the snow Queen

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Illustration by Rudolf Koivu

The Snow Queen (the Danish title is: Snedronningen ) is an art fairy tale by the Danish poet Hans Christian Andersen , one of his longest and most sophisticated as well as the most complex and complex. It is about a little girl who is looking for her playmate kidnapped by the Snow Queen. Like many other Andersen's fairy tales , this one also addresses the small happiness of simple, good people and is humorous and ironic. The girl's search takes place in dream-like scenarios.

action

Small sheet of postage stamps from the GDR 1972

A long, long time ago a devil created a mirror that made everything beautiful and good look distorted and ugly. “The most beautiful landscape looked like boiled spinach.” Evil was well shown in it. One day, however, the mirror fell out of the devil's hands and shattered into many thousands of pieces, large and small, which, depending on how people used them, caused a lot of trouble and confusion. If they met you in the heart, it was as cold as ice, and if they met you in the eyes, everything around him was nothing but ugly and evil. So the splinters of the magic mirror spread over the whole world.

For the neighbors' children Kay and Gerda, there is nothing better in summer than playing and dreaming under the rose bush of a planter that stands on the extremely large shared gutter of two urban houses. The orphan Kay is hit by splinters from the magic mirror: a splinter hits his heart, which turns into a lump of ice. Another splinter catches his eye and he only finds the beautiful ugly. Not only does he immediately tear off the roses that he thinks wormy, he mocks Gerda, is rowdy towards anyone who means well with him, and joins street boys.

In winter, the boys' greatest fun is hanging their sledges onto passing carriages. When the magnificent carriage with the beautiful white furry snow queen drives by, Kay hangs on and is kidnapped. The queen pulls him into the carriage with her. The coldness of their kiss almost kills him, but he doesn't feel it. He succumbs to her cold beauty and proudly babbles “that he can even do mental arithmetic with fractions”. Now he lives in a cold dream in their palace.

When he is still not back in the spring, Gerda decides to look for him. In a boat she drifts down a large river for hours until she ends up with a good magic fairy, an old woman who lives in a little house surrounded by beautiful summer flowers. She is lonely and lets Gerda forget her plan, so that she spends many months carefree in the garden. When she remembers and flees the eternal summer garden, it is already late autumn.

In the course of her search, she comes to a royal castle thanks to the help of two crows. The prince and princess, who are touched by their story, dress her in winter clothes, including a muff , and provide her with a golden carriage with servants for her onward journey.

In a forest the coach is ambushed by robbers and all servants are murdered. The robber mother wants to roast Gerda, but she has a wild daughter who is fascinated by Gerda's clothes and also her natural grace and who takes the helpless girl into her care, not without tickling her with her long knife. It too can be softened by Gerda's story. She gives Gerda her favorite reindeer , who is very happy to have escaped the knife game, and lets her move on.

With the help of wise women, a Lappin, then a Finn, Gerda finally finds the Castle of the Snow Queen, a collection of hundreds of empty cold ice rooms, all illuminated by the cold northern lights. In the largest room, which is several miles long, is the queen's throne. Here Kay, almost frozen black from the cold, which he does not feel because of his lump of ice in his heart and the queen's kiss, is dragging sheets of ice around and tries in vain to put the word " eternity " down. The queen promised that this word would make his freedom possible. But he doesn't know how to do it, because the splinter in the eye prevents it. So, like in a bad dream, he is constantly laying puzzling patterns.

That's how Gerda finds him. Kay doesn't even recognize her. Gerda cries for him and the tears melt his ice heart and the splinters disappear. The word "eternity" appears of its own accord and the two can move away. When they finally get home, they have grown up.

First illustration by Vilhelm Pedersen

criticism

This “fairy tale in seven stories” found little resonance in Denmark and was presented as unsuitable for children. In Germany the fairy tale was published in 1846 with illustrations by Otto Speckter . Some reviews were praiseworthy, others criticized the lack of “naivety and natural truth”.

Edits

Film adaptations

  • 1957: The Snow Queen (Sneschnaja korolewa) , USSR, cartoon, director: Lew Konstantinowitsch Atamanow
  • 1964: The Snow Queen , BR Germany, TV film, director: Wolfgang Spier
  • 1967: The Snow Queen (Sneschnaja Korolewa) , USSR, fairy tale film, director: Gennadi Kasanski
  • 1975: The Snow Queen , GDR, theater recording of the GDR television from the Berlin Theater of Friendship , director: Heiner Möbius.
  • 1986: The Snow Queen (Lumikuningatar) , Finland, fairy tale film, director: Päivi Hartzell, who added a framework story to the fairy tale
  • 1995: The Snow Queen , USA, cartoon, directed by Martin Gates
  • 2002: The Snow Queen , USA, fairy tale film, director: David Wu
  • 2010: Lumekuninganna , Estonia, feature film, director: Marko Raat, in which the Snow Queen is portrayed as a terminally ill woman
  • 2012: The Snow Queen - Enchanted by Ice Cold , Russia, animated film (there are two sequels - from 2014 and 2017)
  • 2013: The Snow Queen , USA, feature film, director: Rene Perez, future story based on fairytale motifs
  • 2013: The ice queen - Fully unabashedly (Frozen) , USA, computer-animated cartoon from Disney , loosely based on Andersen's story is based
  • 2014: The Snow Queen , Germany / Finland, fairy tale film of the ZDF film series Märchenperlen , director: Karola Hattop
  • 2015: The Snow Queen (Тайна снежной королевы - Tajna sneschnoj korolewy (The Secret of the Snow Queen)) , Russia, fairy tale film, director: Natalja Bondarchuk, freely interprets Andersen's original
  • 2019: Frozen 2 , USA, computer-animated cartoon by Disney , which, like the first part, is loosely based on Andersen's story

Estonian director Marko Raat brought out a new film adaptation, Lumekuninganna , in 2010 , in which the Snow Queen appears as a terminally ill woman.

The Frozen (1938) (Original title: Happy Landing ), American film by Roy Del Ruth , does not deal with the fairy tale, but with a trivial story.

Productions and literary arrangements

In addition to the numerous films and theater productions, musicals, children's operas and many radio plays have been staged for this fairy tale.

In 1980 Joan D. Vinge published her science fiction novel Snow Queen , the content of which is loosely based on the fairy tale.

On April 28, 2006, the romantic setting by Wolfgang Roese for large choir, symphony orchestra and speaker with over 200 participants had its world premiere in the Freiburg concert hall . There is also a dramatization by the actor and director Wolfram Mehring , which he staged several times himself.

The Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom used the fairy tale in a greatly modified form as part of his novel In the Dutch Mountains (1984). It is told from the perspective of a Spanish road construction inspector who writes books in his spare time and puts a modified version of the fairy tale on paper. This takes place in modern times and in a utopian variant of the Netherlands, which extends far to the south. Similar to the underlying art fairy tale, Nooteboom's novel reflects happiness and beauty, but at the same time also reflects the process of writing and the differences between literary genres. The motto of the book is preceded by a quote from Andersen, and it contains a scene in which the narrator discusses the end of his work with Andersen.

Astrid Lindgren's Ronja the robber's daughter relates to the robber girl from the Snow Queen, who is also more compassionate than her predatory parents and also lives in a "castle that has broken apart".

The first children's opera Die Schneekönigin was written by the German composer Esther Hilsberg in 2002/2003, and it premiered on September 6, 2003 at the Hohenloher Kultursommer Festival. As a result, this children's opera saw over 30 performances at the Halberstadt Theater and over 50 performances at the Cologne Chamber Opera . In January 2012 it was performed at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden .

In cooperation with the Dutch author Sophie Kassies, the composer Daan Manneke transformed the material into a children's opera in 2003, the German premiere of which took place in Hanover in 2010.

Pierangelo Valtinoni created another children's opera, which premiered in Berlin in 2010.

The song Snow Queen (2005) by Subway to Sally deals with the fairy tale on the fringes. The song Queen of Ice (2008) by Alexander Veljanov is inspired by this fairy tale .

In 2004 Frank Castorf staged the fairy tale as My Snow Queen at the Volksbühne Berlin with stage design and costumes by Bert Neumann . In coproduction with the Hans Christian Andersen 2005 Foundation, this was presented dramaturgically in connection with Andersen's autobiography The Fairy Tale of My Life .

The Erfurt composer and producer Leo Sandner ( alias Jens Stümpfl ), student of Wolf-Günter Leidel (Weimar), wrote the music and libretto for a musical Die Schneekönigin .

In 2009 the Snow Queen was performed as a winter musical in Berlin's Friedrichstadtpalast . The premiere was on November 15th.

In the 2010/2011 season, the musicalbühne in Nuremberg performed its own musical version; the premiere was on November 3, 2010.

In November / December 2010 a theater production ran in the Wiesbaden State Theater ; The piece was brought to the stage especially for children with own compositions.

In December 2011 the production Die Schneekönigin premiered in the children's book theater of the Bavarian State Theater in Munich's Marstalltheater.

On February 5, 2012 the world premiere of The Snow Queen - The Musical took place in Tivoli Freiberg . The production, a musical for the whole family with specially composed songs by Laura Niepold and Sebastian Dierkes , has been touring Germany since then.

The Snow Queen has been on the repertoire of the Theater an der Parkaue in Berlin once every decade since 1957 . The premiere of Susanne Sachsse's production took place in October 2013.

Marius Felix Lange composed the opera Die Schneekönigin as a commission from the Junge Oper Rhein-Ruhr , the world premiere took place on April 23, 2016 in the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Duisburg.

In November 2016 the children's musical Die Schneekönigin and the search for happiness had its premiere in the Wintergarten Berlin. Not only the book, but also the newly composed music and lyrics come from Bijan Azadian .

In 2018 David Philip Hefti wrote a semi -staged musical story on behalf of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich for its 150th anniversary. The libretto is by Andreas Schäfer (writer) . The world premiere took place on November 11, 2018 in the Tonhalle Maag Zurich.

In February 2019 the Dance Academy Schweinfurt brought a version staged by Nathalina Maldonado herself as a ballet in three acts on the stage of the Schweinfurt Theater.

The Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen wrote the libretto for his first opera Snedronningen ( The Snow Queen ) together with Henrik Engelbrecht . This opera was premiered in the Danish-language version on October 13, 2019 in Copenhagen. The English language version was translated by Amanda Holden and premiered on December 21, 2019 at the Bavarian State Opera.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Perlet, Gisela: Hans Christian Andersen, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2005, p. 112
  2. ^ Joan D. Vinge: The Snow Queen (German: Die Schneekönigin. Heyne, 1983, ISBN 3-453-30880-8 ).
  3. ^ State Opera Hanover: YOUNG OPERA. Retrieved January 3, 2011 .
  4. ↑ The Snow Queen. To the piece. . Schedule text of the Hamburg State Opera from February 19, 2011. Online at hamburgische-staatsoper.de.
  5. ↑ Program of the Dresden Youth Symphony Orchestra March 2013 for several performances in February / March in the Dresden Lodge
  6. ↑ Praise the flake master. In: Berliner Zeitung. Retrieved August 9, 2015 .
  7. ↑ My Snow Queen. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 16, 2015 ; accessed on August 9, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.volksbuehne-berlin.de
  8. ↑ Website of the musical stage. Retrieved November 9, 2010 .
  9. ↑ The Snow Queen. Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, accessed on November 27, 2010 .
  10. ↑ Production website. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; Retrieved December 10, 2010 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.bayerischesstaatsschauspiel.de  
  11. ↑ The Snow Queen - The Musical . Musical production website. Online at schneekoenigin-musical.de, accessed on January 19, 2020.
  12. ↑ Theater an der Parkaue, The Snow Queen. Retrieved August 12, 2013 .
  13. ↑ The Snow Queen | DET KGL. TEATER. Retrieved October 5, 2019 .
  14. ^ Bavarian State Opera: THE SNOW QUEEN. Retrieved October 5, 2019 .

literature

Web links

Commons : The Snow Queen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files