About the work
Das Haus der Temperamente (The House of Temperaments) is a two-act farce with songs by Johann Nestroy, first performed on 16 November 1837 at the Theater an der Wien as a benefit for the author, with music by Adolf Müller. The action unfolds simultaneously in four apartments of one house, each home to a family embodying one of the classical temperaments.
Plot
Living in the building are the choleric Herr von Braus, the phlegmatic Herr von Fad, the melancholic Herr von Trüb and the sanguine Herr von Froh, each with marriageable children. As servants Schlankel and Hutzibutz scheme in parallel across all four households to make and break engagements, the fathers' wildly different temperaments keep fuelling new complications until the right couples finally come together.
Cultural significance
Nestroy conceived the play as a deliberate staging experiment, running four locations in parallel on a divided set, and it is still considered a technical challenge to stage today. It was cheered at its premiere and performed roughly 85 times by 1860.