Intermezzo (Giraudoux)

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Data
Title: intermezzo
Original title: intermezzo
Genus: comedy
Original language: French
Author: Jean Giraudoux
Publishing year: 1933
Premiere: February 27, 1933
Place of premiere: Comédie des Champs-Élysées in Paris
Place and time of the action: Forest clearing near a provincial town in the Limousin , a room in town
people
  • The mayor
  • Isabelle (a teenage teacher)
  • The druggist
  • School council (traveled from Limoges )
  • Sealer
  • Armande Mangebois (girl, student of Isabelle)
  • Léonide Mangebois (girl, student of Isabelle)
  • the ghost
  • Schoolgirl, petty bourgeois

Intermezzo is a 1933 comedy in three acts by Jean Giraudoux , which premiered on February 27, 1933 at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées in Paris under the direction of Louis Jouvet .

action

The action takes place in a provincial town in the Limousin , which is haunted by a ghost, scenes in the game are a clearing in the forest near the town and the main character's room. The main character is the teenage teacher Isabelle, who, out of rapturous feelings, allows herself an intermezzo with an equally youthful spirit, a phantom from the realm of the dead , between a good girl and a modest civil servant .

With fantasy and adolescent romantic longing, Isabelle pushes beyond everyday life into the realm of secrets and harmony with nature. Giraudoux adopts romanticism that feeling is spirit, not in connection with everyday life, and describes the longing for the spirit as a desire for death, from which the urge for proper happiness can be understood as an escape from death.

Not only the pupils, who are taught by her in the open air, can be transported into Isabelle's dream world, the whole city with its small-minded citizens is subject to her magic. For some time the philistines of the small town have behaved in a strange way, as if under the influence of an unknown influence: all bourgeois morality has been turned upside down and honesty and justice rule.

The Mangebois sisters accuse the teacher of being responsible for what happened. In fact, Isabelle is able to meet the phantom every evening. A school councilor from Limoges, the inspector, who specializes in the supernatural, tries to set a trap for the ghost and fails. He embodies the old social order, its rationalism and sense of order, a busybody that Giraudoux characterizes with comedy. The druggist and the sealer are mentally superior to him and act as mediators between the unreal fantasy of Isabelle and the narrowness of the inspector.

The sealer loves Isabelle, who through him finds a new understanding of life, sobering at the end the old and unjust order is restored.

Characters

The world premiere was directed by Louis Jouvet, the scenery and costumes were by Léon Leyritz , and the music was by Francis Poulenc . The German premiere took place under Karl-Heinz Stroux in the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg in 1950, in the leading roles Ruth Leuwerik and Robert Meyn , followed by the Hebbel Theater in Berlin .

expenditure

  • Intermezzo. Comédie en trois actes. Grasset, Paris 1933.
translation
  • Intermezzo. German by Robert Schnorr . In: Jean Giraudoux: Dramas. Volume 1. Fischer, Frankfurt 1961. The volume contains: Siegfried , Amphitryon 38, Intermezzo , No War in Troy , addendum to Captain Cook's voyage , Impromtu de Paris .

literature

  • Kindler's Literature Lexicon on dtv in 25 volumes. dtv, Munich 1974, Vol. 11, pp. 4845-4846.
  • Wilhelm Meier: The principle of the unexpected in Jean Giraudoux. Rhetorical alienation and a precious way of thinking. Academic Publishing House, Frankfurt 1973, ISBN 3-7997-0223-7 .
  • Jean-Bertrand Barrère: Sur Amphitryon 38, Intermezzo, Électre. Grasset, Paris 1976.
  • Colette Weil: Sur Intermezzo. Grasset, Paris 1975, ISBN 2-7080-0420-4 .
  • Henri Gouhier : Le théâtre et l'existence. J. Vrin, Paris 1980, Chapter VI: “Le Merveilleux”, therein pp. 180-183. ( limited preview in Google Book search).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kindlers, Vol. 11, p. 4846.