Komtesse Mizzi or The Family Day

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Data
Title: Komtesse Mizzi or The Family Day
Genus: Comedy in one act
Original language: German
Author: Arthur Schnitzler
Publishing year: 1908
Premiere: January 5, 1909
Place of premiere: Volkstheater , Vienna
Place and time of the action: Garden of the count's villa
people
  • Count Arpad Pazmandy
  • Mizzi , his daughter
  • Egon Prince Ravenstein
  • Lolo Langhuber
  • Philip
  • Professor Windhofer
  • Wasner
  • The gardener
  • The servant

Komtesse Mizzi or The Family Day is a comedy in one act by Arthur Schnitzler , which was preprinted in the Neue Freie Presse on April 19, 1908 and premiered on January 5, 1909 at the Volkstheater in Vienna. In the same year the text was published by S. Fischer in Berlin.

shape

In the play, almost everyone has secrets from everyone. These are gradually revealed. Some things are not spoken directly at all. However, if the viewer thinks about it after the piece, he can guess the essentials. The best example of such a subtle game are the Countess Mizzi and her dad, Count Arpad Pazmandy. For example, the latter is visited by his old friend Egon Fürst Ravenstein. He learns from the visitor that the prince has a 17-year-old son. The boy's name is Philipp. The count is astonished and immediately asks about the boy's mother. The prince is cheating on something and the count helps his friend lie. It later turns out Mizzi is Philip's mother. Grandfather probably knows all this from the start. But nobody explicitly reveals this knowledge - neither the count nor the author Schnitzler. From the behavior of the count, however, his omniscience can be read. Count Arpad Pazmandy helps to pave the way for the late marriage of his daughter, Countess Mizzi, with Egon Fürst Ravenstein. The Count persuades Mizzi to enjoy the North Sea near Ostend for months with his father and son .

content

The 55-year-old Egon Fürst Ravenstein visits the villa of his friend, 61-year-old Count Arpad Pazmandy, and announces the arrival of their son Philipp to his 37-year-old daughter, Countess Mizzi. Mizzi had to give up the child shortly after the birth. The prince had given his son to strangers in Tyrol - far from Vienna, the scene of the action - and always visited once. Meanwhile, Philipp has in Krems the Matura made and the prince has adopted the biological son.

Mizzi, who was disciplined in silence for seventeen years, who knocked out all the promising games, pretends that she “doesn't want to know anything about the boy”. She accuses the child's father of cowardice. At that time, when she had still loved the prince dearly, he had not confessed himself, had put forward his wife, who had suffered from heart disease. Mizzi reminds us: When she was pregnant, she had to hide in “the little house in the forest”. After the blissful wife's death, however, the prince had asked Mizzi twice - ten and then seven years ago - for her hand. Mizzi now rejects the Prince's third request. Philipp arrives with Wasner, the Count's former coachman. Wasner has since founded his own haulage company in neighboring Vienna, most likely with the support of the Count. The prince introduces Mizzi to their son, whom their mother has not seen for seventeen years. Meanwhile, Grandpa Count Arpad rushes to meet his former long-time partner Charlotte Langhuber - called Lolo. The count would like to prevent the former lover from seeing his noble visit. Lolo has never been allowed to enter the Count's charming estate. Now that Lolo is marrying the cabaret owner and homeowner Wasner, the Count has only allowed her to do so once. The count misses Lolo. She goes to the villa. Mizzi and Lolo understand each other immediately. Mizzi regrets not getting to know Lolo from the start. After the death of his wife, the count had neglected his daughter for a long time and instead dealt intensively with Lolo.

The count returns and gives Philip a warm welcome. The boy, who has not fallen on his head, gradually realizes that the fairy tale about his mother's origins “from the people” must be corrected. Mizzi is also reflecting. She takes a liking to Philipp, this cheeky fellow, and finally agrees to the Count's spontaneous vacation plans. It will be a family trip to Belgium by train. The three coupés for Mizzi, the Count as well as the Prince and Philip lie next to each other in the same car.

Quote

  • Regarding a career in the military: "If you experience it, you become a general."

reception

  • Le Rider calls the conversational comedy, presented elegantly and confidently, a small masterpiece.
  • Perlmann describes the social conditions in Mizzi's environment as a "society with a double bottom".
  • For seventeen years, Mizzi bravely refused to overcome the barriers of class. The floral painting, in which she has meanwhile reached the level of Wisinger-Florian , she hangs up and it looks as if she is sailing into the harbor of marriage.

Film adaptations

radio play

Entry 42 in: Radio plays ( Memento from December 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive )

  • “Comtesse Mizzi or the family day”. First broadcast on August 5, 1951. Director: Walter Davy . Rot-Weiß-Rot Studio Vienna.

literature

source
  • Arthur Schnitzler: Countess Mizzi or The Family Day. Comedy in one act . P. 9 to 49 in Collected Works by Arthur Schnitzler in two sections. Second division. The plays in five volumes. Fourth volume. Also contains “ The young Medardus ” and “ The wide land ”. S. Fischer Verlag Berlin. Without a year. 419 pages. Printed by the Bibliographical Institute in Leipzig
First printing and edition
  • Arthur Schnitzler: Countess Mizzi or: The family day. Comedy in one act. Neue Freie Presse, Vienna, April 19, 1908, pp. 31–35. [1]
  • Arthur Schnitzler: Countess Mizzi or The Family Day. A comedy in one act. S. Fischer Berlin 1909. Paperback. 93 pages
Secondary literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nickl, H. Schnitzler, p. 370, entry from 1909
  2. ↑ Source, p. 45, 6th Zvu
  3. ↑ Le Rider, p. 32, 18. Zvu
  4. ↑ Perlmann, p. 49, 4. Zvo
  5. ↑ Sprengel, p. 502, 11. Zvo
  6. ↑ Le Rider, p. 118 middle
  7. ↑ Source, p. 17. Zvo