About the work
Magic play with song and dance in one act, premiered on 20 December 1851 as a benefit performance for the actor Wenzel Scholz at the Carltheater in Vienna. The piece, whose title also appears in Nestroy editions as "Der gemüthliche Teufel oder Die Geschichte vom Bauer und von der Bäuerinn," is based on a folk legend; the music was written by Carl Binder.
Plot
A contest between the princes of hell centres on a faithful peasant couple: Satanas, played by Nestroy, is sent to earth to drive them apart. With the help of an old woman feared as a witch, he sows distrust between the spouses through invented stories of infidelity, nearly destroying the marriage. Only a secret intervention averts disaster, and the couple vows henceforth to believe only what they see with their own eyes.
Cultural significance
Because no manuscript survives in Nestroy's own hand, his authorship was questioned in older scholarship; Nestroy research nonetheless relies on his own annotated role-book for the character Satanas and on testimony from the actor Franz Carl Weidmann dating from 1857.