Tulipatan Island
| Work data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Tulipatan Island |
| Original title: | L'île de Tulipatan |
| Shape: | opéra bouffe, operetta |
| Original language: | French |
| Music: | Jacques Offenbach |
| Libretto : | Henri Charles Chivot (1830–1897) and Alfred Duru (1829–1889) |
| Literary source: | no |
| Premiere: | September 30, 1868 |
| Place of premiere: | Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, Paris (France) |
| Playing time: | 48 minutes, 1 act |
| Place and time of the action: | On the (fictional) island of Tulipatan around 1860 (present) |
| people | |
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The island of Tulipatan (original title: "L'île de Tulipatan") is a French operetta in one act by Jacques Offenbach based on a libretto by Henri Charles Chivot and Alfred Duru. The work was premiered on September 30, 1868 in Offenbach's own Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in Paris. Because of its brevity, the operetta Insel Tulipatan is often performed in one evening with other one-act plays.
action
Background: Duke Cacatois XXII wanted dearly. an heir to the throne, he already had two daughters. When the Duchess became pregnant the third time and the birth was imminent, Duke Cacatois XXII was abroad. For fear of his disappointed anger, their third child, again a girl, was passed off as a boy. Théodorine, the wife of Großseneschallen Romboidal, gave birth to a boy. In panic about military service and war, the mother let her son grow up as a girl Hermosa, while the father was at war.
Main storyline: Since the island of Tulipatan is very small, Hermosa and Alexis get to know each other in the course of their lives. Hermosa ("the wild bumblebee") and Alexis, who both feel contrary - in their actual physical gender - fall in love. The parents are appalled for various reasons: The Grand Seneschal knows that Alexis is a girl, Théodorine knows that Hermosa is a boy. In the case of a relationship between the children, both fear a “same-sex” relationship that appears “impossible” to them. To prevent this, the secret of the gender swap is revealed to each child individually and one after the other. Hermosa happens to find out about this "secret" of her friend Alexis and says she doesn't mind that he is a girl (Offenbach plays this out in a turbulent duet between father and daughter). She marries him anyway. The parents, who only know half the gender truth about their children, are appalled by the unconventional behavior of the offspring and try every possible means to prevent a wedding. Nevertheless, the two children rush into the chapel, reveal their true gender and are married to the applause of their subjects. Only when Alexis officially mutated into Alexandra did the spirits calm down, as all those involved were spared an even greater “emancipation”. To everyone's amazement, the Duke is very composed when he learns that he again has no heir to the throne. He sees in this a reason to marry again in order to finally father a male heir to the throne.
orchestra
Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, percussion and strings.
Performance dates
Kurt Gänzl lists the performance dates of Tulipatan in his book Encyclopaedia of the Musical Theater (2001): “On the European continent, L'Île de Tulipatan has seen many revivals over the years. a. at the Vienna Carltheater in a Franz Steiner production (January 24, 1889) with Karl Streitmann (Hermosa), Wilhelm Knaack (Romboïdal) and Miss Seebold (Alexis). The piece was given at the Berlin Opera in 1917 and at the Vienna State Opera in 1918. In Hungary it was played in 1891 under the title XII Cactus , but apparently in the same Follinusz translation that had been used in Arad 20 years earlier. In Paris it has recently been played at the Festival du Marais in 1982, then at the Théâtre de la Gaîté-Montparnasse with Christian Pernot, Kay Fender and Pierre Jacquemont. ”Gänzl lists:“ Germany: Friedrich-Wilhelmstädtisches Theater, 21. July 1869; Austria: Carltheater, May 5, 1869; Great Britain: Theater Royal, Leeds as King Kokatoo, or Who is who and which is which? , March 4, 1872; Opera Comique, London as Kissi-Kissi , July 12, 1873; Hungary: Arad 1869; Australia: St George's Hall, Melbourne as Alexis , June 3, 1886. "
Cross dressing in Tulipatan Island
The special thing about the island of Tulipatan is that the cross-dressing here goes in both directions (i.e. man as woman, woman as man) and is addressed directly in the play, in contrast to the role of Orestes in Offenbach's Die Schöne Helena , for example the is simply a male role with a woman, but this is not discussed in the libretto. Kevin Clarke writes in the introduction to the book Glitter & Be Gay: The authentic operetta and its gay admirers under the heading “Homosexuality and operetta?”: “Even if straight men in the audience at the beginning of the 20th century on the stage (as well as in the foyer was offered) primary Straight sex [...] came in the sexually liberated world of operetta repeatedly homoeroticism before. "at first this homoeroticism occurred only as a joke, as in the island Tulipatan , then hidden in the operetta by Franz von Suppè and Johann Strauss with her ladies in ambiguous pants roles.
Hans-Dieter Roser writes in his article Chacun à son goût: Cross-Dressing in the Viennese Operetta 1860–1936 , also in Glitter & Be Gay : “The century of the Enlightenment was […] the most strongly feminized epoch before our present, what was expressed, among other things, in a tendency towards transvestism [...] A huge step when you consider that in the Middle Ages the change in gender was still described as a sin and a crime. At the aristocratic masquerades in Vienna in the 18th century, on the other hand, the gentlemen liked to appear in women's clothing, the ladies in trousers […]. The clothes exchange was clothes. And this was also often used in the operetta. "
Success through depicting homosexuality
The Viennese found frivolous extreme joke in Offenbach's bouffonerie L'Île de Tulipatan , which was played with a smock and trouser role and was received much more warmly at the Carl-Theater in Vienna in 1869 than Offenbach's one-act Mesdames de la Halle , in which he met the love-hungry Parisian market women of male actors as a brazen mockery of a certain type of woman. The fact that L'Île de Tulipatan was so well received by the Viennese was astonishing, because this is not just about sentimental love and heartbreak (that too), but it is also about the thematically first gay and lesbian operetta ever. Hans-Dieter Roser writes: “For the island of Tulipatan , too , the theatrical crème of the Carl Theater was called up under the personal direction of Offenbach for the Vienna premiere on May 5, 1869. The very next day one could read in the press ( New Foreign Journal Vienna, May 6, 1869): Tulipatan is perhaps not the most successful musically, but it is indisputably the funniest operetta that Offenbach composed, and at the same time has the most amusing libretto, the witty (translator Julius) Hopp succeeded […] King Kaktus has a son who is a daughter, and Minister Fikus has a daughter who is a son. This results in a number of highly comical and frivolous situations that both composer and librettist knew how to exploit to perfection. ”With these successes, the French operetta was able to gain a foothold in Vienna and local composers were also attracted by the frivolous game of gender. It was particularly interesting to bring particularly attractive women in trouser roles onto the stage, thus reversing the smock situation. The magic in cross-dressing was that, of course, at a time when women were packed from neck to toe, women's legs were showing, but also by allowing a quasi-different gender to resonate and synthetically creating a "third gender" - androgynous , attractive and above all emancipated. Such trouser roles also enabled a musical sonic bliss for the first time in the duets with the "real" women on stage. By appearing as men, women usually put themselves in the limelight in a very emancipated manner and do not at all behave in the way that social norms expected of women at the time. In Tulipatan this is turned a step further, as Hermosa does not want to adhere to behavioral conventions as a woman, goes hunting etc. and thus drives her parents into despair, while Alexis does not behave manly enough as a prince. This whole topic - gender as a social construction - anticipates Judith Butler's writings by over 100 years and Tulipatan deconstructs, like Butler, norms and conventions.
Pieces of music
- overture
- dialog
- Vivat, the joy! Long live the joke (Romboidal, choir)
- dialog
- He live high a thousand years' - It's a duck, newspaper duck (cacatois, choir) - duck couplet
- This day is a wonderful day - oh, my friend has escaped (Romboidal, Cacatois, Alexis, choir)
- If I were of the male sex (Hermosa, Alexis)
- I'll get the fiery golden wine now (Théodorine, Romboidal, Hermosa)
- You now know my great sufferings (Romboidal, Hermosa)
- Is it you? - It's me (Alexis, Hermosa)
- Barcarole (Romboidal, Théodorine, Cacatois, choir)
- Dialogue and melodrama
- Finale: In the gondola of life (Cacatois, Romboidal, Théodorine, Alexis, Hermosa, choir)
literature
- Kevin Clarke : Introduction: Homosexuality and Operetta? In: Kevin Clarke (Ed.): Glitter & Be Gay. The authentic operetta and its gay admirers. Männerschwarm Verlag, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-939542-13-1 , pp. 7-22.
- Kurt Gänzl: Export item operetta. In: Marie-Theres Arnbom , Kevin Clarke, Thomas Trabitsch (Ed.): World of Operetta. Glamor, stars and show business. Brandstätter, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-85033-581-2 .
- Kurt Gänzl: L'ile de Tulipatan. In: Kurt Gänzl: The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theater. 2nd Edition. Schirmer Books, New York NY a. a. 2001, ISBN 0-02-864970-2 .
- Marjorie Garber: Veiled interests. Transvestism and cultural fear. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-10-024405-2 .
- Hans-Dieter Roser: Chacun à son goût: Cross-Dressing in the Viennese Operetta 1860–1936. In: Kevin Clarke (Ed.): Glitter & Be Gay. The authentic operetta and its gay admirers. Männerschwarm Verlag, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-939542-13-1 , pp. 40-59.
- Hellmuth Steger, Karl Howe: Operettenführer. From Offenbach to musicals (= Fischer-Bücherei 225, ISSN 0173-5438 ). Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1958.
- Dieter Zimmer Various: Operetta. Phenomenon and development (= materials for didactics and methodology of music lessons. Vol. 15). Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden 1988, ISBN 3-7651-0183-4 .
Web links
- L'île de Tulipatan : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Operetta-Lexikon.info