The bound imagination
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| Title: | The bound imagination |
| Genus: | Original magic game in two acts |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Ferdinand Raimund |
| Music: | Wenzel Müller |
| Publishing year: | 1828 |
| Premiere: | January 8, 1828 |
| Place of premiere: | Theater in the Leopoldstadt , Vienna |
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The bound imagination is an original magic game in two acts by Ferdinand Raimund . The premiere took place on January 8, 1828 as a benefit event for the poet in the theater in the Leopoldstadt .
content
A year ago, the evil sorcerers Vipria and Arrogantia came to the kingdom of Queen Hermione to disturb the peace. On this island of flowers, all residents are poets, even the cobbler, as the court poet rhymes:
- "His bold spirit is related to Apollo,"
- "His lyre is immediately covered with cobbler thread." (First act, second scene)
The oracle of Apollo proclaims that Hermione must marry one of her worthy partners, this is the only way to drive away the magic sisters. Affriduro proposes the king of Athunt to her, but she loves the mysterious shepherd Amphio - who is actually the son of this king - and has also sworn to marry only one poet. When Hermione tries to amicably resolve the conflict with the sisters, they enraged the island and all courtiers flee cowardly. Thinking of the wonderful poems Amphios, Hermione announces that she will marry the one who will write the most beautiful poem for her:
- "To him I still give my hand to-day who, until the seventh hour chimes, invents a poem that is worth more than all others." (Act 1, ninth scene)
To prevent this from happening, the magic sisters capture the imagination so that no one can put together a poem. Then Vipria conjures up the coarse harpist Nachtigall from his Viennese suburban inn onto the island and orders him to take part in the poetry competition. Since no one can bring together a beautiful verse because of the tied up imagination, all poets ask that the competition be postponed. The fool mocks the court poet:
- "O you Hercules of all poets, I wriggle in the dust and admire your incompetence." (Act two, scene six)
Amphio can no longer write poetry either and now the nightingale comes disguised as an English menestrel to win. His poem is horrific - but there is no opponent. But the imagination is freed by Jupiter and can help Amphio to victory at the last moment. He reveals himself to be the son of the King of Athunt. When the magic sisters want to crush the two lovers under the ruins of the Temple of Apollo, the god himself appears and banishes Vipria and Arrogantia to the Orcus . The island of Flora is again transformed into a flower garden and Nachtigall is named the second court jester because of his joke:
- "I am the one who sings and the one who speaks, I hope that you will be satisfied with both of them." (Act two, twenty-first scene)
Factory history
In the order in which it was composed, this work is Raimund's fourth, but in the order in which it was performed it was the fifth, as it was finished on September 24, 1826, but remained there for two years and Moisasur's Zauberfluch came on stage beforehand (1827).
Raimund had also written this piece in response to the recurring suspicions that none of his previous works had been created without outside help, in order to prove "that one can also make up an innocent poem without being a scholar." Especially his inadequate ones Humanistic education had been accused of his critics. A passage in the Bound Fantasy also points to this point:
- “Scholarship does not write a poem. Knowledge is a golden treasure that rests on solid ground, but only the phoenix's imagination takes us into the realm of lovely songs . ” (Act II, twelfth scene)
He called the work an original magic game to make it clear that he thought up the subject himself without using a literary model. The piece corresponds to the classic demand for the “unity of time and action” , less that of space.
The poet thought of the shackling of the imagination as a punishment for Amphios and Hermione's presumptuous attitude towards their surroundings - only the hopelessness of their situation distracts them from this wrong path. Amphio, distichon and nightingale embody the different varieties of poetry: the deliberately demanding, the empty artificial and the grossly comical penniless style. Nachtigall and the Fool are responsible for the comedy of the play, which is limited to episodes, Nachtigall is at the same time a caricature of the folk in its primitive, brazen, coarse and cowardly manner, but not really bad, with healthy motherly wit and quick-wittedness. He embodies the cheeky court jester, the jester Muh rather the Shakespeare type at the court of the poet queen.
Raimund succeeded best in the realistically described tavern scenery, which Franz Grillparzer also noted: “In the comic, you have more freedom and create shapes.” The tavern life in Vienna was extraordinarily developed - in 1803 alone in the suburb of Neulerchenfeld there were 103 inns of 157 houses. The harpists were crowd pullers, but their songs became so indecent over time that, in the words of a contemporary reporter, "the half-innocent daughters blush, while the naughty boys hardly bring these popular songs off their dirty lips."
Raimund played the harpist Nachtigall, Friedrich Josef Korntheuer the fool, Franz Tomaselli the cobbler, Therese Krones the fantasy, Katharina Ennöckl the magic sister Vipria.
Contemporary reception
Criticism tended to reject the play; Raimund was accused of having false ambition that the work, with its high-language passages, did not fit into Vienna's suburban theaters .
Nevertheless, there was a certain stage success, to which Wenzel Müller's music apparently had not contributed. The Allgemeine Musikzeitung wrote on February 8th:
- “The music, instead of livening up the popular moments, has a rather detrimental effect on them. What one does not trust the humorous composer is sober, colorless, leaves you cold and even lacks refreshing, folk melodies. "
Later interpretations
After Rudolf Fürst , Raimund endeavored to prove himself as a tragedian. That is why he wanted to emulate Shakespeare, but reaching “for the tragedy's wreath” had shown his limits, his talent was elsewhere. For the higher style he simply lacks any natural ability. In the scenes on the romantic island of Flora, he unintentionally slips off again and again as if a parody was intended. The court jester Muh, thought of as a fine satirist, shows dubious buffoons that the poet Distichon becomes a caricature with a false calf, on which even the arrow of the magic sisters ricochets. Even the figures that the poet wanted to draw seriously, tragically, ideally transfigured, had their antics. So the cruel magic sisters would quarrel like precious old maids because Hermione hadn't invited them to tea. The imagination itself is coquettish, applauding, ironic, more like a light-hearted little operetta goddess. It goes through here that Raimund originally wanted to write a soubrette role for Therese Krone, the change to a lyrical figure had completely failed him. And the award song Amphios, the winner's song, would involuntarily have become comical and dust-dry at the same time.
Kurt Kahl is of the opinion that the piece only grabs the audience as soon as the harpist Nachtigall appears, as a deformity that has escaped the Heurigen reality and that the poet devised as a chilling caricature. In her humorous and vicious manner she unintentionally unmask the hollowness of the poetic bogeyman, the magic sisters and their opponents. Raimund once again misunderstood his true strengths, he decided against realism and for what seemed to him to be noble poetry. He had hoped to be able to open the Burgtheater gates with it. The irony is that of all things the figure of the nightingale, in which Raimund reveals his disdain for his existence as a mere folk poet and comedian, gave the play its survival.
Franz Hadamowsky thinks that the upscale Greek-antique level - with the poets' contest reminiscent of the Dionysia of the Athenians and the appearance of the god Apollo himself - is sharply opposed to the local Viennese color of the harpist in the inn. But the success of this link would have been moderate.
In Hein / Mayer you can read that the fettered fantasy contains Raimund's poetic justification. The comic and parodic are either referred to special scenes (in the nightingale appearances) or not used at all (in the case of magical beings and allegories). He is trying to establish a connection between folksy, coarse and mythological-classical styles, without lasting success. Raimund portrayed on the stage the dichotomy between ambitious poetry and successful folk comedy that had repeatedly bothered him in his works.
literature
- Rudolf Fürst (Ed.): Raimund's works. First and second part. German publishing house Bong & Co., Berlin / Leipzig / Vienna / Stuttgart 1908.
- Franz Hadamowsky (Ed.): Ferdinand Raimund, Works in Two Volumes, Volume I, Verlag Das Bergland Buch, Salzburg 1984, ISBN 3-7023-0159-3 .
- Jürgen Hein, Claudia Meyer: Ferdinand Raimund, the theater maker at Vienna. (= Quodlibet. Volume 7). Lehner, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-901749-38-1 .
- Kurt Kahl: Ferdinand Raimund . Friedrich-Verlag, Velber near Hanover 1967.
Web links
- Role index, table of contents and text on ferdinandraimund.at/stuecke/phantasie
- Interpretation of the work by Stephanie Ebert ( Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf ), GRIN Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-638-63916-3 [1]
Individual evidence
- ↑ on the playlist is the spelling fantasy
- ↑ Harpist = musician wandering around with a harp who entertained guests in Viennese taverns
- ^ Prince: Raimund's works. Second part. P. 58.
- ^ Prince: Raimund's works. Second part. P. 68.
- ^ Prince: Raimund's works. Second part. P. 89.
- ^ Prince: Raimund's works. Second part. P. 105.
- ↑ a b c Prince: Raimund's works. Second part. S. LVIII-LXV.
- ^ Facsimile of the theater slip in Hadamowsky: Ferdinand Raimund, Volume I, p. 370.
- ↑ a b Hein / Meyer: Ferdinand Raimund, the theater maker at the Vienna. Pp. 46-48.
- ↑ Kahl: Ferdinand Raimund. Pp. 21-22, 57-63.
- ^ Hadamowsky: Ferdinand Raimund, Volume I. P. 99.
