Karl Töpfer (writer)

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Portrait of Karl Potter in the gazebo, 1870, booklet 19
The Nestor of German stage poetry in the last phase of his life

Karl Töpfer , also Carl Töpfer or Karl Friedrich Gustav Töpfer , (born December 26, 1792 in Berlin , † August 22, 1871 in Hamburg ) was a German theater specialist, dramaturge and publicist .

Life

After attending grammar school, the son of an archivist joined a troupe of actors wandering around Mecklenburg-Strelitz , but soon returned to his father, who got him an engagement at the city ​​theater in Breslau . On the recommendation of the actress Henriette Hendel-Schütz , he switched to the Brno City Theater , from which he was recruited by Joseph Schreyvogel after just one year . On May 9, 1816 he made his debut at the Vienna Burgtheater as Herr von Bern in Karl Schall's play The Interrupted Whist Part and in the role of Rittmeister Dorl in Kotzebue's Der Educationsrath .

With Töpfer, Schreyvogel had brought not only a capable actor and director, but also a capable dramatist to the metropolis of the Danube monarchy. The first stage work with which he was able to attract the attention of a wider audience was the play Hermann und Dorothea , staged in the Hofburgtheater in 1820 , which is based on Goethe's poem of the same name. The comedies The Best Sound and Free According to Regulations , which were to be found on the theater slips of the most renowned theaters in German-speaking countries for years , also met with general approval . The premiere of Hermann and Dorothea , which was also attended by Emperor Franz and his wife Karoline Auguste von Bayern , was such a success that the news reached Weimar , where the aged Goethe found words of praise for the author. But the poet prince also had a slight criticism to make:

“Also tell the author that he would take the copies too easily; he doesn't read it through at all - a whole line is missing in the copy, which turns the sense into nonsense, but I have put this line into it. "

After this debut as a playwright, Töpfer withdrew from the stage in order to devote himself to literary studies in Göttingen . He was able to successfully complete this with a dissertation on the Greek tragedy poets Aeschylus , Sophocles and Euripides , so that he received his doctorate in philosophy on June 7, 1822 at the Georg August University .

In February 1824 he dissolved his contractual obligations to the Burgtheater and settled in Hamburg, where he worked as a writer, publisher and publicist until his death on August 22, 1871. He ran Thalia magazine for seven years . With his brother-in-law, Hans Georg Lotz , he published a riddle allmanac and a journal with the cumbersome title Originalien from the realm of truth, art, whim and fantasy , which he continued after his death. From 1852 he published the weekly newspaper Der Recensent , with which he wanted to counter the decline in the art of acting.

In addition to his work as an editor and publisher, he continued to write comedies, antics and pranks for the stage - at the end of his life there should have been a total of 24 dramatic works that he put on paper.

Of the epic works , the drawings from my Wanderleben (1823), as well as the novellas and stories (2 vols., 1842–44) should be mentioned.

Töpfer also earned merit by heading a dramaturgical institute in Hamburg.

music

Töpfer also excelled as a guitar virtuoso . He kicked u. a. in Vienna (1816 and 1824), Breslau and Hamburg and from 1820 gave various guest performances in northern Germany . He also left some compositions , most of which were published by Verlag Paez (Berlin) in 1811: Variations op. 1 for guitar alone, Quodlibet op. 2 for guitar alone, triangle waltz for 2 guitars. At Verlag Förster (Breslau) he also published 5 songs with guitar accompaniment op.3.

Appreciation

The publisher Hermann Uhde published Potter's most important theatrical works in 1873 as Collected Dramatic Works . (4 vols.) They have outgrown the time for which they were written and are no longer played today. In the Burgtheater, which has seen more than 600 performances, one of his plays was performed for the last time in 1887. Because of his dexterity and dexterity in formal terms, his knowledge of the requirements of the stage and the fine, quick and easy dialogue that characterizes his works, Töpfer was one of the best German comedy poets of his time, even if he lacked that amount of ingenuity that would be necessary to include him in the club of the very big in his field. His contemporaries already knew that he often took his ideas from the works of foreign authors, which he translated and "happily managed to make his property".

Personal

Töpfer was with Friederike v. Hafften from Bülow in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, with whom he lived happily for almost 40 years. One son who emerged from this marriage was a lawyer in Hamburg. He died the same year as his father. His sister Henriette was the wife of the Hamburg writer Hans Georg Lotz

Although his dramatic works were topical after his death and were played a lot, Töpfer did not leave any significant fortune, which can be explained by the fact that the protection of intellectual property in a work was still very weak at the time. When the North German Confederation first passed a law on June 11, 1870, which granted the right to perform a dramatic, musical or dramatic-musical work in public exclusively to the author (alternatively his legal successor), this was of little use to the Töpfer couple. On the one hand, ideas abroad were not covered by the protective effect (a significant part of this was attributable to Austria) and, on the other hand, there was also a lack of the financial means that would have been necessary to be able to assert claims at least in one's own country. Since the new law also protected works that were written before it was enacted, the widow tried to get all theater directors in Germany to write to her to agree on the definitive acquisition of her husband's poems. The reactions to it were subdued. Taking into account the difficult financial situation of the Töpfer family, the Thalia Theater (Hamburg) organized a benefit performance on January 20, 1871, the proceeds of which were left to the poet in full. Töpfer has been supported by the Schiller Foundation since 1864 . When, after the writer's death, the foundation's board of directors expressed their intention to initially limit this meager support to the widow and then withdraw it entirely, he was sharply criticized in the press. With the death of Friederike Töpfer on March 28, 1873, the foundation was finally relieved of its payment obligation.

In the last years of his life, Töpfer suffered from deafness. He died at the age of 79 and was buried in the Michaelis churchyard in Hamburg . The inscription "rest for the weary" was placed on his tombstone.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quoted from Hermann Uhde: In memory of Karl Töpfer. (From German theater history, part 1) in: Die Presse, May 20, 1871, p. 2
  2. ^ Wiener Zeitschrift September 6, 1828, p. 6
  3. ↑ Der Humorist, February 9, 1844, p. 3 and Signals for the Musical World 1852, title page issue 6, p. 47
  4. ↑ Different numbers are mentioned in the literature.
  5. ^ Pictures for literary entertainment, November 2, 1871, p. 14
  6. ^ Robert Schumann: Diaries, Volume III Household Books Part I 1837-1847 , edited by Gerd Neuhaus, p. 923, Leipzig 1982
  7. ^ Josef Zuth: Handbook of the Lute and Guitar , Vienna 1926
  8. ↑ Grazer Tagblatt, August 26, 1896, p. 4
  9. ^ Neue Freie Presse, June 4, 1887, p. 11
  10. ^ New foreign paper, August 25, 1871
  11. ^ Uhde, Part 1, 1871
  12. ↑ The Intermediate Act, January 24, 1970, p. 3)
  13. ^ New Foreign Gazette, March 16, 1871, p. 14
  14. ^ Neue Freie Presse November 8, 1871, p. 6 and March 28, 1873, p. 9; and: Wiener Zeitung March 15, 1873, p. 4
  15. ↑ Blätter für Musik, Theater und Kunst, September 1, 1871, p. 4 and Wiener Zeitung, March 15, 1873, p. 4
personal data
SURNAME Potter, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Potter, Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actor, playwright and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH December 26, 1792
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH August 22, 1871
Place of death Hamburg