Love stories and marriage matters
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| Title: | Love stories and marriage matters |
| Genus: | Posse with singing in Drey Acten |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Johann Nestroy |
| Literary source: | Patrician and Parvenu by John Poole |
| Music: | Michael Hebenstreit |
| Publishing year: | 1843 |
| Premiere: | March 23, 1843 |
| Place of premiere: | Theater an der Wien |
| Place and time of the action: | The action takes place in a village some distance from the capital, partly in the inn, partly in the house of Herr von Fett |
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Love stories and marriage matters is a farce with singing in three acts by Johann Nestroy . The play was written in 1843 and had its world premiere on March 23 of this year as a “benefit performance” for the poet.
content
Old friends meet in the “Silver Rappen”: the penniless merchant's son Anton Buchner, who after 2 years of traveling around wants to marry his lover Fanny, the daughter of the former meat-smoker and now rich particulars Florian Fett, and Alfred, the son of Marchese Vincelli, who is incognito works as a secretary at Fett. Alfred is in love with Ulrike and fears that his father will not consent to the wedding out of class. The heavily indebted, work-shy rascal Nebel tries to get the single elderly sister-in-law of Herr von Fett, Lucia Distel, but only because of her dowry.
- "[...] but if you don't learn anything and have done nowhere well, if you have a special aversion to work and a universal penchant for fun, and yet you don't give up the idea of being a possible guy, therein lies what grandiose. " (I. Act, 5 th Scene)
Due to a misunderstanding, Fett Nebel thinks he is a tall offspring and ultimately even the son of Marchese Vincelli. This supposedly noblewoman would be very suitable for him as a bridegroom for his daughter. Nebel intrigues to split Anton and Fanny.
When all the mix-ups are finally cleared up, the Marchese agrees to his son's connection, as he recognizes Ulrike as the daughter of his former beloved and believes Alfred's white lie that the wedding had already been concluded in secret. Fett also now agrees that Anton and Fanny get engaged. The exposed fog resigned:
- "Now I have schau'n that my good hostess takes her husband as head waiter." (Act III., 17 th Scene)
Factory history
The plot was modeled on the English posse Patrician and Parvenu (Patrician and Parvenu) by John Poole (1786–1872). This piece had on March 21 in 1835 Theater Royal Drury Lane from London premiere. It was redesigned by Nestroy into a piece that describes aristocratic class arrogance on the one hand and neo-capitalist arrogance on the other with sharply caricaturing satire. Nestroy named a second, non-verifiable source during the preparatory work with the note "Scene nach Ogl" (= original) without further details; it could have been a contemporary (newspaper) anecdote. The work was written just a few months after the not very successful play The Devil's Papers (first performance on November 17, 1842).
After the theater bill of the premiere, Johann Nestroy played the fog, Wenzel Scholz played the particular Florian Fett, Alois Grois the Marchese Vincelli, Ignaz Stahl the landlord , Eleonore Condorussi the chambermaid Philippine.
An original manuscript in Nestroy's handwriting is just like the clean copy of the nebula couplets in II. Act, 8 th scene preserved. The fascicle of mist couplets (voice and text) in II. Act, 8 th scene and III. Act, 8 th scene is preserved only in a recording by another hand.
Contemporary reception
The contemporary criticism was predominantly positive, wrote Der Collector on March 25, 1843 (p. 190 f.):
- “If you now consider that the dialogue is full of wit, satyrs, piquant ideas and comical punch lines, and this especially in those scenes where Mr. Nestroy himself is involved, that furthermore the latest couplets of this evening are among the most successful, which the pen of the genius folk poet ran out of pen, and that finally the main roles were in the best hands, it will be easy to explain to each of our kind readers that this novelty had a shiny sauce, and was very well received. "
Neither in this review nor in the one published on the same day in Wanderer (p. 190 f.) Was it mentioned - probably out of ignorance - that the original was an English comedy . The wanderer calls Nestroy the "sole ruler in the realm of Jokus" .
The reviewer of the Sunday papers , Dr. Wagner, who stated on March 26th (p. 301 f.) That it was not worth discussing the contemporary “antics shallowness” , from which Nestroy's play is no exception. The content is "completely unfounded" , a "threadbare material" on which the poet wasted an "inexhaustible abundance of his wit and humor" - after all, ultimately a compliment for Nestroy.
The criticism in Adolf Bäuerle's Wiener Theaterzeitung on March 27 (p. 331) was, as almost always, full of praise. Bäuerle was the first and only one to give the correct name of the English source, he only encountered the unfortunate outcome for the main character Nebel, which actually hardly ever happened with Nestroy:
- “The audience doesn't like to see the comic main hero of the play disappearing so without a trace at the end, when he has to pull off with a long nose, when he is, as it were, rejected, and drowns while the secondary characters are showered with happiness and joy. The speaker would have thrown Mamsell Lucie Distel with her 40,000 florins at the neck of the funny Kauz Nebel without decency . "
In contrast, the Viennese magazine of March 27 (p. 485 f.) Called Nebel a “rag” who lacks “the victory of the better” and was also bothered by the “mockery of the nobility” .
Later interpretation
Fritz Brukner and Otto Rommel did not know the English source in 1928. They indicate that the individual motifs of the piece recur countless times in the tradition of the old Viennese folk theater . The great success with the public is mentioned as well as the "strangely colorless" nature of the contemporary newspaper reviews. Even the “audacity of the eavesdropping scene” remains unmentioned, the protest about the satirizing of the nobility is particularly linked to the outrating design of the Marchese Vincelli by Mr. Grois. Nestroy's preliminary censorship notes indicate that he himself has already deleted some passages that he considered dangerous.
According to Franz H. Mautner, Nestroy made a broad-based statement against capitalist attitudes and class conceit from the submission by John Pool. The piece especially shows the virtuosos of language in ingenious word creations and wit, the entanglement, connection and disentanglement of numerous concurrent actions that would be taken to extremes. Admittedly, the treatment of the old maid Lucia Distel is impudent, while Nestroy's new feature is the exclusion of the cynical main character Nebel from the general happy ending.
Helmut Ahrens points out that this farce with all its wicked sentences about love, marriage and affection is "by no means an admission of a hapless marriage-like community" (quote) with his partner Marie Weiler , it is rather directed against aristocratic arrogance and the grandiose G ' schaftelhuberei the nouveaux riches (new rich). Since there were not so few of the circles he apostrophized in the audience, the great applause was all the more remarkable. The poet castigates egotistical human nature in the monologue of the opportunist Nebel played by him:
- “I will now go to marriage and meet all aesthetic requirements; my chosen one is rich and that is not without Unliebenswürdigkeit, so I close a marriage of convenience, a money marriage and at the same time a marriage of inclination, because I have an infinite inclination to money. ' " (I. Act, 5 th Scene)
literature
- Helmut Ahrens: I'm not auctioning myself off to the laurel. Johann Nestroy, his life. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-7973-0389-0 .
- Fritz Brukner / Otto Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. Historical-critical complete edition, eleventh volume, published by Anton Schroll & Co., Vienna 1928.
- Jürgen Hein (Ed.): Johann Nestroy; Pieces 19. In: Jürgen Hein / Johann Hüttner : Johann Nestroy, Complete Works, Historical-Critical Edition. Jugend und Volk, Vienna / Munich 1988, ISBN 3-224-16901-X ; Pp. 1-84, 113-234.
- Franz H. Mautner (Ed.): Johann Nestroys Komödien. Edition in 6 volumes, Insel Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 1979, 2nd edition 1981, 4th volume.
- Otto Rommel: Nestroy's works, selection in two parts, Golden Classics Library, German publishing house Bong & Co., Berlin / Leipzig / Vienna / Stuttgart 1908; Part 1, pp. 313-381, Part 2, pp. 357-358.
Web links
- Content on nestroy.at/nestroy-stuecke/47
Individual evidence
- ↑ means Vienna
- ^ Particulier = French: private citizen, reindeer
- ^ Marchese = Italian nobility title between Count and Duke, see Margrave # Italy
- ↑ Wächter, Wachter = community servant with police function
- ↑ (die) Gaudée = Viennese for joy, entertainment, pleasure; from the synonymous vulgar Latin gaudia (fem.)
- ^ Jürgen Hein: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 19. P. 12.
- ^ Jürgen Hein: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 19. p. 84.
- ^ Text in Jürgen Hein: Johann Nestroy. Pieces 19 , pp. 275-317.
- ↑ Parvenu = French: upstart
- ↑ Facsimile of the theater slip in Jürgen Hein: Johann Nestroy. Pieces 19 , p. 270.
- ↑ Manuscript collection of the Vienna library in the town hall , signature IN 33.340 and IN 33.341 (fair copy of the song).
- ↑ Music collection of the Vienna library in the town hall, call number MH 9054 / c.
- ↑ a b c d e Jürgen Hein: Johann Nestroy. Pieces 19 , pp. 146-156.
- ^ Fritz Brukner / Otto Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. Pp. 622-623.
- ^ Franz H. Mautner: Johann Nestroys Komedien. P. 318.
- ↑ inclination = slope; from the Latin inclinare (to) to incline, to incline
- ↑ Helmut Ahrens: I am not auctioning myself off to the laurel. P. 252