Theatre
Aladdin, or The Wonderful Lamp
Aladdin, eller Den forunderlige Lampe
Adam Oehlenschläger · 1805
Opening lines
Mustapha
Nu Morgiane? Sover du igien?
Well, Morgiane? Are you asleep again?
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from tekster.kb.dk
Synopsis
In Isfahan, Aladdin, son of the tailor Mustapha, spends his days doing nothing, to his parents' despair. The magician Noureddin, a methodical and diligent man of study, leads him to an enchanted cave to fetch a lamp and a treasure. Shut in underground, the boy manages to get out, discovers what the lamp can do, grows rich and wins the hand of Gulnare, daughter of the Sultan Soliman, although she was promised to another. Noureddin, for his part, has not given up on the lamp.
Context
The play appeared in 1805 in the second volume of the Poetiske Skrifter; conceived for reading, it waited thirty-four years for the stage. The Royal Theatre premiered it on 17 April 1839, adapted by August Bournonville and two actors, with music by Friedrich Kuhlau; the full revival of 1919, over two evenings, was accompanied by incidental music by Carl Nielsen. The author recognised his own fable in it: in his memoirs, the lamp is the poetic gift he had just discovered in himself, and the spirit of the ring his imagination. Danish television made two versions of it, in 1952 and in 1975-1976, the second directed by Kaspar Rostrup.
Who it is for
A long verse drama in two parts, conceived for reading. The magician is called Noureddin there, and the action moves from Galland's China to Isfahan. English translation by Theodore Martin; none in French.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the masterpiece of his youth; the opposition between Aladdin and Nourreddin became a motif taken up by Andersen, Schack and Pontoppidan.
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