Friederike Schirmer

FJASchirmer, engraving by Moritz Retzsch

Friederike Antonia Josefa Schirmer , née Friederike Antonie Sofie Christ , (* 1785 in Riga ; † March 31, 1833 in Dresden ) was a German theater actress .

Life

Schirmer was a daughter of the actor Joseph Anton Christ and his wife Isabella Maria Peixoto de Costa . Her sisters Margarethe, Caroline and Josefa later also became actresses.

Schirmer received her first artistic lessons from her parents. With the help of her father, she was able to successfully debut in child roles with the troupe of Joseph Seconda . In 1809 she became a member of the ensemble of the court theater in Dresden, where she met her colleague Daniel Schirmer and soon married him.

With effect from January 1, 1819, Schirmer was hired by General Director Count Heinrich Vitzthum von Eckstädt at the royal Saxon court stage for life. On March 31, 1833, Friederike Schirmer died in Dresden, where she found her final resting place. The writer Theodor Hell wrote a poem on the occasion of her death ( Dresdner Abend-Zeitung , 1833, no. 81, p. 322).

Roles (selection)

• Juliet - Romeo and Juliet ( William Shakespeare )
• Princess - Torquato Tasso ( Johann Wolfgang von Goethe )
• Portia - The Merchant of Venice (William Shakespeare)
• Natalie - Prince Friedrich von Homburg or the Battle of Fehrbellin ( Heinrich von Kleist )

Quote

The writer Ludwig Tieck noted in a review in 1827:

... gifted by nature and grace and a well-sounding organ, through study and diligence of ingenious and educated propriety and expression, her liveliness and character drawing is always amiable and noble - a true artist for the comedy, especially the finer one, which is increasingly popular in our theater is reset.

She succeeds in expressing willfulness , carelessness, delicacy, and everything she dares and tries in the comedy is excellent.

This round, noble tone, this ability to nestle in forms and expression, also gives the artist serious roles, which she often gives with fire and grace ... In tragedy, perhaps tempted by wrong study, she has a solemn, uniform tone who tires. However, they will not surpass many actresses in Germany here either.

literature

• Eduard Devrient : History of German Drama . Langen Müller, Munich 1967 (reprint of the Berlin 1900 edition).
• Ludwig Eisenberg : Large biographical lexicon of the German stage in the XIX. Century . Verlag von Paul List , Leipzig 1903, p. 155, ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• Robert Prölß : History of the court theater in Dresden. From the beginning until 1862 . Baensch publishing house, Dresden 1878.
• Ludwig Tieck : Friederike Schirmer . In: Dresdner Morgen-Zeitung (supplement “Dramaturgische Blätter”) 1827, January, No. 2, Col. 14–15.
• Hermann Arthur Lier:  Schirmer, Friederike . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 31, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1890, p. 785.