Iphigenia at Delphi (Drama, 1941)

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Iphigenie in Delphi is a verse drama in three acts by the German Nobel Prize winner for literature Gerhart Hauptmann , which premiered on November 15, 1941, the author's 79th birthday, at the Schauspielhaus Berlin under the direction of Jürgen Fehling with Hermine Körner in the title role. Maria Koppenhöfer gave the Elektra, Bernhard Minetti the Orest, Gustav Knuth the Pylades, Friedrich Kayssler the Pyrkon, Franz Nicklisch the Proros and Ullrich Haupt the Aiakos. The stage music was created by Mark Lothar and the stage design by Rochus Gliese .

This last part of the Atriden tetralogy was the first to emerge - the poet wrote it from July 14, 1940 to September 18, 1940.

In contrast to his great predecessors Aeschylus , Euripides and Goethe , Gerhart Hauptmann designed the well-known material in one point “as a fully valid monument of our time”: “... a liberating look up to the gods” does not want people “to succeed”.

Sprengel writes that the play is about "the return of the Taurian Artemis to the Greek motherland and the reconciliation of Iphigenies , who performed bloody sacrificial services in Tauris, with her blood-stained siblings".

Gerhart Hauptmann on a painting by Lovis Corinth from 1900

overview

It seems as if Gerhart Hauptmann put the events in pagan times under a Christian motto: the pleading plea of ​​the “terribly corrupt human world” to God: “ Forgive us our guilt! ".

The action runs over two days. The action takes place in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi . The three siblings Iphigenie, Elektra and Orestes cannot get together. While Elektra and Orestes seek atonement in the temple “in order to become pure”, Iphigenia jumps of her own free will from the Phedriad rocks to her death.

1st act

Pyrkon, Proros and Aiakos, temple priest of the python slayer Apollo observe alarmed herandrängendes, wrapped in rags "atonement seeking" people. A ship of the Argolic design has moored down in the port of Krisa . The young men Aiakos and Proros calmly talk about the prehistory. The “avenger of his father”, ie the “glorious Orestes”, had killed his mother Clytemnestra - the murderess of Agamemnon - with the sacrificial ax on the orders of the god Apollo . At his atonement - again on behalf of the Lord of Light Apollo - the mother murderer had to move to the land of Tauris of the barbarian king Thoas - located on the Pontos . There he was supposed to steal the image of Artemis from the temple of the death goddess Hecate .

Orestes has fulfilled the delicate task; has successfully pushed himself between two struggling sibling gods - meaning Apollo and Artemis. Among the poorly dressed pilgrims, Elektra walks with the murder weapon, the sacrificial ax, in hand and places the ax on Apollo's altar. From the march over the stony mountains, her feet have become "two lumps of blood and pus". Elektra wants indulgence for her brother Orestes; otherwise the Atreus family would be gone.

Orestes also marches towards the temple of atonement of the helper god Apollo. Elektra cannot recognize the brother, also because he pretends to be the helmsman Theron. The siblings see "the transparent shadow of Clytemnestra". The mother's face is covered in blood. Because Orestes "struck her in the face with the ax". "Helmsman" Orestes puts his oar next to the murder tool on Apollo's altar. Elektra ragingly tears the ax from the altar and searches for the distance, because she believes that brother Orestes fell victim to bloodthirsty Hecate as much as sister Iphigenia during the theft of pictures in Tauris. High priest Pyrkon, who recognized Electra and welcomed him to the sanctuary, orders healing treatment for the insane.

2nd act

Already in the first act the audience was promised the approach of Iphigenia:

“… Orestes now has Loxias
commanded, both - image and priestess -,
and be it by force to bring about ... "

Gerhart Hauptmann does not say a word about the kidnapping until the third act, but Iphigenia soon comes into play. Before that, Pylades appears. He wants to go to the nursing home to see his Elektra.

After the next step in the plot, it is not Elektra and Pylades that appear, but Elektra and Orest - the latter still as the helmsman Theron. The siblings cannot recognize each other at all.

At last Iphigenia appears as the majestic high priestess. Although Elektra and Pylades are present at this first appearance, Iphigenia initially only speaks to Orestes. Only in the last act will Iphigenia talk to her sister. Iphigenia reveals to the brother strange circumstances of her death on the altar of Hecate:

“… I died into the divine
and may not live again in mortals. "

It is clear. The viewer thinks of Iphigenia as a demigoddess . After all, according to her own statement, she became a seer after her rebirth.

3rd act

On the morning of the following day, Iphigenia appears in front of the fair-like crowd of those burdened with guilt, "who seek indulgence". Meanwhile, Orestes is sleeping off in the guest house. Elektra, purified from her paroxysm by healing sleep, strides by the side of her pylade, chatting. Nevertheless, she thinks back with a shudder at the curse of her mind when she swung along at the high priestess - that is, at her older sister Iphigenia. Nevertheless - Pylades goes off and the sisters talk in private. First, Elektra admits her delusion. She wanted to kill Iphigenia with the ax - on the assumption that the high priestess had slaughtered her beloved brother Orestes. Iphigenia forgives. Elektra criticizes the murdered mother. In the marital dispute with Agamemnon she never gave in. Iphigenia admits that she hated all Greeks in Tauris, but allowed Orestes to kidnap her to her hated homeland.

Soon Iphigenia hugs her "sweet little sister". For her part, Elektra confesses her firm intention to marry Pylades. For Iphigenia, she thinks, a suitable man will definitely be found soon.

That will not do. When she was placed in the coffin by the priestesses of Hecate after her second death, Iphigenia swore at the request of Hecate an oath in which she renounced this world. So her dwelling will be the kingdom of Persephone . Iphigenia says goodbye to Elektra forever.

The end of the drama almost has the attribute glorious: Orestes is installed by Apollo as ruler over Arcadia and Sparta , if only Iphigenia's above-mentioned end - shattered in the Phaedriad Gorge - had not been.

Quote

  • Orestes: "... searching forever is ... human."

More premieres

reception

What has been passed down with little certainty about the ancient material and, in some cases, Gerhart Hauptmann's silence give room for interpretation.

  • 1954, Käte Hamburger had contradicted the assertion (for example also made by Meinert in 1964) with two arguments that Iphigenia had taken all the guilt of her close relatives upon her suicide. Firstly, Orestes and Elektra were atoned for suicide and secondly, Iphigenia does not want to take on all the relatives' guilt, but has to die because Apollo and Artemis are on the path of reconciliation and their services as the cruel Hecate priestess in Tauris are therefore not would be needed more. However, Marx writes on the subject: "The tension between the Delphic Apollo and the Taurian Hecate remains." Leppmann mentions two possible intentions of Gerhart Hauptmann when he let Iphigenia jump to her death. Firstly, “the figurative exaltation of the Artemis priestess to the gods” and secondly the “analogy to the crucifixion of Christ in the sense of an atonement”.
  • 1954, Fiedler: Gerhart Hauptmann was partly based on the content of the Eumenides of Aeschylus. Unlike in Iphigenie with the Taurern of Euripides and in Iphigenie auf Tauris by Goethe, Hauptmann puts the emphasis on atonement. While with Aeschylus the protagonists would be chased by the Erinyes , with Goethe mainly suffered mentally. Hauptmann, on the other hand, allows both kinds of torture against humans. The divine elevation of Electra expresses itself in "being outside of oneself". In this context the second meaning of sacer applies : cursed. Man appears as a toy of the gods. For example Orestes murders his own mother and steals the image of Artemis in Tauris - both times on divine orders. Iphigenia's path is also determined by “gods' council”. For Hauptmann, “Iphigenia is a completely sacrificed woman, a death that walks , and only in this state of tooliness could she sacrifice Greek sons without feeling with a steely look.” “Her own hardness suddenly appears to her as a weakness, and she experiences fraternal love in the breakthrough the heartbeat of the mortal world again. There is no turning back for them; for on the one hand she is denied the final elevation to the status of the gods, while on the other hand she would have to suffocate as a human being in the consciousness of her own blood guilt. ”The suicide was Iphigenia's consequence.
  • 1984, Sprengel: Under the heading “A 'goetheferne' Iphigenia”: With Goethe, Iphigenia stands for humanity, while Hauptmann presents an Iphigenia whose essence is linked to the “bloody ritual” of human sacrifice. Iphigenia's apotheosis with Gerhart Hauptmann is consistent with mythological tradition.
  • 1995, Leppmann comments on Gerhart Hauptmann's intention to write, “he did not want to update the old myths ”, but “ archaize and use them again ... as a carrier and expression of archetypal passions ... hence compliance with the rules of classical drama from the iambic verse to the unity of place and of space, hence the preponderance of primitive and violent deities, all of whom seem to come from Hades ... "
  • 1998, Marx: In 1940 Gerhart Hauptmann accidentally came up with the idea of ​​his project "Iphigenie in Delphi" while reading The Italian Journey . And the first draft of the drama - with the exception of the final act - initially largely corresponded with Goethe. Gerhart Hauptmann pull the Homeric - Olympian gods in accordance with Kerényi and Bachofen the chthonic ago.
  • 1998 Santini: Gerhart Hauptmann from February 1940 have to match Greek story of Curtius studied again. The drama is his first successful "Greek project". Regarding the writing intention: Gerhart Hauptmann presented "the spirit of tragedy and the mystery of death and rebirth" in one work as a unit. The author had a “concept of the primal drama” up his sleeve that was also based on the “ antithetical view”. When Iphigenia “describes the mystery of her triple death” towards the end of the drama, Gerhart Hauptmann's interest in orphics played a role.
  • 2012, Sprengel: As early as April 29, 1907, Gerhart Hauptmann undertook an excursion from Piraeus to the location of the drama. He reached Delphi the following day.

literature

Book editions

  • Iphigenia in Delphi. Tragedy. S. Fischer, Berlin 1941
Output used:
  • Iphigenia in Delphi. Tragedy. P. 473-542 in Gerhart Hauptmann: Selected dramas in four volumes. Vol. 4,543 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1952

Secondary literature

  • The atrid tetralogy . P. 76–82 in: Gerhart Hauptmann: Selected dramas in four volumes. Vol. 1. With an introduction to the dramatic work of Gerhart Hauptmann by Hans Mayer . 692 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1952.
  • Iphigenia in Delphi . Pp. 118–126 in Ralph Fiedler (* 1926 in Berlin-Röntgen ): The late dramas of Gerhart Hauptmann. Attempt at an interpretation. 152 pages. Bergstadtverlag Wilhelm Gottlieb Korn , Munich 1954.
  • Gerhard Stenzel (Ed.): Gerhart Hauptmann's works in two volumes. Volume II. 1072 pages. Verlag Das Bergland-Buch, Salzburg 1956 (thin print), pp. 822–823 table of contents
  • Dietrich Meinert: Hellenism and Christianity in Gerhart Hauptmann's atrid tetralogy . Balkema, Cape Town 1964.
  • The atrid tetralogy . P. 247–263 in Peter Sprengel : Gerhart Hauptmann. Epoch - work - effect. 298 pages. CH Beck, Munich 1984 (Beck's elementary books), ISBN 3-406-30238-6 .
  • Wolfgang Leppmann : Gerhart Hauptmann. A biography. Ullstein, Berlin 1996 (Ullstein-Buch 35608), 415 pages, ISBN 3-548-35608-7 (identical text with ISBN 3-549-05469-6 , Propylaen, Berlin 1995, subtitled with Die Biographie )
  • Iphigenia at Delphi (1941) . Pp. 245-252 in: Friedhelm Marx : Gerhart Hauptmann . Reclam, Stuttgart 1998 (RUB 17608, Literature Studies series). 403 pages, ISBN 3-15-017608-5 .
  • Daria Santini: Gerhart Hauptmann between modernity and tradition. New perspectives on the Atriden tetralogy. Translated from the Italian by Benjamin Büttrich. 172 pages. Verlag Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1998 (Diss. University of Pisa 1995, publications of the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Gesellschaft, vol. 8). ISBN 3-503-03792-6 .
  • Peter Sprengel : Gerhart Hauptmann. Bourgeoisie and big dream. A biography. 848 pages. CH Beck, Munich 2012 (1st edition), ISBN 978-3-406-64045-2

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Fiedler writes: "The Temple of Apollo has been reinterpreted by Hauptmann: the seat of the oracle became a place of forgiveness of sins, where guilty people receive indulgences ." (Fiedler, p. 118, 4th Zvo)
  2. ↑ “... Phedriads, rocks from which blasphemers and temple molesters were thrown down. The mountain was sanctified to Apollo, ... "( Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon , vol. 15. Leipzig 1908, p. 462 under Parnassos )
  3. ↑ The “ancient holy image” of Artemis is “three spans high ... It has three heads: horse, dog and lion” (edition used, p. 486, 6th Zvo).
  4. ↑ In the entire tetralogy, not a single god takes the stage. In the case here, Apollo is staying “on Mount Parnassus, and his sanctuaries are located in Delphi” (edition used, p. 496, 12th Zvo).
  5. ↑ For example, Iphigenia is said to have been Artemis herself (Leppmann, p. 269, 4th Zvu).
  6. ↑ Santini writes that Gerhart Hauptmann opposed Goethe's conciliatory stance in the Iphigenia case (Santini, p. 37, 9th Zvu), withdrew from him and concentrated on the sources of the theogony of Hesiod and Pausania , among others . (Santini, p. 36, 11. Zvu)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marx, p. 247, 8. Zvo
  2. ^ Fiedler, p. 123, middle
  3. ↑ Sprengel anno 2012, p. 682, 17. Zvo
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 497, 7th Zvu
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 497, 11. Zvo
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 480, 18. Zvu
  7. ↑ Edition used, p. 486, 12. Zvo
  8. ↑ Edition used, p. 517, 12th Zvu
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 495, 1. Zvu
  10. ^ Marx, p. 249, 19. Zvo
  11. ↑ Marx, p. 245, 10th Zvu
  12. ↑ Hamburger, reproduced in Sprengel anno 1984, p. 251, 5th Zvu
  13. ^ Marx, p. 249, 2nd Zvu
  14. ↑ Leppmann, p. 269, 6th Zvu
  15. ↑ Fiedler, pp. 118-123
  16. ^ Fiedler, p. 120, 7th Zvu
  17. ^ Fiedler, p. 121, 9. Zvu
  18. ↑ Sprengel anno 1984, pp. 250-252
  19. ↑ Leppmann, p. 271.
  20. ↑ Marx, pp. 245-249
  21. ↑ Santini, pp. 33-45
  22. ↑ Sprengel anno 2012, p. 398, 12th Zvu
  23. ^ Iphigenie in Delphi S. Fischer, Berlin 1941