About the work
Farce with song in four acts by Johann Nestroy, premiered on 21 May 1840 at the Leopoldstädter Theater in Vienna as a benefit performance for the author. It was based on the comic opera "La Reine d'un jour" by Adolphe Adam, with a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges, which had premiered on 19 September 1839 at the Paris Opéra-Comique.
Plot
Baron Kuppenschnee plans to disinherit his nephew Rudolf, who has separated from his wife Pauline, in favour of the scheming von Walting. To prevent a reconciliation, von Walting intrigues against Rudolf, while the peasant girl Agnes, posing as a noblewoman, and the farmhand Simon Dappel are drawn into the confusion. In the end the innkeeper Tost exposes the scheme, Rudolf regains his inheritance, and Dappel marries Agnes.
Cultural significance
The play counts among Nestroy's lesser-known works. Typical of his adaptation technique, it transplants the courtly opera plot into a bourgeois Viennese setting, turning the serious source into a social comedy about inheritance-hunting.