The good-natured devil

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Data
Title: The good-natured devil
Original title: The good-natured devil or The story of the farmer and the farmer's wife
Genus: Magic game with song and dance in 1 acct based on a folk tale
Original language: German
Author: Johann Nestroy
Music: Carl Binder
Publishing year: 1851
Premiere: December 20, 1851
Place of premiere: Carltheater
people
  • Lucifer
  • Satanas , his secretary
  • Belzebub
  • Fulminaria , Lucifer's wife
  • Hydra , a fury
  • 1 the most , 2 ter  hell spirit
  • the farmer
  • the farmer's wife
  • the old
  • the servant
  • Hell spirits, furies, servants, maidservants, neighbors, neighbors

The good-natured devil or The story of the farmer and the farmer's wife is a magic game with song and dance in 1 acct based on a folk tale , probably composed by Johann Nestroy . The first performance took place anonymously on December 20, 1851 in the Carltheater as a benefit performance for Wenzel Scholz .

content

  • The hell scenes are written in verse - mostly intentionally bizarre rhyming - the scenes on earth in prose.

The clumsy devil Belzebub was given the task of breaking a happily married peasant couple in two within three years. He failed at this task, also because he developed personal feelings:

“Out of private love; the little woman did it to me. " (Scene 7)

Three years ago, Lucifer and Fulminaria bet a twelve-horse dragon equipage whether the seduction would succeed, Fulminaria claiming it would fail. In order to change this after all, Lucifer sends Belzebub together with his secretary Satanas back to earth. There Satanas quickly realizes that the two lovers are difficult to break apart, so he asks the old woman, an evil witch, for help. This is immediately ready for it:

"The love of neighbor 'is my weak point, when the dear neighbor would not be, you do not even know who to do what to." (Scene 8)

She makes the farmer's wife jealous and persuades her to cut off her husband's infidelity with a razor: to do this, when he sleeps, she has to run his whale knife (razor) over his throat, of course only with her back and the edge upwards , and to pray an Our Father. The old woman tells the farmer that his wife is cheating on him with the servant and that he wants to murder him in his sleep.

"So, I have sown the seeds, it rises and the fruit is carried that comes by itself!" (Scene 14)

Satanas is delighted at this malice, Belzebub is still convinced that two good people cannot be separated. In a couplet , the two maintain their different points of view:

Satanas: "People are bad, be bad, be bad!"
Belzebub: "The people are good, be good, be good!" (Scene 14)

The plan seems to work, the farmer catches the farmer's wife allegedly attempting murder, refuses to listen to her explanation and chases her out of the house. When Satanas brings the promised reward to the old woman and the two laugh at the prank, Belzebub ensures that the farmer can overhear. He realizes his rash and can barely save his wife, who desperately wants to go into the water. He wants to kill the old woman with his servants and the neighbors, but they are too late. Belzebub, who has dressed up as a devil with a snake wig, claw gloves and a red furry costume, fetches the old woman and goes down to hell with the desperately struggling. The farmer is forever converted:

"In the future we will never believe anything more about each other than what we see with our own eyes, then even hell cannot harm us!" (Scene 33)

Factory history

The material of the work comes from a rich folk tradition. The motif of the razor test also appears in the Salzburg witch's game , where, however, in contrast to the good outcome in the good- natured devil, it ends with the murder of the woman and the suicide of the man. In his Der Teufel mit dem alten Frau (1545), Hans Sachs achieved the division of the happy couple simply through nasty whisperings.

The actual source, however, is likely to be the fabulous tale The Devil and an Old Woman. An old story retold by Karl Herloßsohn , which appeared in 1846 as a continuation in issue numbers 217 and 218 of the Fliegende Blätter . The most important motifs of the farce can already be found here. One difference is the plot that ends in the story without a happy ending , while a conciliatory conclusion is found in the farce.

The bet in the magic realm (here in the hell between Lucifer and Fulminaria) was used by Nestroy as a framework story several times, for example in Der Feenball (1833), Der böse Geist Lumpacivagabundus (1833), and other works. Nevertheless, its authorship is not undisputed, because there are no handwritten manuscripts or preliminary work to be found. The only evidence so far is his role book (Satanas) with his own entries, especially with the execution of the monologue in scene 27 and some couplet texts . Franz Carl Weidmann , however, in his memoir, Wenzel Scholz, Memories (Vienna 1857, p. 20), expressly referred to Nestroys as the author during his lifetime.

The one-act play was premiered on December 20, 1851 together with the farce Die Schwarze Frau by Karl Meisl in a benefit performance for Wenzel Scholz. Johann Nestroy played the Satanas, Alois Grois the peasant, Emma Zöllner the peasant woman, Andreas Scutta the old woman , the beneficiary Wenzel Scholz the belzebub. It was - in September 1857 - the last role in which Scholz stood on stage before he died on October 5, 1857.

The play was performed on December 21st and 28th and only played more often after a long break in Karl Treumann's popular one-act evenings , from 1860 onwards in Treumann's theater on Franz-Josefs-Kai .

The original manuscript has been lost, and a censorship book by a hand other than that of the author bears the title The Story of the Farmer and the Farmer's Wife without any indication of the author. The title has been supplemented by the second hand with The good-natured devil or ... This manuscript copy, with a censorship note dated December 19, 1851, was kept in the Carltheater archive under the designation Copia No. 243½.

The Souflir book No. 243 from the possession of Alois Grois, also in a strange hand, bears the title Der gemüthliche Teufel or The story of the farmer and the farmer's wife .

The only surviving manuscript with Nestroy's handwritten entries is Satana's script; on the title page is a drawing (Nestroy als Satanas?) and the (corrected) title The good-natured, comfortable devil or the story of the peasant and the peasant woman ; at the end of the title there is a thick cross and the note C. (T) .Nestroi 20/12 51 auff (T) 18/12 P [ro] be .

In the official repertoire book of the Leopoldstadt Theater , the piece was listed under The Good-natured Devil and Alois Grois was named as the author. Although it is evident that Grois made changes, the authorship of Nestroy is not doubted by experts.

A score by Carl Binder with the title Lf. Nro 782. Der Gemüthliche Teufel. Music by Kapellmeister Carl Binder is also preserved. It also contains performance dates and visitor numbers in Binder's handwriting, as well as the signature of the Carltheater CT 194 , which was later crossed out .

Contemporary reception

Since the premiere took place to the advantage of the comedian Wenzel Scholz, who is very popular in Vienna, according to contemporary reports, the text of the piece was completely lost in the loud Duliöh (= exuberant) mood that is usual for Scholz charity evenings (see section Later interpretations ). The downsizing of the criticism was probably also to be seen from the point of view that probably no critic could get a real picture because of the noise. The performance of the beneficiaries and Nestroy were unanimously praised.

On December 21, 1851, the foreign newspaper (3rd vol., No. 303) wrote a damning criticism:

"As much as we have to praise the character of Belzebub, we find his piece just as heartily bad, and we would not have believed that foods that were too tough would be fried in the devil's kitchen."

On December 22nd, the hiker (No. 581, Abendblatt) heard equally harsh criticism:

“[…] The new one-act play 'Der gemüthliche Teufel', the author of which was careful not to remain anonymous, made such a striking fiasco that it surpasses everything in nonsense and boredom that the suburban stages had brought to Schofel for a long time . "

The Wiener Theater Zeitung of Adolf Bäuerle also referred to the always unfavorable circumstances at Scholz charity evenings as the reason of the through fall, the novelty but called "a miserable piece of work" , which was full of nonsense and stupidity and would have therefore been hissed and rightly so. The Austrian viewer at least admitted that the evening had been saved from the inevitable trap by Nestroy's “indestructible comedy” .

Later interpretations

When Otto Rommel is on problems at Scholz's benefit performances and the reason for the anonymous performance of good-natured devil noted:

" Frdr. Kaiser tells and many contemporary reviews confirm that the bad habit had broken down, mercilessly whistling the plays that were performed on Scholz's benefit evenings, but paying homage to the actor. So it happened that no author of repute ever produced a piece for Scholz's benefit evenings, and Scholz had to be content with the most miserable stubble work. Even Nestroy didn't want to put his name on the theater bill of a Scholz charity play. "

Incidentally, Rommel cites Hans Sachs' The Devil and the Old Woman as a template for Nestroy's work.

Helmut Ahrens calls the piece a "antagonism presented as a magic game" . Nestroy once again wrote a role as a subordinate person, as a subject, as a servant, although he ironically explains as Satanas:

"And despite my high position as secretary [...]" (Scene 1)

The couplet had a special effect in the 15th scene between the long, skinny Nestroy and the short, fat Scholz.

Siegfried Diehl calls the chapter in which he treats the "good-natured devil" the "magic realm of the skeptic" . It is the dismantling of the supposed otherworldly world, in this case hell, in order to parody it as a deeply human institution with earthly customs. The actually moralizing act about the harmful consequences of frivolous superstition is thereby transformed into a mad, carnivalistic perversion.

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 .
  • Hugo Aust (Ed.): Johann Nestroy, pieces 30. In: Jürgen Hein , Johann Hüttner , Walter Obermaier , W. Edgar Yates : Johann Nestroy, Complete Works, historical-critical edition. Franz Deuticke Verlagsgesellschaft, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-216-30348-9 .
  • Fritz Brukner / Otto Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. Historical-critical complete edition, fourteenth volume, Verlag von Anton Schroll & Co., Vienna 1930.
  • Otto Rommel: Nestroys Works. Selection in two parts, Golden Classics Library, German publishing house Bong & Co., Berlin / Leipzig / Vienna / Stuttgart 1908.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Aust: Johann Nestroy, Pieces 30. p. 131.
  2. ^ Aust: Johann Nestroy, Pieces 30. P. 132.
  3. ^ Aust: Johann Nestroy, Pieces 30. S. 140.
  4. ^ Aust: Johann Nestroy, Pieces 30. pp. 140-142.
  5. ^ Aust: Johann Nestroy, Pieces 30. p. 158.
  6. ^ Reinhold Köhler : Smaller writings on modern literary history, folklore and word research. III. Volume, Johannes Bolte, Berlin 1900; P. 12.
  7. ↑ published in 1895 in the Österreichische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde , issue I, p. 43 ff.
  8. ^ Aust: Johann Nestroy, Pieces 30. pp. 520-521.
  9. ^ Aust: Johann Nestroy, pieces 30. pp. 516-517.
  10. ^ Austrian National Library Theater Museum, signature CarlTh T 14 a .
  11. ^ Austrian National Library Theater Museum, signature CarlTh T 14 b .
  12. ↑ Manuscript collection of the Vienna Library in the City Hall , call number IN I b 115.964.
  13. ^ Brukner / Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. Pp. 621-622.
  14. ↑ Austrian National Music Library, call number sm 8280.
  15. ^ Aust: Johann Nestroy, pieces 30. pp. 523-525. (for the entire chapter on contemporary reception )
  16. ↑ schofel = slang for worthless stuff; from Hebrew šāfāl = low, mean
  17. ↑ in his biography Theater Director Carl (1854)
  18. ^ Rommel: Nestroys Works. S. LXXIX, footnote 3.
  19. ^ Aust: Johann Nestroy, Pieces 30. S. 121.
  20. ↑ Ahrens: I'm not auctioning myself off to the laurel . P. 329.
  21. ^ Siegfried Diehl: Magic and satire in Nestroy's early work. Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Berlin, Zurich 1969, p. 158 f.