Eine Produktion des Hessischen Rundfunks in Coproduktion mit dem Bayerischen Rundfunk und Taurus-Film, München 1984. Regie: Franz Peter Wirth mit
Rolf Boysen als Philipp II, Marita Marschall (Elisabeth von Valois), Jacques Breuer (Don Carlos), Robert Atzorn (Marquis von Posa).

Eine sehenswerte Verfilmung wenn man von den brutalen Reklameunterbrechungen absieht; besser sie zu vermeiden.

History

In January 1568, Philip II arrested his 23 year old son, Carlos, confining him to his palace rooms under guard. Six months later, Carlos was dead. The perfect set-up for a dark romantic scandal, but in the boring real world the Infante's short life seems to have been merely sad, unpleasant and far from romantic.

Whether it was due to an excess of inbred Hapsburg DNA, brain damage resulting from a difficult birth, teenage malaria and/or a head injury from a fall in 1562, Carlos displayed increasingly violent and unpredictable behaviour as he grew up. It is probably reasonable to assume that he was seriously mentally ill and his confinement was a medical necessity, his death probably from natural causes. Modern historians generally see no need to suspect any dirty work by the king in this case.

Schiller

However, there were plenty of people who scented a propaganda opportunity here. A pamphlet circulated by William of Orange seems to have been the starting point for the legend that Carlos was murdered because he was in love with his young stepmother, Elisabeth of Valois, and involved with her in a conspiracy to seize power in Flanders in support of the Protestant rebels there. That was taken up in a novel by the Abbé de Saint-Réal in the 1670s, which in turn gave Schiller the outline for his first big verse tragedy, written between 1783 and 1787 and first performed in Hamburg.

Besides Carlos, Philip and Elisabeth, Schiller gives big parts to the Princess of Eboli, one of the Queen's ladies, and to the Marquis of Posa, a childhood friend of Carlos who is a passionate supporter of the cause of the Flemish rebels. There's also quite an important sub-plot involving the Duke of Alba and the king's confessor, Domingo, and lots of other minor parts for Spanish grandees and ladies (including, twenty years too early, the Duke of Medina Sidonia coming on to report the defeat of the Armada...!). But the best walk-on part is that of the Grand Inquisitor, who comes on about five minutes before the end of Act Five and completely steals the show.

The plot is ridiculously tangled, with everyone changing sides (or appearing to) at least twice in the course of the play, and there are about a dozen different compromising documents that have to fall into the wrong hands at significant moments. But there are lots of fine speeches as characters debate love versus duty, liberty versus order and stability, and so on.

The passion between Carlos and Elisabeth is oddly abstract — she never really commits herself, whilst he is obsessed with her without apparently ever having had the chance to talk to her. Both the Princess and Posa are obviously in love with Carlos in a very real, physical way (we're meant to read Posa's declarations of love as just the flowery language of homosocial bonding, but of course we know better...): Carlos seems to respond to both of them warmly while they are in the room, then forgets them at once and goes back to ranting about his passion for the Queen. Schiller plants the idea that he's looking for a mother-substitute (one of his first lines in Act I reminds us that his "first action on coming into the world was matricide"), but given that he's the same age as Elisabeth, it's hard to imagine how he could really see her as a mother. ( )

Students often get bored with the plays of Schiller and Goethe. The subject may change its colour, appreciating it in a authentic location. For example, « Don Carlos in Aranjuez », « Torquato Tasso » in Rome.

Klappentext
ZUR ENTSTEHUNGSGESCHICHTE VON SCHILLERS "DON CARLOS" Der Intendant des Mannheimer Nationaltheaters, Freiherr von Dalberg, machte Schiller im Mai 1782 auf den Stoff des Don Carlos aufmerksam. Er sandte ihm die Erzählung des Abbé Saint-Réal (1639-92) Dom Carlos, nouvelle historique und bat ihn zu prüfen, ob sich dieser Gegenstand für eine Bühnenbearbeitung eigne. Nach seiner Übersiedlung auf das Gut der Frau von Wolzogen in Bauerbach 1782 besorgt sich Schiller aus der Meininger Bibliothek dieses Werk des Abbé Saint-Real und andere Literatur und schreibt am 3.April 1783 an Freiherrn von Dalberg, daß er am Dom Karlos arbeite. Von 1784 an veröffentlicht der inzwischen nach Mannheim zurückgekehrte Dichter die einzelnen fertiggestellten Teile des Werkes in seiner Zeitschrift Rheinische Thalia. Zunächst hatte Schiller nur die Absicht, ein "Familiengemälde aus einem königlichen Hause" zu schaffen, aber seine innere Anteilnahme war für eine so küble Behandlung des Stoffes zu stark. Er schreibt damals an den Meininger Bibliothekar Reinwald, Dom Karlos solle von Shakespeares Hamlet die Seele, Blut und Nerven von Leisewitz und den Puls von ihm selbst erhalten. So weitete sich der Stoff während der Arbeit, und aus einem bloßen Familiengemälde wurde die Tragödie der um ihre Gewissensfreiheit ringenden Menschheit.
Quelle: Amazon.de ( )

Earlier this semester we were discussing the Inquisition in my Western Civilization class, which put me in mind of this play, Friedrich von Schiller's Don Carlos. When I read it alongside four other German plays, I did not regard it as one of my favorites, but it applied to our discussion in that during the last act, the Grand Inquisitor shows up, to quote a review of a recent production (starring Derek Jacobi as the King!), "prepared to wreak havoc and shed blood." I was gratified to find it in my school library, and polished it off in one afternoon.

Both times, I read the performing edition by James Kirkup, found in Eric Bentley's compendium The Classic Theatre: Five German Plays. I remembered thinking the translation a little hokey, and upon rereading I wanted to go through it with a red pen. The vocabulary is simply not consistent with the sixteenth-century setting, including words like "lots" when "many" or "much" would be more appropriate. And I don't know whether to blame Mr. Kirkup or Schiller himself for this, but all attempts at exposition come off as very awkward. The scene with Carlos and Eboli is laughable, for even as he's trying to convince her that he does not love her, he makes asides about how beautiful she is. I really did not care for either of these characters—the King, Queen, the Marquis of Posa, and especially the blind old Grand Inquisitor are much more interesting. It has a good twist at the end too. But overall I dislike the plot, which is a sort of Spanish version of Tristan and Isolde.

I hope that at some point I can reread the author's Mary Stuart with more positive results. ( )