Die Sonnenjungfrau

Die Sonnenjungfrau ("the sun maiden"), is a German play in five acts by August von Kotzebue (1761-1819)[1].

The original text

First produced at the Liebhabertheater in Reval on 8 December, 1789 and published in German as Die Sonnen-Jungfrau, "ein Schauspiel in fünf Aufzügen" by Paul Gothelf Kummer, Leipzig, in 1791 and by Anton Dól, Vienna, in the same year.

Translations and adaptations

Kotzebue wrote his highly popular drama Die Spanier in Peru oder Rollas Tod (1796) as a sequel to this play.

The German original was translated and adapted into Dutch as De Zonnemaagd ("the sun maiden"), a play in five acts, in 1792, by an unnamed translator. The Dutch text published in Leipzig by Dóll, 1795, and Dutch text in Ghent by Smit, 1796.

Performance history in South Africa

1869: Produced in Dutch as De Zonnemaagd in the Hofsaal, Malmesbury, on 5 August, with De Korporaal en Het Dienstmeisje (Anon.).

Sources

Facsimile version of the 1796 Dutch translation, Google E-book[2]

D.C. Boonzaier, 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1932. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp.445-6

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