The School for Scandal
The School for Scandal (dt .; School for Scandal ) is an English comedy by Richard Brinsley Sheridan . On May 8, 1777 , the play was premiered at the Theater Royal Drury Lane .
Sheridan, who took over the Drury Lane theater from David Garrick in 1776 , wrote the play in a hurry and under tremendous pressure, despite all of this it became the most successful comedy comedy of the 18th century and remains one of the most widely performed English comedies to this day.
He combined two planned comedies that already existed in individual parts so skillfully that the different storylines are seamlessly linked in the completed work.
action
The title refers to a group whose members, for their amusement, have undermined the reputation of innocent people through cunning lies and perfected gossip into high art. At the head of this group is Lady Sneerwell, whose love for the young, immoral, extravagant, but kind-hearted Charles Surface remains unrequited. So she spreads false rumors about an affair between Charles and Lady Teazle in order to destroy his relationship with Maria, the young heroine of the play. She also supports the efforts of his unscrupulous, greedy brother Joseph for the hand of Mary. Joseph courted at the same time Lady Teazle, the young and skilful pretty wife of the old, headstrong, but also sympathetic and loving Sir Peter, whose jealousy he cleverly steers towards Charles.
Sir Peter Teazle gets to know the real facts in the "screen scene" in which Lady Teazle hides behind a screen in front of her husband and Charles in Joseph's apartment. Nevertheless it is discovered by them there. In this scene it becomes clear that she is only flirting with Joseph pro forma because it has become fashionable in her circles to have an affair.
The plot is complicated and astute, and depends on Sir Oliver Surfaces' return from Bengal . This is the rich uncle of the brothers Charles and Joseph, whom they have not seen for sixteen years. Sir Oliver Surface visits both of them incognito to check the true character of his nephews before deciding which of them should take over his property. Finally, Joseph Surface is exposed, who failed miserably. Charles passes the test, his debts are paid by Sir Oliver and the ending shows his nephew Charles and Maria united and the Teazles tried so long to reconcile.
Translations
- The blasphemy school . A comedy in 5 acts. Based on the English of the younger Sheridan von Leonhardi. Berlin 1782.
- German first edition
- The blasphemy school . Comedy in 10 pictures. Edit freely by Wolfgang Hildesheimer . Munich 1962.
- The school for scandal. The blasphemy school . Comedy. English and German. Trans. U. ed. by Traugott Lothar Wullen. Stuttgart: Reclam 1973. (Reclams Universal-Bibliothek. 449.) ISBN 978-3-15000449-4
- The blasphemy school Comedy in 5 acts. Trans. U. arranged by John von Düffel . Berlin: Henschel Schauspiel 1995.
Reception in music
- Samuel Barber composed an overture to The School for Scandal in 1931 . The piece (Op. 5) was Barber's first orchestral work and was premiered in 1932 by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Alexander Smallens.
- Rudolf Stephan Hoffmann (1878–1939) rewrote the text in an opera libretto , which Paul von Klenau performed musically. The comic opera in 3 acts was premiered in 1926 under the conductor Clemens Krauss in Frankfurt am Main .