Source: Henry Crabb Robinson, diary entry for 16 June 1851, in Thomas Sadler (ed.), Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson (London: Macmillan, 1869), vol. III, pp. 383-384
Production: August Wilhelm Schlegel, Was Ihr wollt (adaptation of William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night), Royal Court theatre, Dresden, 16 June 1851
Text: June 16th. – (At Dresden.) Took a short walk after dinner, and found that I remembered much of the city, though a great part of it seems new, and not quite so gay as I had fancied it. In one respect we were very lucky. Schlegel’s Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” called Was Ihr wollt, was played, and greatly to our satisfaction. The only mortification was, that I had such a faint recollection of Shakespeare. But Brown, who recollected more, could follow the translation throughout. It seemed to us admirably given. Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Malvolio, all seemed to us quite in conformity with the English conception of the characters. A Madame Meyer Bourke played both Viola and Sebastian; and, when personating the latter, she gave a manliness to her voice and step which would have almost deceived us as to her identity. There was, of necessity, a change in the text at last. Another person, who managed to conceal his face, came in as Sebastian.
Comments: Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867) was an English lawyer and diarist, whose published journals document his acquaintance with literary figures of the period and refer regularly to theatre productions that he saw. This entry records a theatre trip in Dresden as part of a tour of Germany he undertook in the summer of 1851. He saw August Wilhelm Schlegel‘s Was Ihr wollt, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, at the Royal Court theatre, Dresden, on 16 June 1851. August Wilhelm Schlegel’s translations of Shakespeare‘s plays greatly helped popularise him in Germany.
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