About the work
Friedrich Schiller's tragedy in five acts was written in 1782-83 and premiered in Frankfurt am Main in 1784. Schiller himself gave the play, originally called „Luise Millerin", its succinct title „Kabale und Liebe" (Intrigue and Love). It is the major work of his Sturm und Drang period and a bourgeois tragedy of the first rank.
Plot
In a small German residence, Ferdinand — son of the President von Walter — loves the bourgeois Luise Miller, daughter of a town musician. The aristocrat's father wants Ferdinand to marry Lady Milford, the prince's mistress, to secure his own power at court. Ferdinand refuses. Walter's secretary Wurm, who himself desires Luise, engineers an intrigue: he has Miller's parents arrested and forces Luise to write a false love letter to a court marshal. Ferdinand receives the letter and believes himself betrayed. In despair he invites Luise to a final supper and poisons her lemonade — and his own. As she dies, Luise reveals the truth. Both die together; the President and Wurm are arrested.
Cultural significance
Kabale und Liebe is, after „Die Räuber", Schiller's most important Sturm-und-Drang drama and the formative source for Verdi's opera „Luisa Miller" (1849). Its indictment of class hierarchy and courtly corruption makes the play a pioneering work of social criticism. Practically continuously in the German repertoire; legendary productions include those by Peter Stein and Frank Castorf.