again made him regent, Sigismund learned from his experiences. After the fight against the father's troops, he turns out to be a wise and just ruler in the renewed realization of his dream.

Subplots

The stories of Rosaura and Clarin as well as Estrella and Astolfo are woven into this main strand. Rosaura is a young Muscovite who has succumbed to the charms of the nephew of the Polish king and Moscow Count Astolfo, but who was soon abandoned by him. With her companion, the “gracioso” (a kind of fool's figure of Spanish baroque theater) Clarin, she follows Astolfo to Poland, where she happens to witness Sigismund's fate at the tower dungeon, which comforts her with her own fate. Clotaldo arrives and arrests Rosaura in order to bring her before the king. Rosaura, disguised as a young man, carries a sword that Clotaldo recognizes as that of his own son, whom he now imagines to be before him. His loyalty to the king, who will punish the offense of talking to the prisoner Sigismund with death, wins over the father's heart. The fact that Basilio has now made the existence of his son public saves Rosaura's life. Astolfo teams up with his cousin Estrella to oppose the discovery of a natural heir to the throne. On the day of Sigismund's trial reign, Rosaura met him as Estrella's maid and thus became the victim of his violent stalking. While Rosaura knows how to prevent the impending marriage between Astolfo and Estrella by a trick, Sigismund is stunned again and locked in the tower again. In the finale, Rosaura, anxious to restore her honor, faces Sigismund again. Against his own desire to have this woman, Sigismund decides to restore her honor by marrying the seducer Astolfo. His task as the new king, however, dictates the proper marriage to Estrella. After all, Clotaldo does not recognize his son in Rosaura, but does recognize his daughter again.

Rating

The piece belongs to the form of the Spanish comedia des Siglo de Oro , which is characterized by two storylines and a mixture of pathetic seriousness and often philosophical comedy. The structural unit of the piece is formed by the comparable - and actually compared by Rosaura / Sigismund - initial situations of the rejected or the outcast (both are marked by misfortune and are on their own). The mutual dependence of both in the further development of their stories and in the liberation from their fate is mediated by Clotaldo, who is in personal union to Basilio, father Rosauras, overseer and teacher. Rosaura's honor and Sigismund's freedom are complementary values ​​of the absolutist image of man and ruler restored in the drama. Insofar as man bases his honor on the legitimacy of property (seduction becomes legal marriage), he can preserve or reconstitute this honor; analogously, the ruler can realize his absolute freedom by imposing self-restraint (moderation) on himself and taking responsibility for the state.

Performance history

  • 1636 first performance in Madrid, Palacio Real (court theater, whose director was Calderón)
  • 1639 German premiere in Hamburg
  • 1666 German-language performance in Munich
  • 1674 played as "Prince Sigismundo" in Dresden
  • 1690 the troupe of Magister Velten plays "Prince Sigismund in Poland"
  • 1717 first performances in France and Italy
  • 1760 Vienna
  • 1812 Weimar, Court Theater (adaptation by Riemer and Einsiedel, director: Goethe )

In the 20th century, many great actors played the role of Sigismund on German theaters (for example Josef Kainz , Burgtheater 1900/02 - Horst Caspar , Düsseldorf 1951/52 - Will Quadflieg , Hamburg 1952/53 - Thomas Holtzmann , Burgtheater Vienna 1964/65 - Karl-Heinz Martell , Düsseldorf 1964/65)

Edits

Arrangements drama

Since an arrangement of 1693 (CH Postel: The Royal Prince of Poland Sigismundus ), which was preceded by free adaptations of traveling stages, the piece has found many translators and editors in German-speaking countries. The best known are the arrangements by Franz Grillparzer : Der Traum ein Leben (1840) and by Hugo von Hofmannsthal : Der Turm . Pier Paolo Pasolini uses motifs and characters from the play for his drama “Calderón” from 1973 (German translation by Heinz Riedt 1985). In 2006 the RuhrTriennale showed an arrangement by Koen Tachelet with music by Peter Vermeersch, in 2007 the Bavarian State Theater presented a highly acclaimed new translation by Georg Holzer. The translators also include Hans Schreyvogel (1816), Wilhelm von Scholz (1933), Max Kommerell (1942), Hans Schlegel (1949), Eugen Gürster (1950) and Heinrich Koch (1963). Calderón himself worked the comedia into an auto sacramental (spiritual festival) in 1677 . Pure types appear in it, Basilio has become God himself and Sigismund the human being.

Arrangements for musical theater

There are also other versions for musical theater.

literature

  • W. Brüggemann: Spanish Theater and German Romanticism, Vol. 1 . Munster 1964
  • Heinz Gerstinger: Calderón . Velber: Friedrich Verlag, 1967
  • Margit Thir: Ruler replacement . Rituality and textuality . Vienna: Praesens, 2010, ISBN 978-3-7069-0604-3
  • Françoise Gilbert: El sueño en los autos sacramentales de Calderón . Edition Reichenberger, Kassel 2018, ISBN 978-3-944244-72-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Libretto ( Memento of May 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive )