Romance/Romance is a musical with a book and lyrics by Barry Harman and music by Keith Herrmann.
25-479: The show is composed of two acts linked only by the common theme of love and one song performed in both acts. The first, The Little Comedy , is based on a short story by Arthur Schnitzler and explores the budding relationship between two people who have adopted personas other than their own. Set in late 19th century Vienna , it focuses on Josefine, a demimondaine weary of the social life provided by her upper class lovers, and wealthy playboy Alfred, who has tired of
50-640: A brain haemorrhage . In 1938, following the Anschluss , his son Heinrich went to the United States and did not return to Austria until 1959; he is the father of the Austrian musician and conservationist Michael Schnitzler , born in 1944 in Berkeley, California, who moved to Vienna with his parents in 1959. Schnitzler's works were often controversial, both for their frank description of sexuality (in
75-434: A letter to Schnitzler Sigmund Freud confessed "I have gained the impression that you have learned through intuition – although actually as a result of sensitive introspection – everything that I have had to unearth by laborious work on other persons") and for their strong stand against antisemitism , represented by works such as his play Professor Bernhardi and his novel Der Weg ins Freie . However, although Schnitzler
100-425: A patient the realization that she is on the point of death, is his only major dramatic work without a sexual theme. A member of the avant-garde group Young Vienna ( Jung-Wien ), Schnitzler toyed with formal as well as social conventions. With his 1900 novella Leutnant Gustl , he was the first to write German fiction in stream-of-consciousness narration. The story is an unflattering portrait of its protagonist and of
125-421: A seemingly endless round of inconsequential affairs. She assumes the guise of a working class woman, while he pretends to be a struggling poet , and the two meet while enjoying their new identities. Whether or not they can survive a weekend in the country with their usually glamorous trappings replaced by inedible food, bad wine, swarming insects, and total boredom is the question to be answered. Summer Share ,
150-611: A substantial part of the piano trio literature. Michael Schnitzler founded the NGO Rainforest of the Austrians with the purpose of collecting funds to buy land within the Esquinas forest, Costa Rica. Soon, his voluntary work as a conservationist took up more time than his profession as a musician. Rainforest of the Austrians has since raised more than $ 3,000,000 and purchased 10,000 acres of rainforest, which were donated to
175-411: Is most notable for Schnitzler's casual descriptions of sexual conquests; he was often in relationships with several women at once (most of his liaisons occurred with an embroiderer named “Jeanette”) and for a period of some years he kept a record of every orgasm. Collections of Schnitzler's letters also have been published. Schnitzler's works were called "Jewish filth" by Adolf Hitler and were banned by
200-736: The Austrian Empire (as of 1867, part of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary ). He was the son of a prominent Hungarian laryngologist , Johann Schnitzler (1835–1893), and Luise Markbreiter (1838–1911), a daughter of the Viennese doctor Philipp Markbreiter. His parents were both from Jewish families. In 1879 Schnitzler began studying medicine at the University of Vienna and in 1885 he received his doctorate of medicine. He began work at Vienna's General Hospital (German: Allgemeines Krankenhaus der Stadt Wien ), but ultimately abandoned
225-663: The Helen Hayes Theatre , where it ran for 297 performances. The cast included Alison Fraser as Josefine/Monica, Scott Bakula as Alfred/Sam, Deborah Graham as Barb, and Robert Hoshour as Lenny. Sal Viviano was the Standby for Bakula and Hoshour, and succeeded Bakula, when he left the Show. Jana Robbins was the Standby for Fraser and Graham. Barry Williams replaced Viviano later in the run. Arthur Schnitzler Arthur Schnitzler (15 May 1862 – 21 October 1931)
250-466: The 1946 Argentine film The Naked Angel , starring Olga Zubarry . The majority of Schnitzler's archive, which consists of 40,000 pages worth of documents, was saved from the Nazis by a British man, Eric A. Blackall. Acting at the behest of Schnitzler's widow (actually his ex-wife), Olga, Blackhall arranged for the documents to be secretly transported to Cambridge University under a diplomatic seal. After
275-634: The Nazis in Austria and Germany. In 1933, when Joseph Goebbels organized book burnings in Berlin and other cities, Schnitzler's works were thrown into flames along with those of other Jews, including Einstein , Marx , Kafka , Freud and Stefan Zweig . His novella Fräulein Else has been adapted a number of times, including the German silent film Fräulein Else (1929), starring Elisabeth Bergner , and
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#1732802049243300-574: The acquisition of the documents by the British was not legitimate and that the documents should be handed to Schnitzler's remaining family in 2015. Schnitzler's grandsons, Michael and Peter, announced that they indeed wanted the documents handed over to them. Notes Further reading Michael Schnitzler Michael Schnitzler (born May 30, 1961, in Berkeley, California ) is an Austrian American ecologist and musician. Michael Schnitzler
325-770: The age of 15 he played in the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic as a substitute, and from 1967 to 1983 he was first concertmaster of the Vienna Symphony . From 1982 to 2006 he was professor of violin at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. Since 1968, he has been violinist of the Haydn Trio Wien (together with pianist Heinz Medjimorec and cellist Walther Schulz), playing over 1500 concerts and recording
350-400: The army's obsessive code of formal honor. It caused Schnitzler to be stripped of his commission as a reserve officer in the medical corps – something that should be seen in the context of the rising tide of antisemitism of the time. He specialized in shorter works like novellas and one-act plays. And in his short stories like "The Green Tie" ("Die grüne Krawatte") he showed himself to be one of
375-414: The critical view that his works all seemed to treat the same subjects, he replied "I write of love and death. What other subjects are there?" Despite his seriousness of purpose, Schnitzler frequently approaches the bedroom farce in his plays (and had an affair with Adele Sandrock , one of his actresses). Professor Bernhardi , a play about a Jewish doctor who turns away a Catholic priest in order to spare
400-465: The early masters of microfiction . However he also wrote two full-length novels: Der Weg ins Freie about a talented but not very motivated young composer, a brilliant description of a segment of pre-World War I Viennese society; and the artistically less satisfactory Therese . In addition to his plays and fiction, Schnitzler meticulously kept a diary from the age of 17 until two days before his death. The manuscript, which runs to almost 8,000 pages,
425-626: The play. A more recent adaptation is the Fernando Meirelles ' film 360 . In the novella Fräulein Else (1924) Schnitzler may be rebutting a contentious critique of the Jewish character by Otto Weininger (1903) by positioning the sexuality of the young female Jewish protagonist. The story, a first-person stream of consciousness narrative by a young aristocratic woman, reveals a moral dilemma that ends in tragedy. In response to an interviewer who asked Schnitzler what he thought about
450-464: The practice of medicine in favour of writing. On 26 August 1903, Schnitzler married Olga Gussmann (1882–1970), a 21-year-old aspiring actress and singer who came from a Jewish middle-class family. They had a son, Heinrich (1902–1982), born on 9 August 1902. In 1909 they had a daughter, Lili, who committed suicide in 1928. The Schnitzlers separated in 1921. Schnitzler died on 21 October 1931 in Vienna of
475-492: The second act based on Jules Renard 's 1898 play Le pain de ménage , is updated to the late 1980s and set in The Hamptons , where two married couples in their thirties are spending the season in a rented cottage. Sam, who is married to Barb, and Monica, who is married to Lenny, find themselves gradually progressing from harmless flirtation to the serious possibility of an illicit affair. An original cast recording
500-467: The war, this created a tricky legal situation, as Schnitzler's ex-wife, Olga did not have the legal right to donate the documents. In fact, Schnitzler had bequeathed them to his son, Heinrich, who was not in Vienna at the time. During the Second World War and afterwards, Heinrich Schnitzler tried to get the documents back but did not succeed. Thomas Trenkler wrote in the newspaper Kurier that
525-400: Was Jewish, Professor Bernhardi and Fräulein Else are among the few clearly identified Jewish protagonists in his work. Schnitzler was branded as a pornographer after the release of his play Reigen , in which 10 pairs of characters are shown before and after the sexual act, leading and ending with a prostitute. The furor after this play was couched in the strongest antisemitic terms. Reigen
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#1732802049243550-425: Was an Austrian author and dramatist. He is considered one of the most significant representatives of Viennese Modernism. Schnitzler’s works, which include psychological dramas and narratives, dissected turn-of-the-century Viennese bourgeois life, making him a sharp and stylistically conscious chronicler of Viennese society around 1900. Arthur Schnitzler was born at Praterstrasse 16, Leopoldstadt , Vienna, capital of
575-425: Was born to Austrian parents, Heinrich (1902–1982) and Lilly Schnitzler (born 1911), née Strakosch-Feldringen, the daughter of the sugar industrialist Siegfried Strakosch, who fled from the country after the Anschluss in 1938. He is also the grandson of the Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler . In 1959 the family moved back to Vienna, where he studied violin at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna . At
600-537: Was made into a French language film in 1950 by the German-born director Max Ophüls as La Ronde . The film achieved considerable success in the English-speaking world, with the result that Schnitzler's play is better known there under its French title. Richard Oswald 's film The Merry-Go-Round (1920), Roger Vadim 's Circle of Love (1964) and Otto Schenk's Der Reigen (1973) also are based on
625-515: Was released by MCA . Initially staged off-off-Broadway November 16, 1987 at the Actor's Outlet Theatre (Executive Director: Eleanor Segan, Artistic Director: Ken Lowstetter), Romance/Romance garnered critical notices that encouraged the move to a larger house uptown. After thirteen previews, the Broadway production, directed by Harman and choreographed by Pamela Sousa, opened on May 1, 1988 at
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