Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann

Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Grossmann (* November 30, 1746 in Berlin, † May 20, 1796 in Hannover ) was a German actor, writer and theater director in the Age of Enlightenment.

Biography

The son of Johann Gottlob Grossmann and his wife Catharina Barbara Baumann came from a humble background. After completing his schooling, he was equipped with a small scholarship to study at the Humboldt University in Berlin Jura. In 1767 he completed his studies successfully and got the same year employment as a Secretary of Legation at the royal. Prussian. Residents in Gdansk Jung. Grossmann has held this post until 1772.

He returned this year to return to Berlin and graduated there, among other things Acquaintance with the Enlightenment, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Friedrich Nicolai. Speaking at a dinner party presented the claim to Lessing, " ... to do a good acting game a year." Great man countered, " ... provided selbiges to accomplish a good mood and good ideas in three days ." He won the bet with his drama " The Conflagration ", which he was able to present three days later. Karl Theophil Döbbelin staged the first performance of this piece on the occasion of birthday of the Duke of Brunswick -Lüneburg Charles I with great success.

During a trip met Grossmann in Gotha on Abel Seyler, who hired him as an assistant, and on July 1, 1774, he made ​​his debut as " Riccaut de la Marlinière ". The success of this work led United man to earn his living as an actor in the future.

On 17 November of the same year he married in Gotha Carolina Sophia Augusta Flittner, the widow of the Saxon Governing Jacques Flittner. With her he had eleven children, including the later actor Hans Wolfgang Grossmann; the actress Friederike Bethmann - Unzelmann was his stepdaughter.

In 1778 he left his wife and took along with Karl Hellmuth head of the court theater in Bonn. On November 26, 1778 was re-opened with the play " Wilhelmine of Blondheim "; the leading role played Battori. When Elector Maximilian Friedrich von Koenigsegg - Rothfels in April 1784, died Großmanns ends career as a theater director, as the court theater was closed in Bonn. He founded his own company, with which he, inter alia, played at theaters in Frankfurt / Main, Cologne and Münster. In Frankfurt he was again great acclaim, as well as a small correspondence with wife Catharina Elisabeth Goethe witnessed.

1786, he joined in Cologne with Christian Wilhelm Klos for a theater company together. This relationship was ill-fated, as Grossmann soon among others was displayed for fraud. After the lost process, Grossmann settled in Hanover, where he worked as an actor. To the scandal but became United 's attempt despite fairly strong conviction to justify himself in 1787 by a Pamphlet.

On March 28, 1784 his wife died, and after the obligatory year of mourning married Grossmann in March 1785, the actress Margaret Victoria Schroth. With her he had ten children, including the later actresses Doris and Leopoldine Grossmann.

1792 did he build in Bremen on placement of the later theater directors Daniel Schutte and with the financial support of wealthy citizens, a playhouse on the Junker Bastion Am Wall - the first Bremen Town Theatre - and came here to 1796 over and over again with his acting troupe.

On February 3, 1795 Grossmann was the cantor Ferbius in his piece "Who will get them? " At the Court Theatre Hannover. He grew up in a manner in his role that he mustered a large part of the audience in his expressions of sympathy for the French Revolution against him, including Augusta of Hanover and her daughter Caroline of Brunswick. Two days later, Grossmann was invited in writing to apologize and justify. He refused and wrote another apology (3-4 sheets ) that the Court perceived as offensive.

This was followed by his immediate arrest and conviction for high treason and blasphemy. When he was diagnosed with tuberculosis after six months with him, they released him and said that a prohibition on lifetime. Embittered and ill, he retired and died at the age of 49 years on 20 May 1796 in Hanover.

As an actor, or as a principal Grossmann influenced a variety of actors, such as Joseph Karl Ambrosch, Friederike Bethmann - Unzelmann, Johann Heinrich Bösenberg, Denner, Fanny Fiala, Dorothea wedge wood, Johann Karl Liebich, Charlotte Amalie Neuhaus, Anton Steiger, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, among others Unzelmann

His piece " Not more than six bowls " has been translated into several languages ​​and is still regarded as the first socially critical time piece in Germany. Even the literary historian Karl Heinrich Jördens described this piece as an example of the newer family paintings. Johann Gottfried Seume reported in the first chapter of his walk to Syracuse from a Dresden performance of the piece in December 1801.

Many of his pieces are originally from him, some he had known pieces transformed to his liking.

Roles (selection)

• Riccaut de la Marlinière ( Minna von Barn-helm, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing )
• Marinelli (Emilia Galotti, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing )
• Kantor Ferbius ( Who will get it?, Gustav Friedrich Grossmann )
• Leporello ( Una cosa rara, Vicente Martín y Soler )
• Don Quichotte ( Don Quixote of the Zweyte, Carl Ditter von Dittersdorf )

Works

Plays

• Adelheid von Veltheim. Comedy with songs in 4 Acts of. Dyck, Leipzig in 1780. (Music by Christian Gottlob Neefe )
• The Barber of Seville, 1776. ( By Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais )
• The Ehestandscandidaten. Comedy. Stiller, Rostock 1806.
• Obstinacy or caprice of love. Singspiel in 3 Acts of. Hermann, Frankfurt / M., 1783.
• The conflagration or good friends in trouble the greatest happiness. Crusius, Leipzig, 1781.
• Harlequin. Heroic drama in 5 Acts of. 1791.
• Henriette or she is already married. Comedy in 5 Acts of. Vogel, Leipzig 1784th
• The Trials. Comedy. Fleischer, Frankfurt / M, 1779. ( By William Shakespeare)
• Repentance before the deed. Singspiel.
• No more than six bowls. A family portrait in 5 lifts. Hermann, Frankfurt / M. In 1786.
• Pygmalion. Comedy 1776. ( After Jean -Jacques Rousseau )
• The black brothers. Spectacle. Stiller, Rostock 1806.
• The paperback or banknotes. Petersen, Altenburg 1806.
• The Devil in Actenstübchen. Petersen, Altenburg 1806.
• What the One right is the other cheap. Singspiel. Hermann, Frankfurt / M., 1783.
• What can not a girl. Singspiel in 4 Acts of. School bookstore, Braunschweig 1789.
• Who should get it? Singspiel.
• Wilhelmine of Blondheim.

Other

• At the justice-loving Publicum. , 1787.
• Letters to Mr. K. L. Seilerische the stage in Dresden on. Revonnah -Verlag, Hannover 1996, ISBN 3-927715-72-7.
• Letters on different subjects of the stage. Roehrig, St. Ingbert 1996, ISBN 3-86110-104-1.
• Lessing monument. A patriotic history. Hahn, Hannover 1791.