Die Schweizer Familie
The Swiss family (also Swiss family or Schweitzer family ) is a musical comedy with spoken dialogue by Joseph Weigl (music) and Ignaz Franz Castelli ( libretto )
Formation
After the successful premiere of his Singspiel The Orphanage Weigl started in autumn 1808 with the setting of Castelli's translation and adaptation of a vaudeville (song game) called Pauvre Jacques ( Paris 1807) by Sewrin and alissan de Chazet ( pseudonym for Charles- Augustin de Basson -Pierre and René André Polydore Chazet ).
Content
Wallenstein, a rich German Count, had, during a stay in the Swiss Alps, a mountain accident. By chance, he was rescued by a Swiss farmer ( Richard Boll), which he would like to offer a carefree life in Germany thanks. It can therefore its Swiss home to replicate his German estate, bringing the farmers and his family to him. Emmeline, the daughter of the farmer is, however, driven heartache to madness because her lover Jacob Fribourg remaining in the Swiss homeland. The Count, however, who suspects her secret heart connection to the Shepherd, lets order this from Switzerland to his estate. After some entertaining scenes of confusion, the two lovers finally find each other.
The content of the opera, in which the romantic idealization of the Swiss landscape is an essential aspect largely contributed to sustainable Switzerland enthusiasm in Europe.
Effect story
The work was premiered on 14 March 1809 Vienna Kärntnertortheater with Anna Milder as Emmeline, Johann Michael Vogl as Jacob Fribourg and Carl Weinmüller as Richard Boll. It was one in the first half of the 19th century the most popular operas in Germany and Europe must therefore apply in addition to Peter Winters Broken Feast of Sacrifice (1796 ) as the most popular German folk opera between the Magic Flute (1791 ) and Der Freischütz (1821 ).
Leading writers (about Ludwig Borne ) and composers of the time admired the work that was one of the first operas well, the Franz Schubert heard in the theater and also with new actresses of the Emmeline (1822 about Wilhelmine Schröder- Devrient in 1826 Anna Schechner ) repeatedly visited. Special music-historical importance was the final scene with the sounding backstage Kuhreigen, a trio of clarinet (instead of shawm, shepherd's flute or Alpine horn), soprano and tenor without orchestral accompaniment. Were by this point of Weigl's score influenced directly or indirectly many famous works of musical romanticism, such as the monodrama Gli Amori di Teolinda by Giacomo Meyerbeer (1816 ), the Gesangsszene The Shepherd on the Rock (D 965, October / November 1828), written for Anna Milder penultimate composition Schubert, Le mal du pays ( Première année, Suisse, No. 8) in the Années de pèlerinage, by Franz Liszt or even the pastoral scenes in Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser, Tristan and the game attempts on the horn by Siegfried. Wagner, who was enthusiastic about especially for Schröder- Devrient representation of Emmeline, had this to say about their performance: " How great was my emotion and my veritable surprise when I came to know this evening the incomprehensible woman in the act of truly entrancing size. That such a thing as the representation of this Swiss girl, all times may not be recognizable detained and handed down as a monument, I must now recognize as one of the most sublime sacrifices conditions under which the wonderfully dramatic art reveals itself only, which is why this once such phenomena is manifest, can not be kept high and holy enough. " During his engagements as a conductor in Riga 1837 Wagner composed for the local actors of Richard Boll insert aria a prayer.
With the beginning of the 20th century disappeared Swiss Family from the stage. In 2004, the musical play by the producer Sören mouth at the Schoenbrunn Palace Theater in Vienna, then performed at the Theater an der Sihl in Zurich and the Berlin Schauspielhaus ( Konzerthaus ) on the Gendarmenmarkt under the baton of Uri Rom again as well as the first recording of this opera on CD produced. The drama took over the musicologist Till Gerrit Waidelich.