Das Käthchen von Heilbronn

• The Emperor
• Gebhardt, Archbishop of Worms
• Count Friedrich Wetter vom Strahl
• Countess Helena, his mother
• Eleanor, her niece
• Knight Flammberg, vassal of the Count
• Gottschalk, his servant
• Brigitte, housekeeper in the royal castle
• Cunegonde of Thurneck
• Rosalie, her maid
• [ Sybille whose stepmother ]
• Theobald Fried Born, armourer from Heilbronn
• Kate, his daughter
• Gottfried Fried Born, her groom
• Maximilian, Viscount of Freiburg
• George of forest sites, his friend
• [ Knight longshoreman, his first vassal ]
• [ Knight Wetzlaf, his second vassal ]
• The Rhine Count of stone, fiance Cunegonde
• Friedrich von Herrnstadt friend of Rhinegraves
• Eginhardt of the warden friend of Rhinegraves
• Count Otto of the Flühe, Council of the emperor and judges of the secret court
• Wenzel of Nachtsheim, Council of the emperor and judges of the secret court
• Hans von hogweed, Council of the emperor and judges of the secret court
• Jakob bad luck, an innkeeper
• Three gentlemen of Thurneck
• Cunegonde old aunts
• A Köhler boy
• A night watchman
• Several Knights
• A herald, two Köhler, servants, messengers, Reavers, servants and people

Cathy of Heilbronn, or the trial by fire ( 1807-08 ) is a large historic knight drama in five acts by Heinrich von Kleist ( 1777-1811 ). It was premiered on 17 March 1810 in Vienna at the Theater an der Wien. The action takes place in Swabia.

Action

Before the kangaroo court the armourer Theobald Friedeborn complains Count on the beam, to have his daughter Katharine kidnapped with the help of magic. Because after the Count his armor in Theobalds had wrought be judged, the girl had thrown out the window and had followed him as soon as their fractures had healed. But it turns out that she has followed him voluntarily.

Count from the beam freed Cunegond of Thurneck and believes he has found in her the emperor's daughter, as it was announced in such a prophetic dream as a wife. However, this is on his lands and uses the favor of the hour to arrive not warlike manner, but by marriage to their destination.

The former fiancee Kunigunde who wants to take revenge on her because Cunegonde has fooled him, comes from her marriage prospects. He attacks enraged at Castle Thurneck where Cunegonde as a guest of the Earl weather stays by the beam, which caught fire. Cunegonde asks Kate, which is important for them picture of fiancee ( in which case the title deeds for disputed lands are ) to save from the flames. She hopes the girl to send thus to certain death or recover the donation letters on success of the order. A cherub but Kate comes to help and rescues them and the image from the flames. However, Graf from the beam detects the intrigue only later through a conversation with Kate and also discovered the girl's true identity as the illegitimate daughter of the Emperor, who had on a visit in Heilbronn with the wife of the armourer, Käthchen putative father Theobald, slept. Kate and Count from the beam marry after the Emperor recognized the illegitimate daughter at the insistence of the Count and thus put in their ancestral state. Finally, taking the couple's old Theobald on in his castle.

Historic templates

Kleist himself testified the fictional content of his piece. In this respect, there is no reliable historical documents, but it can be considered a maximum, which Kleist was suggested for the design of the piece.

The Oldenburg German scholar Dirk Grathoff († 2000) has distilled three strands of influence from the numerous studies:

" Pointedly ironic could say that almost the entire world literature was summoned to return to the ' Kate ' produce fabric or motif historical references you. " ( Grathoff 1977)

The oldest tradition ( Bülow, 1848) cites the " Ur - Kate " no Heilbronnerin, but the Dresdenerin Julie Kunze. In the Heilbronner local history at times was Lisette grain Acher (1773-1858), the patient in animal magnetism working with hypnosis doctor Eberhard Gmelin, as a model of Kleist's Kate, as Kleist might have heard their medical history in 1807. Recent research focused on another patient Gmelin, Heilbronner merchant's daughter Charlotte Elisabethe Zobel ( 1774-1806 ). Other researchers argue that Kleist was inspired by the design of the Käthchenfigur from no Heilbronnerin, but from a Stuttgart citizen daughter, from Johanna Christina Carolina Heigelin, afterwards verehelichter (from) Scheffauer ( 1768-1808 ).

The testimony of the witnesses Karl August Böttiger of 1819, according to which Kleist "the whole legend of Kate as a folk tale " 've found on a printed leaflet which he had bought on a fair, long time was controversial because such a pamphlet has never been found. However, the pamphlet tradition is very sparse from this period and do not necessarily speak against the existence. According to Kleist researcher and director of the Kleist archive Sembdner, Günther Emig, it could well have been a leaflet with the Griselda story, which Boccaccio in his Decameron tells ( 100 story) and found over centuries in widespread has. Meanwhile, Griselda leaflets from the Kleist - time known, even if not from southern Germany.

Also Käthchenhaus in Heilbronn, a late medieval stone building at the market place, got his name after publication of the play and does not form a historical background for Kleist's work.

Stage fate

As hardly a play, the work was repeatedly edited, to make it " theater ready", with a central bone of contention was that Kate is the illegitimate child of the emperor. Add to that her supposed father, becoming the cuckolded husband.

At the stage versions of the 19th century include the Franz von Holbein (1822 ), Eduard Devrient ( 1852), Heinrich Laube ( 1857), the Meininger Court Theatre (1879 ), by Karl Siegen ( 1890) as well as the version of the paper theater Inno Tallavania ( 1900).

Evidence of the effect of history

The high level of awareness of the play in the 19th century has led to diverse forms of action: From Sammelbildchen ( Liebig's meat extract ) to popular fiction novels such as that of Robert Frankenburg with over 3,000 pages and 100 full-page illustrations, the story of the alleged Heilbronner citizen girl in truth, the emperor's daughter, is the story of feuding families Rossitz and Warwand ( Kleist, the Schroffenstein family) and other, previously decrypted literature set pieces expanded.

The very numerous and partly published in large editions popular edits and retellings of Käthchen substance are still unexplored until today, because usually libraries have not taken care of such " inferior" products.

Opera edits

Another rail history of effect takes place on the operatic stage. To date, a total of nine Käthchen operas are known, mostly lesser-known composers.

The music by Carl Martin Rein Thaler (1822-1896), which was played after its premiere in 1881 in Frankfurt aM in the major German opera houses, arrived on March 21, 2009 at the Theater Erfurt for reissue.