About the work
A three-act Posse with songs by Johann Nestroy, premiered on 9 April 1844 at the Theater an der Wien as a benefit for the author, with music by Adolf Müller senior. It drew on the Parisian vaudeville "L'homme blasé" by Duvert and Lauzanne, first staged only months earlier, in November 1843.
Plot
Bored to the point of despair, the wealthy Herr von Lips decides to marry the first woman he meets and proposes to Madame Schleyer. After tumbling off a balcony, he flees disguised as a farmhand to a rural estate, where the maid Kathi and the jealous locksmith Gluthammer mistake him for someone else. The mix-ups eventually reveal that Lips has found genuine affection in Kathi.
Cultural significance
The play ran more than fifty times in 1844 alone, outperforming a rival adaptation of the same material by Joseph Kupelwieser. Egon Friedell later called it a sharper parody of Byronism than comparable works of its day.