About the work
Parodying farce with songs in three acts by Johann Nestroy, first performed on 13 February 1835 at the Theater an der Wien with Nestroy himself in the lead role of the poet Leicht. The play answers Karl von Holtei's sentimental drama 'Lorbeerbaum und Bettelstab', which had been enthusiastically received at the Theater in der Josefstadt only months earlier, in November 1834; the music was written by Adolf Müller senior.
Plot
The penniless poet Leicht sells two of his plays for a few guilders and falls hopelessly in love with Agnes, who is engaged to the respectable Blasius. He gambles away the money at billiards, and after Agnes's wedding he vanishes from the family's life. Twenty years later they find him again as a contented street musician: his once-mocked play has by now been performed a hundred times, but Leicht refuses to return to bourgeois life, saying he never sought laurels in the first place.
Cultural significance
By parodying Holtei's hit play, Nestroy held up a mirror to Viennese taste itself — and paid for it: the premiere flopped after only nine performances, as audiences recognised themselves in the satire and took offence.