DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62133#0073
THE MIRACLE-PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU.
57
At the sound of a small cannon, the motley crowd
hastened towards the theatre, which was a large, unsightly
wooden enclosure, erected on a broad green meadow, within
a stone’s throw of the village. A few poplars growing
on either side of the enclosure, no doubt mark, from one
ten years to another, the precise spot. The brightly painted
pediment of the proscenium rose above the rude wooden
fence; crowds of people already thronged the hastily
erected flights of steps leading to the different entrances.
A few moments more, and we were seated in one of the
boxes precisely opposite the front of the stage. A sea of
heads was below us in the pit, a sea whose waves were
Tyrolean hats, glittering Hiegel Hauke, ponderous badger
skins, and now and then a dash of foam-like white handker-
chiefs. This foam greatly increased -with the heat of the
sun; the women throwing over their other head-gear snowy
handkerchiefs to protect them from his rays. In the boxes,
on either hand, sate the gentlefolks; and very grand folk
some of them were, I am sure. Could we have only known
their names, we, should have found a considerable sprink-
ling of Grafen and Grafinnen, of Fiirsten and Furstinnen,
not to speak of common vans and Geheimrdthe, and Hof-
rdthe, and Professoren.
With the first feeble notes from the orchestra, and very
feeble at first they were, a dead silence sank down upon
the assembled multitude; as people say, you might have
heard a pin drop. All was breathless expectation. And
soon, beneath the blue dome of heaven, and with God’s
sunlight showering down upon them, a fantastic vision
passed across the stage; their white tunics glanced in the
light, their crimson, violet, and azure mantles swept the
ground, their plumed head-dresses waved in the breeze;
they looked like some strange flight of fabulous birds.
This was the chorus, attired to represent angels. Like the
antique chorus, they sang the argument of the play. With
57
At the sound of a small cannon, the motley crowd
hastened towards the theatre, which was a large, unsightly
wooden enclosure, erected on a broad green meadow, within
a stone’s throw of the village. A few poplars growing
on either side of the enclosure, no doubt mark, from one
ten years to another, the precise spot. The brightly painted
pediment of the proscenium rose above the rude wooden
fence; crowds of people already thronged the hastily
erected flights of steps leading to the different entrances.
A few moments more, and we were seated in one of the
boxes precisely opposite the front of the stage. A sea of
heads was below us in the pit, a sea whose waves were
Tyrolean hats, glittering Hiegel Hauke, ponderous badger
skins, and now and then a dash of foam-like white handker-
chiefs. This foam greatly increased -with the heat of the
sun; the women throwing over their other head-gear snowy
handkerchiefs to protect them from his rays. In the boxes,
on either hand, sate the gentlefolks; and very grand folk
some of them were, I am sure. Could we have only known
their names, we, should have found a considerable sprink-
ling of Grafen and Grafinnen, of Fiirsten and Furstinnen,
not to speak of common vans and Geheimrdthe, and Hof-
rdthe, and Professoren.
With the first feeble notes from the orchestra, and very
feeble at first they were, a dead silence sank down upon
the assembled multitude; as people say, you might have
heard a pin drop. All was breathless expectation. And
soon, beneath the blue dome of heaven, and with God’s
sunlight showering down upon them, a fantastic vision
passed across the stage; their white tunics glanced in the
light, their crimson, violet, and azure mantles swept the
ground, their plumed head-dresses waved in the breeze;
they looked like some strange flight of fabulous birds.
This was the chorus, attired to represent angels. Like the
antique chorus, they sang the argument of the play. With