Neither the bay tree nor the beggar's stick
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| Title: | Neither the bay tree nor the beggar's stick |
| Genus: | parodying farce with singing in 3 sections |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Johann Nestroy |
| Literary source: | "Laurel tree and laurel tree or three winters by a German poet ... With an aftermath: Beggar and laurel tree" by Karl von Holtei |
| Music: | Adolf Müller senior |
| Publishing year: | 1835 |
| Premiere: | February 13, 1835 |
| Place of premiere: | Theater an der Wien |
| Place and time of the action: | First division: The action takes place in Vienna Second division: The action takes place in Vienna, one year later than the previous division. Third division: The action takes place in the Brühl, around 20 years later than the second division |
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Neither the laurel tree nor the beggar's stick is a parodying farce with singing in three sections by Johann Nestroy . The piece was written in 1835 and was first performed on February 13 of the same year.
content
- 1. Act: The present
Easily reads his new piece in the salon of the factory owner Steinrötl, bores society and cannot make it attractive to the theater director either. He is toying with Agnes, although he is married and Agnes is engaged to Blasius, who naively trusts her:
- “Yes, it can't be anything either; she has, I do fall g'rad one, dings dader - sworn eternal love, my faith is unshakable. " (1. Act, 7 th Scene)
Leicht's wife Therese and his child live in poverty. Despite her disappointment, Agnes sends him a jokus stick and a large sum of money.
- 2. Act: The wedding day
A year later, Leicht's play Der Zauberschmarn failed at the premiere; so when he starts a fight in the coffee house, he is thrown out. Blasius and Agnes are celebrating their wedding and Leicht, of all people, is supposed to write the wedding poem, but then he doesn't read it out and even assaults Blasius. Since Therese has run away, Agnes decides to take Johann, Leichts' child in, and to be his mother. The ornament easily tears off the Jokus stick and wants to use it as a begging stick.
- "Get out hiking I want in the world, this stick I will bear the eternal Andencken, and so often a Gedancken seems to me to it, I cut it myself so that a 'Fünfundzwanz'ger down." (2nd Act, 17 th Scene)
- 3rd Act: The country party
Twenty years later, Blasius fell completely under Agnes' slipper; In addition to Johann, they also have their own daughter Julie. On a trip to the Brühl, they met in the inn Leicht, who, as "Damischer Hansel", has now become a harpist who is satisfied with his lot. The talkative Überall reveals to Johann that he is not Julie's brother and that they can therefore marry. When Leicht learns that his once disdained play has now been performed a hundred times, he reveals himself to society. But when Agnes and Johann ask him to live with them now, he replies:
- “No, I like it better as a harpist. By the way, if I am 's nit Leb'n more g'freut so come to see you die. " (3rd Act, 10 th Scene)
Factory history
Johann Nestroys model was the play "Laurel tree and beggar or three winters of a German poet ... With an aftermath: Beggar and laurel tree" by Karl von Holtei . The maudlin artist drama, premiered on February 16, 1833 in Berlin , was enthusiastically received by the audience at its Vienna premiere on November 22, 1834 in the Theater in der Josefstadt . The piece laments the fate of a sentimental poet who despises the environment and at the same time consumes himself after its applause. Nestroy used his parody on the one hand to mock the obvious weaknesses of the Holtei drama, on the other hand to show Viennese society its disregard for its bad taste.
This parody went up to the caricaturing of the mannered style of playing Holteis and his wife Julie by Nestroy (as Leicht) and the actress Eleonore Condorussi (as Julie), which was just as cheered by the audience as the original. He let the poet easily express his personal convictions:
- I will not auction myself to the laurel. I want my things to fall, entertain, laugh, and the class should give me money so that I can laugh too, that's the whole purpose. (1st act, 12th scene)
In the person of "the strongest traveler that has ever existed" , the chatty, simple-minded Chrysostom Everywhere, he held up a mirror especially to the complacency and philistinism of his contemporaries.
- Grundl: "You travel non-stop."
- Everywhere: “Always. From Vienna to Fischament, and then again from Fischament to Vienna. " (1st act, 1st scene)
Johann Nestroy played the poet Leicht, Wenzel Scholz the Chrysostomus Überall, Friedrich Hopp the Blasius Grundl, Ignaz Stahl the factory owner Steinröthl, Franz Gämmerler the son Johann, Eleonore Condorussi the daughter Julie and Nestroy's partner Marie Weiler the housemaid Charlotte.
An (incomplete) original manuscript by Nestroy has been preserved, the piece was referred to here as the magic farce , Nestroy had added the addition magic himself, but deleted it again. From some passages it can be seen that the author originally intended the work as the main part of a magic piece. This framework story with Apollo as the main character, in which Nestroy had intended the role of a fat ghost, was eliminated again. In the manuscript, some twists and turns are marked in advance as endangered by censorship and replacement texts are suggested. There are also some proofreaders that I wrote myself, as well as Adolf Müller's original score.
Contemporary review
Nestroy's mocking parody embarrassed the reviewers and the audience, as they had to acknowledge the Holtei work, which they had just praised, as weak.
In the detailed review of the Vienna theater newspaper Adolf Bäuerles on April 16, one could read self-critically:
- "After these words, the speaker must be allowed to make the introductory remark that his view of the original diverges quite a lot from the one expressed earlier in these pages [...]"
The Viennese magazine for art, literature, theater and fashion of February 26, 1835 (No. 25, p. 199 f.) Particularly criticized Eleonore Condorussi's parody of Julie Holtei's playing style (which was also given the significant name Julie ):
- "[...] studied her amiable original in tone, posture, costume, gesture and gait very diligently, only one little thing was missing - amiability".
This parody of actresses was even more violently condemned by Nestroy's sharpest opponent at the time, Franz Wiest, in the Wanderer of February 16 (no. 47, p. 237), while Nestroy, Scholz and Marie Weiler, on the other hand, praised the play as a whole - even if it was rather tortuous Holteis plant.
Later interpretations
Otto Rommel states that Nestroy used this work to express his very personal view of his own poetry and his attitude towards the public (see above). In the sharp rejection of the Holteische sentimental transfiguration of the poet's profession, he speaks clearly on his own behalf: it is better to be “a beer house harpist who fills his place than an inadequate poet with great pretensions” (quote).
In Brukner / Rommel it can be read that Nestroy obviously “had to irritate Holteis insignificant stirring piece […]” (quote). He wanted to counter the cheap sentimentality of the artist's dramas in German late romanticism (1815 to 1848) and the “complete hollowness of the term 'poet' in Holtei's play” (quote) with a cheeky parody that stood out through sovereign contempt for public opinion and defiant self-confidence.
Even Helmut Ahrens thinks Nestroy was sparked by the obscure subject. He emphatically points out how difficult it was for the reviewers of the various theater magazines to have to call their anthemic assessment of Holtei's work - albeit with careful puffing around - wrong. Nevertheless, they would not have wanted to fully understand the ridicule in Nestroy's play, because it also indirectly ridiculed their judgment. The anger over the debacle of his last two pieces ( Der Zauberer Sulphurelectrimagneticophosphoratus as well as Müller, Kohlenbrenner and Armchair Carrier ) - which was, however, caused by the poor quality of the pieces - certainly played an important role in Nestroy's biting scorn of the audience and critics.
Friedrich Walla thinks the name of the piece was a bold challenge, even more so than Robert the Teuxel or Judith and Holofernes , because it not only refers to the piece to be parodied, but also contains criticism of it. At that time, however, it was not infrequently one of the ulterior motives of a parody to reduce the possible success of the competing stage with the original piece - or to hang on to it. For the interpretation of the work, he notes that it is always dangerous to identify the main character of a work with the author or even to classify them as wishful thinking. In this case, this is questionable because a poet who coined the word “I shall have the class a money” would hardly have attacked the taste of his audience in such a biting way. In addition, the work is more of a travesty (the content of a “sublime” piece is drawn down into a lower sphere) than a parody.
The biographer Alfred Moschner defended this author in his work Holtei as a playwright and wrote about Nestroy's parody:
- “Nestroy parodied Holtei's poetry in 'Neither the laurel tree nor the beggar' so foolishly that every word is superfluous. At the time, however, the audience was so enthusiastic about his 'works' that Holtei did not dare to come forward with his play at the Theater an der Wien, where Nestroy ruled. "
text
- Text in nestroy pieces / 27 laurel tree
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, third volume, Verlag von Anton Schroll & Co., Vienna 1925; Pp. 331-410, 537-572.
- Uwe Japp: The German artist drama: From the Enlightenment to the present . Walter de Gruyter, 2004, ISBN 3-11-091332-1 , section: Holtei: Lorbeerbaum und Bettelstab, p. 130–140 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- Franz H. Mautner (Hrsg.): Johann Nestroys Komödien. Edition in 6 volumes, Insel Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 1979, 2nd edition 1981, 1st volume. OCLC 7871586 .
- Otto Rommel: Nestroys Works. Selection in two parts, Golden Classics Library, German publishing house Bong & Co., Berlin / Leipzig / Vienna / Stuttgart 1908.
- Friedrich Walla (Ed.): Johann Nestroy; Pieces 8 / II. In: Jürgen Hein / Johann Hüttner / Walter Obermaier / W. Edgar Yates : Johann Nestroy, Complete Works, Historical-Critical Edition. Youth and People, Vienna / Munich 1979, ISBN 3-216-30312-8 .
Remarks
- ↑ Act instead of division is then used throughout the text
- ^ Brühl , a valley near Mödling in Lower Austria with the district of Vorderbrühl and the town of Hinterbrühl ; the Hinterbrühl is meant here, see 3rd act, 2nd scene: "Wear it only once from Mödling to the rear Brühl [...]" (the distance was about 4–4½ km)
- ↑ reason [e] l = a small species of bream or a perch relative ; here as a parody of the character Privy Councilor v. Reason at Holtei
- ↑ Steinröthl , also Steinrötel = a mountain thrush (Zoothera monticola)
- ^ Chrysostom everywhere = corruption of the Holtei figure Chevalier du St. Erval ; the originally intended addition to the name Edler von Nirgends was deleted by order of the censors
- ↑ Migrain = the French Migraine
- ↑ In Viennese , Cichori , also called Ziguri , means the root chicory that was used as a coffee substitute
- ↑ Marqueur = Austrian waiter, pay waiter; see Dein Dialekt - your dictionary , dictionary German-Austrian
- ↑ Mischer is a mocking reference to the bad habit of stretching wine with water - it can also indicate G'mischts , a mixture of dark and light beer (Knieriems' favorite drink in " The Evil Spirit Lumpacivagabundus " )
- ↑ a b c Friedrich Walla: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 8 / II. P. 29.
- ↑ a 'twenty-five'ger = 25 lashes with the stick were the police punishment for minor offenses in the pre-March period ; the word was deleted from the (pre-) censorship
-
^ Table of contents in Brukner / Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. Pp. 557-565;
entire text in Friedrich Walla: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 8 / II. Pp. 148-222. - ↑ Michael Sachs: 'Prince Bishop and Vagabond'. The story of a friendship between the Prince-Bishop of Breslau Heinrich Förster (1799–1881) and the writer and actor Karl von Holtei (1798–1880). Edited textually based on the original Holteis manuscript. In: Medical historical messages. Journal for the history of science and specialist prose research. Volume 35, 2016 (2018), pp. 223–291, here: p. 282.
- ^ Franz H. Mautner (ed.): Johann Nestroys Komödien. Volume 1, p. 315.
- ^ Brukner / Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. Pp. 355-356.
- ^ Fischamend , Fischament = market in Lower Austria, 20 km south-east of Vienna
- ^ Brukner / Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. P. 335.
- ↑ Facsimile of the theater slip in Friedrich Walla: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 8 / II. P. 424.
- ↑ Facsimiles of the text sheets in Friedrich Walla: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 8 / II. Pp. 419-422.
- ↑ These deleted sections of text from Friedrich Walla: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 8 / II. Pp. 250-251.
- ↑ Manuscript collection of the Vienna library in the town hall , call number IN 33.326.
- ↑ Manuscript collection in the Vienna City Hall, call numbers IN 35.044, 36.784, 79.848, 94.279, 94.406, 206.628, 208.404.
- ↑ Music collection of the Vienna library in the town hall, signature MH ,. 689
- ^ Friedrich Walla: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 8 / II. Pp. 235-245.
- ^ Otto Rommel: Nestroys works. S. XXXVII.
- ^ Brukner / Rommel: Johann Nestroy, Complete Works. Pp. 556, 565-566.
- ↑ Helmut Ahrens: I am not auctioning myself off to the laurel. Pp. 163-167.
- ^ Friedrich Walla: Johann Nestroy; Pieces 8 / II. Pp. 245-248, 402.
- ^ Alfred Moschner: Holtei as a playwright. Volume 28 of Breslauer Contributions to the History of Literature , R. Nischkowsky, Breslau 1911, p. 87.