Hamburg theater dispute
Hamburg Theater Dispute (now also: Hamburg Theater Dispute) is the name given to two historical disputes about opera and drama in Hamburg . In the first dispute, 1677–1688, it was mainly about the question of the moral permissibility of opera and drama in general, and in the second one in 1768 and 1769 specifically about the question of the participation of clergy as visitors and authors. In both cases the dispute was conducted with great journalistic effort and public sympathy.
First Hamburg theater dispute
Even before the opening of the Hamburg Opera on Gänsemarkt , today's Hamburg State Opera , on January 2, 1678 as the first public opera house in Germany, there was a heated argument. At the opening, the singspiel Adam and Eve or The Creator, Fallen and Erected Man was performed by Johann Theile . This religious subject was actually intended as a concession to the part of the Hamburg pastors influenced by Pietism , which strongly opposed this secular institution. The proponents of the opera among the Lutheran Orthodox pastors took for this party. The dispute was fought in the pulpits, in numerous brochures and pamphlets, as well as in church and city bodies such as the Ministry of Spirituality and even the city's senate. On the one hand stood the Pietists like Abraham Hinckelmann , Johann Winckler , chief pastor to St. Michaelis , and Johann Heinrich Horb , chief pastor to St. Nicolai , who fundamentally rejected opera and plays. Anton Reiser , senior pastor at St. Jacobi , was the first in 1681 to polemicize against the theater in a pamphlet entitled Theatromania . In it he condemned all kinds of acting as products of madness and as works of darkness . On the other side stood Heinrich Elmenhorst , the deacon (second pastor) of the Katharinenkirche, one of the founders of the opera and himself a librettist, and from 1686 Johann Friedrich Mayer , the Lutheran-Orthodox -minded successor of Reiser as the main pastor of St. Jacobi. Even Christoph Rauch , supposedly one of the actors, picked up with an answer to Reiser entitled Theatrophania in addressing one.
The dispute seemed to have subsided at first. But in 1686 the operas were banned by a resolution of the citizens, but allowed again in July of the same year by the council and the college of the elders . Then the senior Johann Winckler , who was called to Hamburg in 1684, gave sermons against the opera; the newly introduced senior pastor Mayer and Elmenhorst contradicted him. Operas were given again in Hamburg as early as 1688; In the same year Elmenhorst published his defense text Dramatologia antiquo-hodierna , in which he showed that the operas played in Hamburg cannot be compared with the pagan plays rejected by the church fathers and should be viewed as adiaphora , which in themselves are neither good nor bad . Adiaphora are under the joint responsibility of government and church. The opera was rightly allowed by the council as long as it was not misused.
Elmenhorst then gave a definition that has become classic:
“But what is an opera of which there is a dispute? An opera is a singing game / presented on the show-place / with suitable equipment / and decent manners / to appropriate pleasure of the mind / exercise of poetry / and continuation of music. "
More recent research assumes that Elmenhorst was referring to the ideas of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz , which the latter had presented in 1681 in a letter to Polycarp Marci , one of the Hamburg librettists.
Second Hamburg theater dispute
The occasion for the second theater controversy eighty years later, which was not about the opera but about the morality of the German theater at the time, was given by Johann Ludwig Schlosser , a young pastor in Bergedorf. As a student he had already written a number of comedies and plays that friends had brought to the Ackermann stage as manuscripts . His anonymity was not respected. These pieces were published in print in 1767 and 1768 and received rather derogatory reviews, with one of the reviewers mocking the whole clergy on the occasion. First of all, however, the Senior of the Spiritual Ministry, Johann Melchior Goeze, vigorously protested. That, in turn, drove Schlosser to reply. In another round, Schlosser's friend Johann Heinrich Vincent Nölting , the worldly wisdom and eloquence professor at the Academic Gymnasium , entered the dispute and wrote a defense of Schlosser's, which was published three times in a short time. Goeze wrote a reply under the title Theological Investigation of Morality of Today's German Schaubühne and obtained an opinion from the theological faculty of the University of Göttingen , which took his side. On the other hand, malicious satires appeared again . Finally, a Senate order dated November 23, 1769 put an end to the dispute by imposing silence on the parties involved. At the same time, the Hamburg Entreprise's theater business came to an end for financial reasons.
literature
Sources on the first theater dispute
- Anton Reiser: Theatromania, or Die Wercke Der Finsterniß: In which public shows condemned by the old church fathers. Nissen, Ratzeburg 1681.
- Christoph Rauch : Theatrophania. Opposed to the so-called script Theatromania. For the defense of the Christian, but especially their musical operas and the rejection of all pagan and by old church fathers allain show plays. Wolfgang Schwendimann, Hanover 1682.
- Anton Reiser: The conscience-less advocate with his theatrophonia. Lichtenstein, Hamburg 1682.
- Heinrich Elmenhorst: Dramatologia Antiqvo-Hodierna, That is: Report of which opera plays: It is shown / What they were with the Heyden / and how they ... rejected by the Patribus and church teachers / Furthermore, what today's opera Games are, and that they ... are presented for the proper resurrection / and edification in virtue change / Dannenhero by Christian authorities / as means things can well be allowed / and can be seen and listened to by Christians without harming their conscience / for love of truth written. Rebenlein, Hamburg 1688 ( digitized version ).
- Gerhard Schott (Hrsg.): Vier Bedencken leading theological and legal faculties, as well as Mr. Doct. Johann Friederich Mayers ... What to think of these operas. Oehrling, Frankfurt am Main 1693.
Sources on the second theater dispute
- Johann Heinrich Vincent Nölting: Defense of Mr. Pastor Schlossers another attack which happened to him in the 102 piece of the Hamburg News from the Realm of Scholarship from last year. Harmsen, Hamburg 1769.
- Johann Melchior Goeze: Theological investigation of the morality of today's German Schaubühne in general: as well as the questions: Whether a clergyman ... could visit the Schaubühne ... without giving a serious offense. Brandt, Hamburg 1769.
- Johann Ludwig Schlosser: Johann Ludwig Schlosser's pastor in Bergedorf Message to the public: regarding the Hamburg pastor and senior Mr. Johann Melchior Goeze theological investigation of the morality of today's German stage; together with some remarks on the value of this writing. Gleditsch, Hamburg 1769.
- Johann Heinrich Vincent Nölting: Zwote Defense of Mr. Past. Schlosser's, in which Mr. Goeze's investigation of the morality of today's German stage is accompanied with comments. Harmsen, Hamburg 1769.
- Peter Hermann Becker: Attachment to the Zwoten Defense of Pastor Schloßers, published by Professor Nölting. 1769.
- Impartial investigation, whether the message of Pastor Schlosser to the public ... was a refutation of the writing of Mr. Senior Goezens or a pasquil? : In addition to the theological reports requested. Altona 1769.
Secondary literature
- Ferdinand Barth: Theater. In: Theological Real Encyclopedia . Volume 33, p. 191.
- Johannes Geffcken : The first dispute about the admissibility of the drama, 1677 - 1688. In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History. 3 (1851), pp. 1-33 ( digitized version ).
- Johannes Geffcken: The dispute over the morality of the theater in 1769 (Goeze, Schlosser, Nölting). In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History. 3 (1851), pp. 56-77 ( digitized version ).
- Gisela Jaacks : Hamburg zu Lust und Nutz: bourgeois understanding of music between the Baroque and the Enlightenment (1660–1760). Verl. Association for Hamburg History, Hamburg 1997 (publications of the Association for Hamburg History; 44), ISBN 3-923356-80-3 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Ulrich Leisinger : Leibniz reflexes in the German music theory of the 18th century. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1994 (Pommersfeldener contributions 7), ISBN 3884799355 , p. 17f.