CHAPTER V.

PRIVATE THEATRICALS.

"LET my present life," writes Goethe to Lavater, January, 1777, "continue as long as it will, at any rate I have heartily enjoyed a genuine experience of the variegated throng and press of the world - Sorrow, Hope, Love, Work, Want, Adventure, Ennui, Impatience, Folly, Joy, the Expected, and the Unknown, the Superficial and the Profound - just as the dice threw - with fêtes, dances, sledgings-adorned in silk and spangles a marvellous ménage! And withal, dear brother, God be praised, in myself and in my real aims in life I am quite happy."

Goethe plays indeed a high game at Weimar," writes Merck, "but lives at court after his own fashion. The duke is an excellent man, let them say what they will, and in Goethe's company will become still more So. What you hear is court scandal and lies. It is true the intimacy between master and servant is very great, but what harm is there in that? Were Goethe a nobleman it would be thought quite right. He is the soul and direction of everything, and all are contented with him, because he serves many and injures no one. Who can withstand the disinterestedness of this man ?"

He had begun to make his presence felt in the serious department of affairs; not only in educating the duke who had chosen him as his friend, but also

He had induced the duke

in practical ameliorations. to call Herder to Weimar, as Hof Prediger (court chaplain) and General-superintendent; whereat Weimar grumbled, and gossiped, setting afloat stories of Herder having mounted the pulpit in boots and spurs. Not

content with these efforts in a higher circle, Goethe sought to improve the condition of the people; and among his plans we note one for the opening of the Ilmenau mines, which for many years had been left untouched.

Amusement went hand in hand with business. Among the varied amusements, one, which greatly occupied his time and fancy, deserves a more special notice, because it will give us a glimpse of the court, and will also show us how the poet turned sport into profit. I allude to the private theatricals which were started shortly after his arrival. It should be premised that the theatre was still in ashes from the fire of 1774.1 Seyler had carried his troupe of players elsewhere; and Weimar was without its stage. Just at this period private theatricals were even more "the rage" than they are in England at present. In Berlin, Dresden, Frankfort, Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Fulda, were celebrated amateur troupes. In Würtzburg, for a long while, a noble company put on sock and buskin; in Eisenach, prince and court joined in the sport. Even the universities, which in earlier times had, from religious scruples, denounced the drama, now forgot their antagonism, and in Vienna, Halle, Göttingen, and Jena, allowed the students to have private stages.

The Weimar theatre surpassed them all. It had its poets, its composers, its scene-painters, its costumiers. Whoever showed any talent for recitation, singing, or dancing, was pressed into service, and had to work as hard as if his bread depended on it. The almost daily

1 On the state of the theatre before Goethe's arrival and subsequently, see Pasqué, "Goethe's Theaterleitung in Weimar," 1863.

rehearsals of drama, opera, or ballet, occupied and delighted men and women glad to have something to do. The troupe was distinguished: the Duchess Amalia, Karl August, Prince Constantine, Bode, Knebel, Einsiedel, Musæus, Seckendorf, Bertuch, and Goethe; with Corona Schröter, Kotzebue's sister Amalia, and Fräulein Göchhausen. These formed a curious strolling company, wandering from Weimar to all the palaces in the neighbourhood Ettersburg, Tiefurt, Belvedere, even to Jena, Dornburg, and Ilmenau. Often did Bertuch, as Falk tells us, receive orders to have the sumpter wagon, or travelling kitchen, ready for the early dawn, when the court would start with its wandering troupe. If only a short expedition was intended, three sumpter asses were sufficient. If it was more distant, over hill and dale, far into the distant country, then indeed the night before was a busy one, and all the ducal pots and pans were in requisition. Such boiling and stewing, and roasting! such slaughter of capons, of pigeons, and fowls! The ponds of the Ilm were dragged for fish; the woods were robbed of their partridges; the cellars were lightened of their wines. With early dawn rode forth the merry party, full of anticipation, wild with animal spirits. On they went through solitudes, the grand old trees of which were wont only to see the soaring hawk poised above their tops, or the wild-eyed deer bounding past the hut of the charcoal-burner. On they went: youth, beauty, gladness, and hope, a goodly train, like that which animated the forest of Ardennes, when "under the shade of melancholy boughs" the pensive duke and his followers forgot awhile their cares and " painted pomps.'

Their stage was soon arranged. At Ettersburg the traces are still visible of this forest stage, where, when weather permitted, the performances took place. A wing of the château was also made into a theatre. But the open-air performances were most relished.

To rehearsals and performances in Ettersburg the actors, sometimes as many as twenty, were brought in the duke's equipages; and in the evening, after a joyous supper, often enlivened with songs, they were conducted home by the duke's body-guard of Hussars, bearing torches. It was here they performed Einsiedel's opera, "The Gipsies," with wonderful illusions. Several scenes of "Götz von Berlichingen" were woven into it. The illuminated trees, the crowd of gipsies in the wood, the dances and songs under the blue, starlit heavens, while the sylvan bugle sounded from afar, made up a picture the magic of which was never forgotten. On the Ilm also, at Tiefurt, just where the river makes a beautiful bend round the shore, a regular theatre was constructed. Trees, and other poetical objects, such as fishermen, nixies, water-spirits, moon and stars, — all were introduced with effect.

The performances were of the same varied nature as the theatres. Sometimes French comedies, sometimes serious works of art, often broad extravaganzas. Occasionally they played charades, in which the plan was prearranged, but the dialogue left to the improvisation of the actors. Once when an actor grew wordy and wandering, they rushed on the stage, carried him off by force, and informed the audience (as if it were part of the piece) that he was suddenly taken ill. The records of that time have preserved for us the outline of a magical piece, got up in honour of Goethe's birthday" Minerva's Birth, Life, and Deeds." It was a magnificent magic-lantern piece, with music by Seckendorf. The characters were not represented by puppets, but by gentlemen and ladies, in the so-called Petit Colisée at Tiefurt. On the site of this new temple of the Muses stood formerly a solitary wood hut. In the representation every appliance was sought after which external effect demanded. It took place behind a large white curtain, en silhouette. In the "Histoire

Universelle des Théâtres" there is only one example of a theatrical representation of this kind, namely, the drama which Chiron presented to his pupil, Achilles, and which had the same object and significance as the Tiefurt drama. In antiquity such representations were called umbra palpitantes, by moderns ombres chinoises. They were introduced at the Weimar court about this time, by the Duke George of Saxe-Meiningen, and were very much in favour there.

The subject of this Tiefurt piece is remarkable: Jupiter (in the person of the painter Kraus, on whose shoulders was placed a colossal pasteboard head), in order to frustrate the prophecy that on the accouchement of his wife Metis, he would be thrust from the throne, has devoured Metis. Thereupon he suffers terrible pains in the head; Ganymede, hovering behind him on a great eagle, offers him the cup of nectar: the pains of the Thunderer increase visibly, and Ganymede soars into the air to fetch Esculapius and Vulcan. Esculapius seeks in vain to cure his master. A Cyclops, who is summoned, bleeds him at the nose, without effect. Then comes the powerful Vulcan (represented by the young Duke Karl August), who, holding in one hand his hammer, in the other a great iron bar, and encircled by an apron, approaches his suffering father, and with one good stroke of the hammer splits his divine skull, out of which proceeds Minerva, the goddess of wisdom (represented by Corona Schröter), at first quite a small figure, but by means of appropriate machinery becoming larger and larger every moment, till at last the whole of her tall, slim form is revealed, enveloped in light gauze. She is received by Father Zeus in the most friendly manner; and rich gifts are presented to her by all the gods. She is furnished with a helmet, an ægis, and a lance; Ganymede places Jupiter's owl at her feet, and amidst music and choral singing the curtain falls.