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Untitled Article
in the song and ballad , could not fail to produce a beautiful Tittle composition . Die Fischerinn—The Fisherwonoan , an opera , performed on the national theatre at Tiefurt , on the Ilm . The theatre requires notice here rather than the play . Huge buildings are erected for the purpose of adequately performing written plays ; but in this case a
little piece was written that it might be acted on the very spot where the incident is supposed to occur . It was composed for the purpose of adorning a f § te at the country residence of the Duchessdowager Amelia of Saxe Weimar . The Ilm runs through her grounds , and a spot being selected , at a convenient distance from which the Princess and her visitors could be placed , and hear and see all that takes place , fishermen ' s huts were erected and a fire
kindled by the river ' s side . Dotchen , the fisher-girl , is heard singing the famous ballad of the Erl-King , to wear away the time , as her lover keeps her waiting . As he does not come , she resolves to play him a trick by hiding herself , and laying her hat , &c . by the river , as if she had fallen in . When , therefore , her lover and father come , they are in a terrible fright , and immediately all the neighbours are summoned to make due search . And the
author tells us honestly enough , in a note , that the whole effect of the show lay in the splendid illumination of the winding river and its borders . The piece terminates with an exquisite comic ballad . If a thing like this have no other merits than those of giving currency to delightful ballads , and also furnishing an historic memorial of the elegant amusements of the little court of Weimar , between forty and fifty years ago , it does not disgrace the far superior works among which it appears .
Scherz , List , und Rache , i . e . Joke , Trick , and Revenge . —A comic opera , or rather a musical farce . It has but three persons : the Doctor , Scapin , and Scapina ; as their name imports , two knaves , who however , honestly enough , get back their own from the doctor , who is both miser , knave , and dupe to boot . Scapin is taken into the doctor ' s service , by pretending that he is suffering under the incurable disease of not being able to eat ; and
Scapina comes to be cured also . He administers medicine to her , which , however , instead of curing seems to kill , for she shams death , and so frightens the doctor out of his wits , he believing that he had given her poison by mistake . The new man-servant offers , for half the sum they had been cheated of , to carry off the dead body ; and he having obtained his pay , she recovers ; first terrifies the
JEsculapius as a ghost , and at last , as she still threatens to die , makes him give her the other half * in order to get rid of her ; and then , of course , they laugh at him . We presume it had no success , from the way in which Goethe speaks of it in his diary . He says that it cost him more labour than it merited ; and remarks that the impudent trick by which a miserly pedant was taken in had no charms for an honest German , while Italians and
Untitled Article
686 Goethe ' s Work * .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1832, page 686, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1822/page/36/
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