Death on the wedding day
| Data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Death on the wedding day |
| Original title: | Death on the wedding anniversary or husband, wife, child |
| Genus: | Magic game in two acts |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Johann Nestroy |
| Music: | Franz Roser |
| Publishing year: | 1829 |
| Premiere: | August 18, 1829 |
| Place of premiere: | Theater in der Josefstadt , Vienna |
| Place and time of the action: | The action in the 1st act takes place partly on the castle of Herr von Dappschädl and its surroundings, partly in the realm of impossibility, and takes place in 1829. The dreams of 1804 and 1807 that occur in the 2nd act take place in the city, the The end of Mr. von Dappschädl's castle in 1829 |
| people | |
Persons of the 1st and 2nd dream from 1804:
Persons of the dream of 1807:
Ms. von Dappschädl and Dappschädl's two-year-old child are played by the actor Mr. von Dappschädl, Ms. Stixl by the actor from Matz Stixlmann |
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Death on the wedding day or man, woman, child , is a magic game in two acts by Johann Nestroy . The play was written in 1829 and was premiered on August 18 of this year at the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna .
content
Max Stixlmann is said to be abandoned by the band of robbers because of his laziness in the forest and left to the soldiers; he asks for mercy:
- "I want to improve myself, I want to rob hard, I want to rob every day."
He overhears the witches and the black figure who decide, with the help of the stubborn Herr von Dappschädl, to plunge his subjects into misery, but the dream queen Lunara wants to thwart these plans. Because Stixlmann finds Carl's wallet, he takes him to the Dappschädl manor out of gratitude. His wife died 25 years ago and since then he has played the deep mourner, which does not prevent him from chasing after all the girls. He only forbids weddings on his estate, especially those between Carl and Henriette. When Dappschädl and Stixlmann want to spend the night on the hunt in the Lunaras hut, she sinks them both into a deep sleep in order to cure Dappschädl in particular of his belief that he would have become the happiest person with his wife. Stixlmann also wants to drive out his obsession:
- "I would like to be an old Weyb, then I would be the happiest man in the world."
In his first dream from 1804, Dappschädl is just married for a short time, but still only has amours in mind. Especially with Miss Lunar he really wants to reach a rendezvous while Siegwart blackmails him at the same time, because he had robbed his "innocent" sister of the honor. Ms. Dappschädl is shot again in Siegwart, who gets in with her and is surprised by Dappschädl. After waking up, Dappschädl admits that he was not made for marriage himself, but that his wife would have been all the happier.
The second dream of 1804 follows on from the first. Frau Dappschädl wants to sing an aria to her husband, who is not there, but is on the path of love. Siegwart comes to her again and she quickly hides him because Dappschädl comes home. Siegwart is discovered, Frau Dappschädl finds out about her husband's affairs and faints because of all these calamities. Now Dappschädl Lunara has to admit that his wife would not have been happy in the marriage either, but believes that a child together would have had a wonderful life.
In the dream of 1807, Dappschädl's child is two years old, the parents do not take care of the upbringing, but leave everything to the raw emotional and manly woman Stixl. The child only finds this a nuisance because she would rather go out, so she ties the crying child to the bedpost and goes to a rendezvous.
Now Dappschädl and Stixlmann are cured of their stupid wishes. However, Dappschädl has remained the same tyrant for his subordinates, because if he had previously strictly forbidden anyone to marry on his estate, he now orders:
- “Everything has to marry, everything! Reason! He's getting married too, otherwise I'll chase him away. "
Factory history
Nestroy wrote this piece especially for his guest appearance at the Vienna Theater in der Josefstadt, where he appeared on engagement in 1829. In it he processed the bad experiences with his wife Wilhelmine Nespiesni , who had left him and their three-year-old son Gustav in 1827 because of an affair with Count Adalbert Batthyány. Similar to “ Thirty Years from the Life of a Rag ” , the happy ending of the piece seems to be constructed only implausibly. The ostensibly "Besserungsstück" work should therefore be seen more as a bitter reckoning - not only with personal experience, but also with the society of its time in general. It is fitting that the black figure (who could not be called the devil because of the criticism ) is devalued to the ineffective, bizarre bogeyman in an environment that has been depraved without his intervention and the only comic figure in the play remains - a witch mockingly calls him "povre diable ” (Act 1, Scene 6).
A literary model for the piece cannot be determined. An insert sheet in the surviving theater manuscript could indicate a second version of the work; it is a fragment with a new monologue by Grund and Dappschädl's aria and monologue (Act 1, scenes 9 and 10).
The Viennese theater newspaper Adolf Bäuerles wrote on July 11, 1829 as an advance notice:
- People who have taken a look at the manuscript believe they can promise this youngest child in Nestroy's mood a favorable reception from the public.
The following review appeared in the Allgemeine Musikischen Zeitung in November 1829 (No. 46):
- On the 18th, in the same place [in the Josephstädter Theater] : ›Death on the wedding day,‹ or ›Man, woman, child;‹ Magic game in two acts by Nestroy, actor in Grätz, who staged the same in the cycle of his guest performances here. The basic idea is not exactly reprehensible and gives material to entertain situations; also has Mr. Kapellmeister Roser delivered quite good music for it.
Further performances took place on August 19 and 20, an alleged one in Graz on December 29 is not documented. Nestroy later used large parts of this work for the " Confused Magician " . The Viennese literary scholar Franz H. Mautner judges the work:
- […] The longest and most richly and carefully worked out of his early pieces in terms of structure, drama and language.
Johann Nestroy played Herr von Dappschädl in all performances.
Explanations
In Viennese Dappschädl means a fool (from Tåpp = tepp, depp , idiot).
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. 91-92.
- Fritz Brukner / Otto Rommel : Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. Historical-critical complete edition, first volume, Verlag von Anton Schroll & Co., Vienna 1924.
- Friedrich Walla (Ed.): Johann Nestroy; Pieces 1. In: Jürgen Hein / Johann Hüttner : Johann Nestroy, Complete Works, Historical-Critical Edition. Jugend und Volk, Vienna / Munich 1979, ISBN 3-7141-6953-9 ; Pp. 241-343, 463-482.
Web links
- Death on the wedding day (content) on nestroy.at/nestroy-stuecke/05 (accessed on February 16, 2014)
- Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies: Johann Nestroys Playing with Biography: Death on the Wedding Day or Man, Woman, Child . (accessed on February 16, 2014)
Individual evidence
- ^ Friedrich Walla: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 1. p. 249.
- ^ Friedrich Walla: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 1. p. 282.
- ^ Friedrich Walla: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 1. p. 340.
- ↑ The censor may have missed the word diable
- ^ Brukner / Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. Pp. 657-658.
- ^ Friedrich Walla: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 1. p. 464.
- ↑ JN HUMMEL: General musical newspaper. Breitkopf and Härtel, Leipzig 1829; P. 758. (accessed on February 16, 2014)
- ↑ the Grätzer newspaper announced for that day the piece "The beyden foxes" to
- ^ Friedrich Walla: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 1. p. 241.
- ↑ Theater ticket in the manuscript collection of the Vienna Library in the City Hall .
- ↑ Peter Wehle : Do you speak Viennese? From Adaxl to Zwutschkerl. Verlag Carl Ueberreuther, Vienna / Heidelberg 1980, ISBN 3-8000-3165-5 ; Pp. 263, 264.