The difficult one

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Data
Title: The difficult one
Genus: Comedy in three acts
Original language: German
Author: Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Publishing year: 1921
Premiere: November 7, 1921
Place of premiere: Residenztheater Munich
people
  • Hans Karl Bühl
  • Crescence , his sister
  • Stani , her son
  • Helene Altenwyl
  • Altenwyl
  • Antoinette Hechingen
  • Hechingen
  • Neuhoff
  • Antoinette's friends:
    • Edine
    • Nanni
    • Huberta
  • Agathe , maid
  • Neugebauer , secretary
  • Lukas , first servant to Hans Karl
  • Vincent , a new servant
  • A famous man
  • Buehlish and Altenwylian servants

The Difficult One is a comedy in three acts by Hugo von Hofmannsthal . The world premiere took place on November 7, 1921 in the Residenztheater in Munich .

content

The play takes place in Vienna on a single day - the end of the First World War is assumed - the first act in the city palace of Count Bühl, the second and the third act at a soirée in the house of Count Altenwyl. Hans Karl Bühl, also known as Kari by his relatives and close friends , shares his house with his sister Crescence and their son Stani.

first act

Count Bühl's study.

Scene 1 to 2

Hans Karl's old servant Lukas leads Vincent, who is applying for a job in the Bühl household, into the study. He explains to him the tasks that await him and explains the special features of his master: If he gets nervous, he rummages in the drawers, if he looks for a misplaced key, this is a sign of a bad mood, and he often stands in the room unnoticed . Vincent hardly listens because he is pursuing his own interests: Hans Karl is already 39 years old, unmarried, and apparently a marriage is not on the cards. He is therefore of good cheer that he has found a position here for life and that he will soon have trained his employer according to his own ideas.

Hans Karl entered unnoticed and asked his secretary to come over

Scene 3

Hans Karl's sister Crescence is registered. She asks whether her brother will be attending the Altenwyls soirée. However, he seems undecided, soirees are "a horror" for him, "the matter itself is a horreur for him [...] such an inextricable tangle of misunderstandings". Finally, he confesses that he has just canceled. Crescence, who thinks she knows the reason for the rejection, reassures him: Helene Altenwyl, who has been “in love over her ears” with Hans Karl since she was fifteen, will probably marry a “complete stranger” to Baron Neuhoff, Hans Karl so have nothing to fear from her. When she notices how disconcerted her brother is reacting, who is wondering whether he shouldn't go to the soirée after all, she offers to thwart this marriage. She vigorously wants to inform Altenwyl immediately that Hans Karl is coming to the soirée after all, which in turn embarrasses him because he has just promised his friend Hechingen - with whose wife Antoinette he recently had an affair - to meet him in the casino to to discuss saving his marriage to Antoinette with him.

This gives Crescence the idea that Hans Karl should talk her son out of his current affair with Antoinette: So he has a "mission" for this evening - to recommend Antoinette to her husband again, to prevent a divorce and at the same time to elegantly break up the separation between To initiate Antoinette and Stani.

Scene 4 and 5

The new servant reports that Countess Hechingen's maid is waiting in the anteroom and wants to speak to him.

Lukas hastily enters the scene, also reports that the maid is waiting, but he has told her that he does not know whether Count Bühl is present. He had not carried out the order from Crescence to notify Count Altenwyl by telephone for the time being, since he had noticed that his master was still undecided but had not wanted to contradict his sister. Hans Karl asks Lukas what he thinks about the new servant and orders that Vincent be released.

Scene 6

The chambermaid Agathe enters to pick up a bundle of love letters that her mistress wrote to Hans Karl. When Hans Karl does not have the letters to hand, she reacts - on behalf of Antoinette - emotionally, horrified, interprets this as humiliation and as the final end of "all of her hopes". Hans Karl is surprised because he wrote a long and definitive farewell letter to Antoinette from the field hospital. Antoinette had discussed this letter in great detail with her chambermaid, and they knew the real reason for leaving. The reason is Helene Altenwyl, because she has always followed Kari. The secretary Neugebauer enters the scene.

Scene 7

Neugebauer apologizes verbatim for not being able to find the letters. He thinks he can see from Count Bühl's behavior that he is dissatisfied with him and that he has aversions. Hans Karl replies that his secretary is probably overworked and recommends a walk with his bride. Neugebauer has just separated from his longstanding fiancée and has entered into a new relationship. He is going to marry the fiancée of his friend who died in the war; he sees this as his obligation and as a burden that he brings with him into the marriage. In response to Hans Karl's comment that one is looking forward to getting married, he replies that “the personal point of view” is not decisive in “our humble world”. Hans Karl remains thoughtful. He wonders why everyone thinks they have to teach him lessons and whether one doesn't even have the right to do so.

Scene 8 to 10

Hans Karl and his nephew Stani, who has no idea of ​​his uncle's earlier affair, talk about Antoinette. Stani is enchanted by her, indulges in enthusiasm and details that his uncle can very well understand. What Stani doesn't understand is his uncle's friendship with Count Hechingen, whom he considers a bore and a fool. However, Hans Karl got to know him in the trenches as a brave and honorable person. Stani asks his uncle what it feels like to get old and why he - at 39 years old, still attractive - never married.

Neugebauer brings the letters.

Hans Karl and Stani continue their conversation, Hans Karl sees the “born husband” in Hechingen, but he gets on Stani’s nerves. He finds it instinctive, inelegant and clumsy. The friendship between Hechingen and his uncle is absolutely incomprehensible to him, he thinks it is one of his bizarre shops . Hans Karl, on the other hand, is for him the effortless embodiment of the "great gentleman", a genre that others want to copy unsuccessfully, e.g. B. Baron Neuhoff from Northern Germany.

Scene 11 and 12

Lukas reports that Baron Neuhoff is on the stairs, which the new servant has let in without asking, and which Hans Karl now has to receive to his displeasure.

Neuhoff, who had wanted to meet Count Bühl at the soirée near Altenwyl, has learned of his rejection and therefore goes to see him at home. Allegedly Helene was happy to “bring them together”. He adorns his long speeches with unrestrained flattery, recommends Bühl to have himself painted by an artist who is currently en vogue and raves, to the displeasure of his two listeners, of Helene - "a proud and precious being" - that he would like to see Count Bühl in the company of “who is so sensitive to human quality”. On the other hand, it struck him that Bühl is rarely to be found in the society that he allegedly embodies so perfectly, indeed that he seems to evade it. Stani is finally fed up with the ingratiating talk, he cleverly compliments Neuhoff, who has just been able to serve as Bühl as a "traveling knight", from the room.

Scene 13

Stani comes back to vent his outrage over Neuhoff's behavior. Hans Karl is milder in his judgment, tries to excuse the man, considers him rather pitiable. The idea that Helene could get involved with this man, "this announced relationship", has completely upset Stani.

Scene 14 and 15

Lukas receives instructions from Hans Karl. The phone that the new servant had put through to the study without authorization must be turned off immediately, Count Altenwyl should now be informed and a telephone connection established with Hechingen, Antoinette's maid can now enter.

Agathe takes the letters. Hans Karl tells her that Antoinette has two real joy, him, Hans Karl, and her husband, whereupon Agathe, as the mouthpiece of her mistress, falls into dismayed chatter, because she knows very well that Antoinette does not want to hear any praise about her husband. The phone rings, Hechingen is on the line, an absurd conversation develops because Hechingen misunderstands everything in his excitement.

Scene 16

Stani reappears in Hans Karl's study and tells him that the idea of ​​marrying Helene occurred to him on the stairs. He was determined, his mother agreed, downright enthusiastic. But he notices in his enthusiasm that his uncle is a little upset. He has no doubts whether Helene will even agree to an application. He finds his mother's idea that Hans Karl might have an interest in Helene himself, because he - who knows his uncle like himself - has never noticed anything like it. He will part with Antoinette, to whom Hans Karl alludes - "... every thing in the world must have its end" -, he thinks Helene's preference for Neuhoff is a whim, and besides, she doesn't think she's a type of men are interested in "as for ours", by which he means Hans Karl and himself. It counts all the positive characteristics Helene on, Hans Karl always agrees, but they that him that Stani finally adorieren (= worship) will he comments with a muttered to himself, "that is also possible."

Scene 17 to 18

Crescence enters the room, Hans Karl seems absent, and Stani announces that he will be walking to the Altenwyls. Crescence asks her brother to advertise her son to the Altenwyls, since he himself is probably no longer interested in Helene, and now “Stani just do what he didn't want to do”. Hans Karl leaves the house to see the clown Furlani in the circus, but promises to come to the soirée afterwards to take care of her and Stanis wishes.

Scene 19

Vincent is very satisfied with the looming situation of a life in a bachelor household: he will get his job here for life and is unaware that he will be released the next morning.

Second act

In the salon of the Palais Altenwyl.

Scene 1 and 2

Hans Karl comes back enthusiastically from the circus and talks to Altenwyl and Helene about the clown Furlani: "He plays his role: He is the one who everyone understands, who wants to help everyone and in the process brings everything into the greatest confusion."

Two men, both snobs in their own way , want access to the exclusive Viennese aristocratic milieu, Baron Neuhoff - whose senses and costumes are aimed solely at "copying a genre that is not his genre", as Stani puts it (Act I, 10 ). Means for this are flattering Count Bühl and his advertising for Helene Altenwyl. Likewise, the "famous man", a scholar and social climber, seeks to be close to Count Bühl. Through him he hopes to “add the vote of the great world to the homage” that he has received from an international lay audience. Antoinette's superficial, "educated" friend Edine offends him deeply because she confuses him with a hated competitor.

Scene 3 to 12

The conversation between Antoinette and Hans Karl, which has been expected since the first act, finally takes place - albeit with many interruptions. Antoinette is completely broken by the final goodbye to her former lover. The memory of all the beautiful things that they experienced together last summer, and of which he reminds them with tender words, cannot comfort them when they say goodbye. She is outraged at his suggestion to go back to her husband. From the conversation and Hans Karl's praise for the marriage, she concludes that he will soon marry Helene. But she misunderstood Hans Karl's delaying tactics in conversation as a possibility of continuing their relationship. Crescence suggests that her state of dissolution is that Hans Karl “talked her out of Stani” and convinced her to return to her husband.

Scene 13

Neuhoff courted Helene, exalted and enthusiastic about his own stream of speech, he let himself be carried away to derogatory remarks about Count Bühl. Thereupon Helene coolly and definitively rejects him. With his sentence "... and when you walk across the room, it is as if you are heading towards an eternal decision", he unwittingly gives the cue for the following decisive conversation between Helene and Hans Karl.

Scene 14

In their conversation, which begins carefully and calmly, it becomes clear how close they are, how well Helene in particular knows and understands him and how she knows how to interpret his hesitation and actions. They talk about Hans Karl's relationship with women, about Antoinette, about Hans Karl's difficulties in finally saying goodbye to a woman. He discusses the issue of marriage about the problems between Antoinette and her husband and recommends that Helene marry.

He first proposes a number of candidates to Helene, Neuhoff, his nephew Stani, and suddenly comes up with the topic of conversation Crescence and Stani wanted. But he immediately discards this option and brings himself into play against his own will as the ideal partner for Helene, but immediately takes this option back.

From his traumatic experience of being buried during the war, he developed an ideal image of marriage, supported by Helene's patient and persistent inquiries, which torpedoed his attempts to evade conversation. For the first time he utters his vision, which came to him at risk of death. "This being buried [...] it was only a moment [...] for me it was a whole lifetime that I lived, and in that moment, you were my wife". During the recovery period in the hospital, he saw Helene's marriage and he even heard her say yes. But he himself could not have been the partner because he was unworthy of her, and anyway, "How would I get to the ceremony as an outsider?" Helene is completely upset, she almost collapses. He apologizes for his awkwardness, that he had talked confused together, "there are a thousand memories in such a farewell moment". And he says goodbye to her. When they try to shake hands, they miss each other.

Hans Karl - about to leave the salon after his indirect confession - can just escape the famous man and his sister and quickly leaves the room.

Third act

The third act takes place in the vestibule and winter garden of Palais Altenwyl. There is a lot of coming and going, people leave the house through the portal, follow one another, temporarily disappear behind doors, and some come back.

Scene 1 to 3

After talking to Helene, Hans Karl leaves the house unnoticed, and a little later the famous man follows him. Stani and Hechingen enter, both looking for Hans Karl, on whom they have high hopes for the solution of their marriage problem or marriage project.

Helene is about to leave the house and talks to her old valet about how and when to inform her father about it.

Scene 4 to 7

Neuhoff obtrusively woos Antoinette, makes big speeches, unrestrainedly pokes at Count Bühl, "this kind of people without goodness, without core, without nerve, without loyalty" and comes almost brutally too close to Antoinette.

But Antoinette only has her dreaded competitors Helene and Hans Karl in mind, for whom she is constantly - unsuccessfully - looking. She coldly and unmistakably rejects Neuhoff. Her husband watched the scene on the stairs, is enchanted by its charm, enraptured by its erotic effect on men and makes her fiery declarations of love, to which she frightens and reacts with "migraines". She leaves the house and he wants to talk to Hans Karl about the situation immediately, as does Stani, whose search for his uncle has been unsuccessful.

Scene 8

Helene is about to leave the house when Hans Karl enters the foyer. In the following, very intimate dialogue, in which Hans Karl cannot justify his return and tries to save himself as usual with excuses and vague excuses about "mistakes" in the previous conversation, Helene takes the initiative. Determined and sensitive, she explains to him the reasons why there have been so many goodbyes to women in his life and why none could hold him. She confesses her love for him - "It is enormous that you let me say that!" - and that she wants her part from his life, his soul, from everything. Hans Karl recognizes for himself: “What a magic there is in you. […] You make one so calm in yourself. ”Helene sends him away with the assignment to speak to her father tomorrow. So the scene ends in an engagement that remains unspoken.

Scene 9 to 14

One after the other, Crescence, Hechingen and Stani come into the foyer and ask Hans Karl, who is still deeply moved by his conversation with Helene, to clarify the "endless confusion", whereby his hesitant and evasive contributions lead to further confusion among those involved. In the end he manages to tell Crescence that an engagement has broken out between himself and Helene, but that he does not want to discuss this fact. He asks all three to spare him any explanations, asks for forgiveness for all confusions and errors.

In addition, the host Poldi Altenwyl appears on the scene, whom Hans Karl has been avoiding the whole evening because he wants to persuade him to give a speech in the manor house , which he will not do under any circumstances, because “it is impossible to shut up to open without causing the most hopeless confusion ”(III, 13).

Crescence can only give air to her perplexity about the course of events in the embrace of Altenwyl, since, as Stani puts it, the engaged couple is too bizarre to submit to the accepted forms of such a family-historical event.

Quotes

“Perhaps I could never have portrayed the society it represents in its charm and quality with so much love as in the historical moment when it, which was recently a given, a power, quietly and ghostly dissolves into nothingness , like a leftover fog in the morning. "

- Letter from Hofmannsthal to Arthur Schnitzler, November 2, 1919

“My own attempt to shape the› Austro-Hungarian ‹mentality: the peculiar mixture of self-esteem and modesty, sure instinct and occasional naivety, natural balance and poor dialectical ability to bring all this that defines the character of the Austrian into appearance speaks as well clearly in my comedy attempts, such as the ›Rosenkavalier›, the ›Difficult‹, which are nothing if they are not documents of the Austrian way of life [...] "

- Hofmannsthal. Speeches and essays.

Interpretations

While the play was played over and over again in Austria and was featured on the Salzburg Festival several times, and was occasionally also produced on German stages, it was only performed outside of the German-speaking area in a few isolated cases. On the other hand, since its appearance it has resulted in a flood of interpretations in German, Anglo-Saxon and French German studies.

Topics dealt with are the position of the play within the history of European comedy , its references to the Commedia dell'arte , the influences of French comedy, especially the comedies Molière , of which Hofmannsthal translated several pieces for Max Reinhard's productions or arranged them for the stage ; Social or character comedy or its own hybrid ?; the play as a swan song for a society that ceased to exist in this form at the end of the war , combined with discussions about the relationship and tensions between the German Reich and Austria and their impact in the play; Hofmannsthal's ethical attitudes to marriage, his concept of marriage; The conversation and the problem of linguistic skepticism - a constant topic of Hofmannsthal - is also negotiated in connection with language-critical and language-philosophical theses that were virulent in his time.

Michael Dangl , who embodied the difficult in the production of the Josefstädter Theater in 2016, says about the play's relevance to the present : “What makes the play just as interesting today as it was 100 years ago is the question of how one should live - how to live as an individual in relation to society How much do I take part in games that I really hate, how much do I lie, how much do I bend myself, what is the point of being here. "

shape

The play, a three-act play, adheres to tried and tested forms of European comedy. The title is reminiscent of the type comedies Molière, in which a certain figure with its typical character and behavior is presented in a pointed form.

The first act begins, again typical of many comedies, with a dialogue by the service personnel in which the main characters are introduced and possible entanglements and confusions are indicated. The two female main characters of the play, Antoinette and Helene, are indeed permanent subject of the conversation, but appear in person on only in the second act. The “difficult” characteristics of the protagonist show less in his words than in his behavior, his body language. The hero's endeavors to isolate himself from the world by all sorts of rules and precautionary measures are thoroughly torpedoed by a march of people who bring requests and orders to him, or - like the Baron Neuhoff - want to probe the terrain.

The second act contains retarding elements which, in the case of the difficult, lie less in external circumstances than in the character and disposition of the participants themselves. The relationship with Antoinette, which Hans Karl thinks ended in friendship, seems to flare up again in a conversation with her and against his will, while he bids Helene farewell "where there was nothing" (II, 14).

Finally, in the third act there is a happy ending with the engagement of the difficult couple. The other relationships, however, end unsatisfactorily for those involved, or even almost tragically, as in the case of Count Hechingen and his wife Antoinette. In the piece, dubbed a comedy, the boundaries to tragedy are not only blurred here.

Hofmannsthal has provided his piece with detailed information for the stage, which can go as far as precise instructions about the background music for certain scenes and here are almost reminiscent of a film scenario. The second act in particular, with its choreographically designed actions by the different couples, evokes associations with the visual language of films.

The playing instructions for the actors are just as precise. For example, there is no physical contact between the difficult couple in the whole piece - “They want to shake hands, no hand finds the other” (II, 14). Hofmannsthal deleted one of the kissing scenes that was planned in an early version in the final version. An embrace of the engaged couple on stage and in front of witnesses is not necessary, since "in our case the engaged couple is too bizarre to adhere to these forms" (III, 14) and the betrothed herself in the last six scenes of the The piece no longer appears on stage at all.

Salon and conversation

The venue for the game and the action is the salon , in which the actors of a certain social class - in difficult cases it is the urban aristocracy in post-war Vienna - meet and communicate. The communicative action consists of conversation , whereby in the piece itself conversation becomes an object of conversation. The actors use their own artificial language, peppered with Frenchisms , which, as Ursula Renner puts it in an epilogue to Hofmannsthal's play, covers the tableau of this society like a patina . Newer text editions therefore cannot do without a glossary . This society shields itself from a world "out there" whose future actors do not know the art of conversation, the tried and tested and generally accepted rules of this society, like Hans Karl's secretary Neugebauer, or no longer want to know and accept it, like the baron Neuhoff.

While old Count Altenwyl ponders melancholy about the decline of the art of conversation and laments the “business tone” and this “certain purposefulness of conversation”, a subtle conversation full of indirect and subliminal side-effects develops in parallel in Hans Karl's “conversation” with Helene. and nuances. While it is primarily about the circus clown Furlani, Hans Karl speaks in truth about himself: "He [Furlani] plays his role, he is the one who understands everything, who wants to help everyone and yet brings everything into great confusion". In doing so, he maintains an elegance and discretion, and respect “himself and everything that is in the world” (II, 1).

Marriages and affairs

As in almost all comedies, it's about when and how the couples get together, with a happy ending for sure. Relationships between men and women are examined from many angles in the play: it is about marriages and affairs . Hechingen's marriage is on the brink of failure, and Hans Karl's efforts to fix the marriage of the two remain in vain. Hans Karl's secretary has broken the relationship with his long-time fiancée. He is going to marry the fiancée of his friend who died in the war and whom he had already had an eye on before, and justifies himself to his employer with strange reasons. Antoinette had an affair with Hans Karl and currently one with his nephew Stani, while the Baron Neuhoff is determined to start an affair with her. Helene is also being wooed, both Neuhoff and Stani want to marry, apparently against his intentions and incomprehensible to himself, but in the end the difficult man himself is engaged to Helene and will marry her.

In the first and second act, Hans Karl talks about marriage to alternating conversation partners, and the term “necessity” is used every time. In Hechingens attachement (= binding / attachment) to his wife Hanskarl recognizes a "higher necessity" (I, 10). For the robust Stani, on the other hand, marriage is the “result of a correct decision” (I, 8), which for Hans Karl, who prefers to postpone decisions and never knows “how to get from one thing to another” (I , 8) is not an option.

In the second act, first in conversation with Antoinette (II, 7-11) and later in the decisive dialogue with Helene (II, 14), he develops his idea of ​​marriage as a “higher necessity” and “how he came to realize how that must be: two people who put their lives on top of each other and become like one person [...] how holy that is and how wonderful ”.

In the course of his attempts to get Antoinette to continue her marriage to Hechingen, he talks about the "being thrown here and there" of humans. Human life is determined by chance "as everyone can dwell with everyone if chance would" (II, 10). In order to pull himself out of this “swamp”, man had found the “institute that turns the accidental and impure into what is necessary: ​​marriage” (II, 10). And “there is also a necessity that chooses us from moment to moment […] Without it there would be no life, just an animal stumbling along. And the same need exists between men and women - wherever there is, there is an obligation to one another and forgiveness and reconciliation. And there can be children, and there is a marriage and a sanctuary, despite everything ... "

The "decisive choice, which puts an end to being at the mercy of chance and prompts the human will [...] to do what is necessary, plays a considerable role in the difficult ." This experience "out there" is what Hans Karl took to Marriage made possible in the first place. While it was coincidence that brought Hans Karl and Antoinette together (II, 10), Helene has “what is necessary” (II, 14). But to make a decision to marry in the "difficult" situation at all requires an inner shock, for Hans Karl the moment of being buried, in which the vision of his marriage to Helene came to him in a flash, he heard her say yes - but then he immediately takes everything back again, bursts into tears, loses the ability to speak complete sentences, tries to say goodbye and flees. Only through Helene's ability to understand Hans Karl, to interpret what remains unspoken, he succeeds in making himself aware of his deeper will: she concretises what Hans Karl previously confessed to her unconsciously and thus helps him to find himself: " You make one so calm in yourself ”(III, 9).

Hofmannsthal's sacred concept of marriage as a “holy necessity”, the “holy truth” that there is a necessity - “it chooses us from moment to moment” has its roots in Hofmannsthal's intensive reading of Kierkegaard

Molière and The Difficult

Hofmannsthal began to grapple intensely with Molière in 1909, stimulated by his collaboration with Max Reinhardt and Richard Strauss . Molière was at that time school reading and study subject at the university, but was hardly played on stage anymore. Hofmannsthal arranged a few pieces for Reinhardt's productions and wrote new translations, among others. a. for the comedy Le mariage forcé , which was performed in Vienna and Berlin in 1910 and 1911, as well as an adaptation of Die Gräfin von Escarbagnas (1911), which was planned for a performance in Berlin but was never realized. The one-act play Die Lästigen (1916) is a very free arrangement based on Molières Les Fâcheux , which Dangel-Pelloquin calls "The Little Falsified ". The play was created as a prelude to Reinhardt's production of Molière's The Imaginary Sick . In the tiresome it is about two lovers who can not come together in a society of pesky troublemakers. Günter Erken describes the piece as a "preliminary stage to difficult". Hofmannsthal himself viewed Die Lästigen as a study in which he could learn from Molière's dramaturgy of comedy, from his art of designing dramatic constellations between the actors, making their motivations transparent for the audience, building up exciting sequences of scenes and using a lively language serve. At the premiere of The Troublesome in 1916, when the piece had turned into Hofmannsthal's own work, his name as a translator or arranger was not mentioned.

The intensive preoccupation with Molière seems to have motivated Hofmannsthal to continue with his work on the difficult . The figure of Difficult itself, with its fear of society is in a European comedy tradition of Menander Dyskolos (= The Difficult / The curmudgeon / The Misanthrope), about Plautus to Molière's Misanthrope enough. The difficult man shares his aversion to society and its soirées with Molières Alceste . Both comedies deal with the problem of being sociable, the tension between the individual and society, interpersonal relationships and actions in public, while observing the rules of the game. Unlike Molières Alceste, however, Hans Karl is not one who regards people with contempt and caustic sarcasm, who prides himself on always telling the truth. Always “telling the truth”, the difficult person does not consider himself to be a merit, rather he regards this peculiarity - “it happens to me that I say very loudly what I think” - (I, 3) as a weakness that makes him unfit for an existence in society.

Autobiographical

Martin Stern closes the “Sources” chapter of his critical edition with the sentence: “ The Difficult is not only the only comedy set in Hofmannsthal's presence, but also the most clearly autobiographical one.” In fact, there are many similarities between character and behavior the difficult with that of his author in the numerous available sources - memories of his friends, letters, Hofmannsthal's own statements e.g. B. in his diaries or in Ad me ipsum - not to be overlooked. Hofmannsthal's contemporaries describe his aversion to soirées, his tendency to lapse into silence there or to speak only in a low voice, fleeing from companies, horror of surprising and unannounced visitors or the tendency to misplace things that caused him displeasure. The traumatic “being buried” is not autobiographical. Hofmannsthal's personal experiences with the war were only superficial, he was only “out” in the field for a very short time. Here he draws on reports and letters from buried victims.

Genesis, publication and performance history

Hofmannsthal made his first notes on the piece, on which he worked with interruptions for several years, around 1909. For a long time Hofmannsthal was unsure of what to call his play: The Basilisk , The Man Without Intentionality, or The Difficult ? The first two acts were created in 1917, the third act was completed between 1919 and 1920.

From April 4 to September 17, 1920, the play was published in sequels in the Wiener Neue Freie Presse . The first edition was published by S. Fischer in Berlin in 1921 in a version that had been edited for printing . Anton Wildgans , then director of the Vienna Burgtheater , refused to perform the play.

The world premiere took place on November 7, 1921 in the Residenztheater in Munich, directed by Kurt Stieler , with Gustav Waldau (Hans Karl Bühl) and Elisabeth Bergner (Helene Altenwyl) as the "difficult couple" and with Hertha von Hagen (Crescence), Oskar Karlweis ( Stani) and Otto Wernicke (Neuhoff). This production was extremely successful and had seen a total of 103 performances by November 1932.

The Berlin premiere, directed by Bernhard Reich, followed on November 30, 1921 at the Berliner Kammerspiele , fell through with critics and audiences and was canceled after only 9 performances. Alfred Kerr , the feared star critic of his time among authors and actors, evidently had little interest in the play. He called it “An engagement game from the countess class ... The 'fine' comedy of the older order. Almost cozy and chatty; or should one write: elegant and comfortable? or should one write: boring ... ”The reaction was similarly incomprehensible in 1979 in East Berlin (GDR) when the play was performed by the Burgtheater when a reviewer for the official GDR press wrote:“ To be clear - it is a stinking corpse [...], such productions of the Burgtheater have to be blown up. ”Despite the derogatory judgments of Kerr and his East Berlin colleague,“ The Difficult ”is due to constant new productions, film adaptations and TV broadcasts after everyone and of the opera Der Rosenkavalier (libretto) Hofmannsthal's most frequently performed play.

“The Difficult” was one of the three pieces that Max Reinhardt staged in 1924 for the reopening of the Theater in der Josefstadt , the premiere was on April 16, 1924. Gustav Waldau played Hans Karl Bühl, Helene Thimig played Helene Altenwyl. The performance, true to the text, including the break, lasted more than three hours, as Reinhardt had almost the entire text played unabridged.

On August 2, 1931, the play was performed for the first time at the Salzburg Festival, directed by Max Reinhardt.

Theater in der Josefstadt, season 2016/17

During the National Socialist era, the piece was not played as a work by a Jewish author. Immediately after the end of the war it was performed again in the 1945/46 season in the Vienna Theater in der Josefstadt in a production by Rudolf Steinboeck . In 1954 Steinboeck staged the play again in the same theater.

After the war there were a number of new productions of the play with its many parade roles for actors, u. a. at the Vienna Burgtheater with Robert Lindner (1959), Michael Heltau (1978) and Karlheinz Hackl (1991) as Bühl.

In 1967 it was back on the program of the Salzburg Festival for the first time in a production by Rudolf Steinboek . OW Fischer and Gerlinde Locker played the couple Hans Karl Bühl / Helene, Peter Weck one last time the Stani, which he embodied countless times on stage in his career. In 1991 a new production followed under the direction of Jürgen Flimm with Karlheinz Hackl in the title role and with Julia Stemberger (Helene), Boris Eder (Stani) and Joachim Bißmeier (Hechingen). The costumes were designed by Karl Lagerfeld , the stage set by Erich Wonder . In 2016, 95 years after the premiere, the Theater in der Josefstadt put the play on the program for the sixth time in its history, with Alma Hasun and Michael Dangl , who played Stani in Otto Schenk's 2000 production, as a difficult couple Matthias Franz Stein as Stani, Pauline Knof as Antoinette and Christian Nickel as Neuhoff, directed by Janusz Kica .

Sound recordings
  • Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The difficult one. Salzburg Festival 1967. Live recording. (Festival documents). Orfeo International Music Munich.
Directed by Rudolf Steinboeck . With OW Fischer (Bühl), Susi Nicoletti (Crescence), Peter Weck (Stani), Gerlinde Locker (Helene), Erik Frey (Altenwyl), Christiane Hörbiger (Antoinette), Ernst Stankowski (Hechingen), Alexander Kerst (Neuhoff)
Film adaptations

The play was edited several times for filming on television.

  • 1956: The difficult one . TV movie
Director: Leo Mittler , with Adolf Wohlbrück (Bühl)
  • 1961: The difficult one . TV movie
Director: John Olden , with Hans Holt (Bühl), Johanna Matz (Helene), Peter Weck (Stani)
  • 1974: The difficult one . Tragicomedy. TV film, A / BRD / CH
Script and direction: Stanislav Barabas , with Wolfgang Gasser (Bühl), Doris Kunstmann (Helene), Michael Herbe (Stani), Erika Pluhar (Antoinette), Susanne von Almassy (Crescence)
  • 1978: L'uomo difficile . TV movie
Director: Giancarlo Cobelli , with Tino Schirinzi (Bühl), Laura Tanziani (Helene), Massimo Belli (Stani)
  • 1991: The difficult one . Live from the Salzburg Festival in 1991. Director and TV director: Jürgen Flimm , set designer Erich Wonder , costumes Karl Lagerfeld . Arthaus Musik, DVD with booklet: Werner Thuswaldner: Der Schwierige. 11 pp.
Reception in the novel

In 2017 the Austrian author and actor Franz Winter published a novel under the title Die Schwierigen , in which he continues the family stories and the fates of the staff of Hofmannsthal's play - the Bühls, Freudenbergs, Altenwyls and the Hechingens. Winter himself played the role of Stani at the Burgtheater at the end of the 1970s.

expenditure

  • The difficult one . Comedy in three acts. Berlin: S. Fischer 1921, archive.org .
  • Hugo von Hofmannsthal: Complete Works. Critical edition. Edited by Rudolf Hirsch , Christoph Perels, Edward Reichel and Heinz Rolleke.
Complete Works. Part XII. Dramas 10. The difficult one . Edited by Martin Stern . Frankfurt a. M .: Fischer 1993. ISBN 3-10731512-5
Translations

The difficult one was translated into Russian by I. Mandelstam in 1923 and was published by a St. Petersburg publishing house. There are also English, French and Italian translations.

  • The Difficult Man. A Comedy in Three Acts. Transl. by Willa Muir . In: Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Selected Writings. Vol. 3. New York: Pantheon Books 1963. pp. 633-823.
  • The difficult one. The Difficult Gentleman. Translated by Nicholas Stephens . Read More Translations 2015. Kindle edition, eBook.
  • L'Homme difficile . Traduit et présenté by Jean-Yves Masson. 2e éd. Lagrasse 1996.
  • L'irrésolu. Comédie viennoise en trois actes. Respectueusement adaptée pour la scene française par Paul Géraldy. In: Les œuvres libres. Vol. 341. Paris: Fayard 1955.
  • L'uomo difficile . Edited by Gabriella Bemporad (1976); New translations by Elena Raponi (2007), and Silvia Borri (Siena 2009).

literature

General
Individual representations
  • Nobert Altenhofer: «The irony of things». To the late Hofmannsthal . Frankfurt a. M .: Lang 1995. (Analyzes and documents. 30.) ISBN 3-631-47359-1
  • Franz Norbert Mennemeier : Hofmannsthal: "The Difficult One". In: Benno von Wiese (Hrsg.): The German drama from the baroque to the present. Munich 1988. pp. 209-225.
  • Inka Mülder-Bach : abandoned houses. The trauma of being buried and the passage of language in Hofmannsthal's comedy The Difficult (2001) . In: Elsbeth Dengel-Pelloquin (ed.): Hugo von Hofmannsthal. New ways of research. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2007. pp. 163–185. ISBN 978-3-534-19032-4
  • Jakob Norberg: The Descreet Community. Hugo von Hofmannsthal's The Difficult . In: Arcadia. Vol. 46. Issue 1. 2011. pp. 121–135.
  • Walter Pape : "Ah, these chronic misunderstandings". Hugo von Hofmannsthal's “The Difficult One” . In: Winfried Freund (ed.): German comedies. Munich: Fink 1988. pp. 291-215. ISBN 3-7705-2513-2
  • Mark William Roche: Tragedy and Comedy: A Systematic Study and a Critique of Hegel. New York: State University of New York Press 1988. Therein: Hofmannsthal's The Difficult Man. Pp. 225-235. ISBN 0-7914-3545-8
  • Hans Steffen : Hofmannsthal's society comedy "The Difficult". In: The German comedy. Edited by Hans Steffen. Vol. 2. Göttingen 1969. (Kleine Vandenhoeck-Reihe. 277.) pp. 125–158.
  • Andrea Tischel: Difficult love affairs . On Hugo von Hofmannsthal's comedy The Difficult . In: Alliance and Desire. A symposium on love. Edited by Andrea Krauss and Alexandra Tischel. Berlin: Schmidt 2002. ISBN 3-503-06146-0
  • Theo Vater: "Der Schwierige" In: Kurt Bräutigam (Hrsg.): European comedies, represented by individual interpretations. Frankfurt: Diesterweg 1964. pp. 192-213
  • Robert Vilain: Hofmannsthal, 'The Difficult'. In: Peter Hutchinson: Landmarks in German Comedy. British and Irish studies in German language and literature. Bern: Lang 2006. pp. 162–178.
  • Michael Woll: ›The Difficult One‹ and his interpreters . Göttingen: Wallstein 2019. ISBN 978-3-83533385-7

Web links

Wikiquote: The Difficult One  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hugo von Hofmannsthal - Arthur Schnitzler. Correspondence. Frankfurt: Fischer 1964. p. 287.
  2. ↑ Quoted from: Hofmannsthal. Complete Works. Critical edition. XII. Dramas. 10. Frankfurt aM 1993. p. 517.
  3. ↑ see also: The correspondence between Hofmannsthal and Mauthner. Hofmannsthal leaves 19-2. Edited by Martin Stern. Frankfurt / M. 1978. [1]
  4. ↑ Quoted from: Katharina Menhofer: Der Schwierige . ORF .at, October 4, 2016, accessed on November 28, 2016
  5. ↑ Ursula Renner: Afterword. In: Hugo von Hofmannsthal: The difficult one. Stuttgart: Reclam 2015. p. 177.
  6. ↑ Ursula Renner: Afterword . In: Hugo von Hofmannsthal: The difficult one. Stuttgart: Reclam 2015. p. 174.
  7. ↑ Hofmannsthal. Complete Works. Critical edition. XII. Dramas. 10. Frankfurt a. M. 1993. p. 191.
  8. ↑ Hofmannsthal. Complete Works. Critical edition. XII. Dramas. 10. Frankfurt a. M. 1993. pp. 190-194.
    See also: Søren Kierkegaard: Either - Or . Part 2, Chapter I: The Aesthetic Validity of Marriage [1842]
  9. ↑ Hofmannsthal. Complete Works. Critical edition. XII. Dramas. 10. Frankfurt a. M. 1993. p. 200.
  10. ↑ Konstanze Heininger: "A dream of great magic". The collaboration between Max Reinhardt and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Munich: Utz 2015. p. 214.
  11. ↑ Elsbeth Dangel-Pelloquin: "The small falsification". A game with original and forgery in Hofmannsthal's 'The Troublesome'. Comedy in one act based on Molière. The Hofmannsthal yearbook. 2002. pp. 39-68.
  12. ^ Günter Erken: Hofmannsthal's dramatic style. Studies on symbolism and dramaturgy . Niemeyer 1967.
  13. ^ Wolfram Mauser: Hofmannsthal and Molière. Lecture organized by the Innsbruck Society for the Care of the Humanities on February 16, 1962. pp. 6, 7.
  14. ↑ Hofmannsthal. Complete Works. Critical edition. XII. Dramas. 10. Frankfurt a. M. 1993. p. 184.
  15. ^ Sylvie Ballestra-Puech: Misanthropie et "misologi": de l'analogie philosophique à la rencontre dramaturgique , accessed on March 7, 2016.
  16. ↑ Hofmannsthal. Complete Works. Critical edition. XII. Dramas. 10. Frankfurt a. M. 1993. S.
  17. ^ Notes from 1916. Printed in: Die Neue Rundschau. Vol. 65, 1954. pp. 358ff.
  18. ↑ Walter Pape: 'Ah these chronic misunderstandings: Hugo von Hofmannsthal's' Der Schwierige' In: Deutsche Komödien. Munich 1988. p. 212.
  19. ↑ Detailed curriculum vitae , accessed on February 9, 2016.
  20. ↑ Quoted from: Rolf Michaelis: Face Slap, Kniefall. Zeit-online, August 2, 1991 [2] accessed on February 7, 2016
  21. ↑ Quoted from: Werner Thuswaldner. The difficult one . DVD booklet. Salzburg 1991. p. 11.
  22. ↑ Booklet for the performance.
  23. ^ Hugo von Hofmannsthal, "Der Schwierige", Theater in der Josefstadt, Vienna Theaterkompass.de, accessed on November 6, 2011
  24. ^ Archive of the Salzburg Festival , accessed on March 11, 2016.
  25. ↑ IMDb
  26. ↑ IMDb
  27. ↑ Franz Winter: The Difficult. Vienna: Braumüller 2017. ISBN 978-3-99200187-3
  28. ^ The book of the week SWR 2, December 4, 2017, accessed on December 7, 2017
  29. ↑ L'uomo difficile, directed by Luca Ronconi
  30. ^ "L'uomo difficile" by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 2013