Frank the Fifth

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Data
Title: Frank the Fifth
Genus: comedy
Original language: German
Author: Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Music: Paul Burkhard
Publishing year: 1959
Premiere: March 19, 1959
Place of premiere: Schauspielhaus Zurich , Zurich
people
  • Frank V.
  • his wife Ottilie
  • his son Herbert
  • his daughter Franziska
  • the authorized signatory Emil Böckmann
  • the HR manager Richard Egli
  • Frieda Fürst
  • the clerk Lukas Häberlin
  • the clerk Gaston Schmalz
  • the counter clerk Theo Kappeler
  • Päuli Neukomm
  • Heini Zurmühl
  • the waiter Guillaume
  • the machine manufacturer Ernst Schlumpf
  • the hotel owner Apollonia Streuli
  • the watch manufacturer Piaget
  • the President Traugott von Friedemann
  • Pastor Moser
  • Mourners
  • servant
  • a nurse

Frank the Fifth (subtitle: Opera from a private bank ) is a musical comedy by the Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt . The music for this was composed by his compatriot Paul Burkhard . The world premiere took place on March 19, 1959 at the Schauspielhaus Zurich .

action

Frank the Fifth runs a bank in succession with his wife Ottilie. The business that can be called criminal is running worse than in the past , primarily due to the increase in public control mechanisms ( computerization ). That's one of the reasons why Ottilie and Gottfried Frank want to give up the business. They raised their two children in so-called sheltered conditions, as their parents' livelihood is not based on inner passion. In the parents' opinion, son and daughter know nothing about the bank's criminal machinations, because Ottilie and Frank have built up a second bourgeois existence in addition to this one, which has almost no connection to their banking activities. However, the parents' assumption proves to be a fallacy. In spite of their good upbringing, the adult children are also familiar with extortionate methods and prostitution. Finally, they take over the bank through a surprise coup, are subsequently denied by their parents and the era of Frank the Sixth begins. In this sense, the piece shows the incompatibility of capital and humanity.

interpretation

The comedy about a private bank, influenced by Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus , stages the impossibility of freedom in a democracy damaged by power and financial interests.

Frank the Fifth was often related to Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera , which Dürrenmatt defended in an interview with Horst Bienek in 1961: “I don't refer to Brecht, but they want to arrest me with Brecht”. In contrast to the Threepenny Opera , the songs in Frank der Fifth “do not place the piece in the general, [...] but in the bearable. [...] In Frank the Fifth , people sing when they lie - in the Threepenny Opera when they speak the truth. ”Nevertheless, Dürrenmatt was convinced that his play“ will have to sail under the false flag of the Threepenny Opera for a long time , that is his fate . "

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinz Ludwig Arnold : Friedrich Dürrenmatt. The classic on stage. Conversations 1961–1970 . Diogenes, Zurich 1996, ISBN 3-257-06111-0 , p. 118
  2. ^ Arnold: Friedrich Dürrenmatt. The classic on stage. Conversations 1961–1970 , pp. 120–121