The Image of Vienna in Johann Nepomuk Nestroy’s Opera Parody Robert der Teuxel
Abstract
The article is devoted to the analysis of the image of Vienna in the parody Robert der Teuxel (1833) by the Austrian playwright and comedy writer Johann Nepomuk Nestroy (1801– 1862). The primary source of the play was Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera Robert le diable, which had been presented to the Viennese public three months earlier. The main change that the playwright made in his play, compared to the original plotline, was the transfer of the action to the Austrian capital during the times of Nestroy’s life. Such a dramaturgical solution makes it possible for us to observe how the literary and musical side of the play has changed as the result of this. The image of Vienna presented by the playwright and the composer Adolf Müller Sr. who collaborated with him is researched through various codes: the geographical, the socio-economic, the cultural and the musical. The character of the Austrian capital is manifested through the inclusion in the text of the play of toponyms directly related to Vienna, some of its landmarks that carry allegorical meanings in the context of the plotline, vivid linguistic techniques, as well as the transformation of Meyerbeer’s characters into the colorful types of the inhabitants of the Viennese suburbs. In musical terms, the urban “entourage” is realized through the use of the genres iconic to Austrian culture: the dances (mainly the waltz and the ländler), marches and yodeling.
Keywords: Johann Nepomuk Nestroy, Robert le diable, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Adolf Müller Sr., opera parody, Vienna folk theatre
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.56620/2782-3598.2024.2.069-083
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