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Wolff’s
Second Foreword to his “Kingdom of Fanes”
This second foreword is compeletely devoted to Wolff’s,
and others’, attempts to revive the traditional Ladinian
“popular theater” performance, that should have included
the staging of the whole Fanes’ legend. Anyway, as far as
the research on the legend is concerned, we would be much more
interested in the list and the evaluation that Wolff
provides upon his sources. Unfortunately, however, reserves
and ambiguities prevail on clarifications. See also my short remark
at bottom.
2. The Ladinians’ Festival
“Your
traditions hover on the whole area of the Pale Mountains
like the noble mourning of a defunct who deceased
long ago, like the restless dream of a kingdom of old”.
Hubert
Mumelter, “The Kingdom of the Pale Mountains
(A Programme for a Work to Come)", “Voice over
the
Mountain”, Innsbruck 1953, p.114
On
June 17th, 1951 the Ladinian people revived its ancient festival,
that had been dormant for a century and a half and had almost
been forgotten, and staged it again in the village of Wengen (La
Valle in Badia), with a large concurrence from the valleys nearby.
All presents got the impression that a millennium-old tradition
had suddenly returned to life, and wondered about having heard
so little of it until now. But in the past only a restricted circle
of sages had considered its remembrance as precious and kept it
alive. The first writer who reported something of it was the Northern
Germany geologist A. von Klipstein, who over
one century ago roamed the Dolomites and studied them in deep,
with a predilection for the Group of Fanis. From him we learn,
as an instance, the the pass of Rit, in Marebbe, was also named
in the past “Glamba”, as none does today any longer
(A Contribution to the Geological Knowledge of Eastern Alps,
Giessen 1843, p.45). Klipstein didn’t care of legends and
traditions, but his daughter did. She was always with him in his
trips and survived him long. In her letters to Alberta Bauer (Hamburg)
and to dr. Max Kuntze (Arco) one can find several hints to a great
and remarkable “cycle of legends of Fanis” and to
a show of the popular Ladinian theater that had this saga as its
subject, but nothing more comes up. Dr. Kuntze, who wrote several
texts about Arco, Gries and Merano, took an active part in this
exchange of messages and made several trips all over the Fanes
mountains area, but couldn’t ascertain anything; more so,
in those places people constantly confirmed him what the well-known
legend researcher J.A. Heyl had verified a short
time earlier [i.e., that the area was very poor of legends, Transl.’s
note].
The best informed people came from Fassa and were Franz
Dantone (a photograph and mason master from Gries, deceased
1909), Tita Cassan (a teacher at the Professional
Institute of Bolzano, deceased 1905) and Hugo
von Rossi (who worked at the Post Office at Innsbruck
and died 1940). Their notions, however, concerned specially Lidsanel’s
song “L’ultimo
dei latrones” [The last of the Latrones]. About
the ancient and connected legend cycle of the Fanes, at first
I couldn’t obtain a clear picture. In detail, in the first
decades all my efforts, addressed to the people from the valleys
of Gardena and Marebbe, yielded no results. Dr. Alois
Vittur, the chronicler of Marebbe, only knew about the
“Morin di Salvans”,
the “Dwarfs’ mill” concealed in the heart of
the Fanes’ Dolomites. When we visited together the upper
Fassa valley, we met a man from Canazei who was acquainted with
“Doresilla” and indicated us the stronghold of Cerceneda
under the walls of the Sella, saying that the princess had lived
long there, until going back to Fanes – dr. Vittur was as
stupefied as myself at that.
About year 1900 I met with a student from Gardena named Wilhelm
Moroder-Lusenberg, whom his comrades called “Wili
da Zhumbyerk”. He was a very wide-cultured guy and an enthusiast
at local history. Among the notions about the Rhaetians, he was
specially attracted by their legends, and I must thank him for
his several important communications. One day he told me: “We
Ladinians preserve e primeval epos, which is connected with the
mountains of Fanes and was once put on stage in the form of a
festival in popular theaters and dance floors: it disappeared
since the beginning of the war against Frenchmen, i.e. about 1796;
we must put this show back into honour”. His destiny, however,
pushed my friend into Bohemia, and then into the First World War,
from which he never came back.
Other people, however, helped me to go further, and in 1915 I
was able to offer an overall presentation of that ancient cycle
of legends in the issues from 19 to 22 of the “Mitteilungen
des Alpenvereins”, titled “The Dolomitic
epos”. It was shown almost only from the Fassa side,
as I was wholly depending on Hugo
von Rossi.
Roughly at the same time, miss von Klipstein had persuaded Rudolf
Lorenz, a theater director from Northern Germany, to
investigate on the Fanes’ legend in order to use it as the
subject of an open-air show in the Dolomites. Lorenz breathed
fire, came to Bolzano notwithstanding the war and hurried up the
Dolomites, but obviously couldn’t get anything done. Among
the places I suggested him for his planned open-air stage, he
liked most the field of Confin, under the Sassolungo. During my
military leave in summer, 1916 I had several long talks with Lorenz.
I showed him all my material and he extracted a nice sketch for
his festival. However, one year later he was compelled to return
home, where he soon died because of the war. I mourned him together
with a peculiar lyric poet from Tyrol, Arthur von Wallspach,
who since long had eyed the Fanes’ saga and was aware of
a few details that were completely new to me. He believed that
the festival couldn’t be revived any longer and exhorted
me to write down at least all the available material, so that
it could be preserved.
In December, 1918 I published most of this material on the “Bozner
Nachrichten”, and on this subject I received several
letters, among which one from the poet and scholar Rudolf
Pannwitz, from Northern Germany, and one from the Viennese
composer Emil Petschnig.
Pannwitz had heard, through miss Alberta Bauer, of the existence
of a lost epic poem and a popular theater of the inhabitants of
the Dolomites, and asked for my publications in order to elaborate
on them. This way he developped his poem “Ladinian Legend”
(published by Hans Carl at Munich-Feldafing in 1920). This work,
that appeared, so to say, without any advertising, unfortunately
went totally unnoticed.
Emil Petschnig got in touch, on my
advice, with Hugo von Rossi,
wrote the libretto himself and created a three-act opera. He chose
to name it “The Promised Time”. Petschnig
moved the core of the action on the tournament that Lidsanel
gained, but remaining deprived of its prize, and on the last scene,
when the Queen and Lujanta row
on the lake of Braies in a small boat.
At the end, Luyanta turns to
the audience and says:
“The
good times of old will come back,
There will be no more slaves nor bullies,
When they all will resurrect to a new life,
Those who have suffered in the mountains”.*)
Now,
as in the year 1928 the traders from Innsbruck wished to hold
a festival for the townfolks, Hugo
von Rossi and Petschnig proposed
the just composed opera. It was able to gain some influential
authorities. Therefore, on May 14th, 1928, “The promised
Time”, in the form of a Tyrolean festival, was staged
at the Concert Hall of Innsbruck in front of a chosen invited
audience. The committee that promoted the work was composed by
the gentlemen: Franz Fischer (deputy Mayor of the Town of Innsbruck),
dr. Josef Dinkhauser (responsible for Popular Culture in Tyrol),
dr. Karl Senn (music expert), Kurt Blaas (opera singer), Hugo
von Rossi (retired Captain and Post officer, as representative
of the Ladinians), Wilhelm Waldmüller (representing the town
Theater), dr. Franz-Egon Hye-Kerkdal (director of the Urania of
Innsbruck), Alois Sprenger (vice-president of the League of the
Tyrol inn-keepers) and dr. Paul Weitlaner (Director of the Passion
show at Thiersee). The music was generally appraised; as far as
the subject was concerned, on the contrary, the majority of the
traders of Innsbruck stated that it was too much alien to Northern
Tyroleans; and, as a consequence, the work was rejected. Much
saddened, Petschnig went back to Vienna,
where he persevered years long in his efforts to bring his work
back to the public attention, until he died at the beginning of
the second World War. Text and music have likely been lost.
In
a gloomy Autumn evening, upon invitatio by mr. Arthur von Wallspach,
a dozen people met at Chiusa, among which was my modest person,
in order to debate about the fiasco at Innsbruck and to find new
ways to put all its parts together and properly stage that ancient
popular drama. Big difficulties existed. The meeting was also
attended by the Northern Tyrolean poet reverend brother Willram,
who was always an unfaltering enthusiast at such things. When
he realized that we all were rather downhearted, in his steadfast
good temper he banged his hand on the table and cried: “Gentlemen,
this way you are going to let hope die! Patience and perseverance
bring to results; remember then Virgil’s words: ‘tantae
molis erat romanam condere gentem’ (founding the Roman
people was so difficult)!” We laughed, but the spirits remained
low and we split to no outcome. We were certain, anyway, that
brother Willram was right, and a positive turn was already in
the making.
In
the 1921 year’s issues of the “Schlern”
I had dealt with the “dolomitic poetry”, giving a
short summary of the Fassa tradition about the “Last
of the latrones” and mentioning the Fanes’
saga as well. As a consequence, I received a letter from reverend
Karl Staudacher, a regular
contributor to the “Schlern”, who liked most
dealing with the Badia valley, its inhabitants, their language
and their traditions. Staudacher
informed me that he knew the Fanes’ cycle of legends since
long, and that he was deriving an epic poem in verses out of it.
We joined our efforts by reciprocally exchanging the materials
we had collected, a fact that was very useful to us both. We agreed,
furthermore, that I would compile everything in prose. When I
did, Staudacher received
a copy, and I shipped a second one to Petschnig
in Vienna. At this point, we would have liked to wait until the
opera was staged in Innsbruck. As this was delaying, I published
my work in Munich.
Staudacher, who was a parish
priest, in the meanwhile had been retired because of a serious
eye desease and had been transferred to Bressanone, where he lived
at the Cassianeum. Here I payed him several visits, and each time
he allowed me to peep into his poem, that he had chosen to title
“Fanneslied”. Three years long he completely
devouted himself to this epos, for which he, who was quickly getting
blind, had himself helped by a goodwilling writer of Merano, Henriette
von Pelzel. When he completed his work, Staudacher
knew his whole poem by heart and often recited it to a group of
young students of Bressanone, to the theologians of the Church
seminary and to other auditors. Reverend Staudacher
deceased at Bressanone in 1944; his manuscript (368 typed sheets)
must be still there, in good hands. A copy exists at Brunico too.
[It was published in 1994: see bibl.,
Transl.'s note].
About 1935 a poet from Berlin, Eberhard
König, came to Bolzano and lived there for a
long time. He already had heard by miss Alberta Bauer that in
the Dolomites a noteworthy and ancient cycle of legends existed,
therefore he put in touch with me. I showed hime my material and
he found it quite proper for an excellent dramatic elaboration.
Indeed, in the following years he extracted from it a dramatic
legend, “Aurona”. In 1941, I received the
manuscript to revise and I excerpted two beautiful passages, that
I have reproduced here in the form of citations. Eberhard
König also has departed in the meanwhile.
In
the eighth issue of my “Dolomitensagen” (1944)
I published the cycle of legends of the “Fanes’ Kingdom”
with all those supplements for which I must thank reverend Staudacher,
quoting also his work several times. Until that moment, there
had be no way to dramatize and stage again the ancient popular
festival, as I dreamed since 1905. However, from the same cultural
circle of Bressanone where Staudacher
had played an important role, the young poet came who was to give
the Ladinians back their festival under a new form. He is a Ladinian
himself, born at La Valle [La Val], named Angel
Morlang, and studied theology at Bressanone. Anointed as a
priest, he came back to his home valley and became an assistant
priest at La Valle, where in his free time he could write down
the popular festival he had since long in his mind. But the matter
was not over with the completion of the manuscript. Morlang
had just pushed to the point where we others had already arrived.
But Morlang went further:
he wanted the enactment on a stage; if this couldn’t be
obtained at Innsbruck, then why not at La Valle, maybe with greater
rights and significance – La Valle, where the descendants
lived of those ancestors whose remembrance and whose existence
the festival was claiming – La Valle, at the feet of those
lonely and silent Dolomites of Fanes, whose rocky ring had guarded
that mysterious cycle of legends. Morlang
overcame all difficulties. He designed and planned the opera,
wrote all parts in Ladinian language, looked for suitable actors
among his country people, taught them, built a stage, had costumes
sewn according to appropriate drawings, even found among his people
adequate musicians; finally, he painted himself the required wings,
and he made them so beautiful and true to nature, that one could
really believe to be within the represented scenery. The name
“Fanes da Tsakàn” [Fanes of Old],
that Morlang gave to his show,
is pure Ladinian and, for those who know something about this
language, really has a sacred flavour. Rehearses lasted four months.
The most important actors were: Angela Kastlunger (from Colfosco,
all others from La Valle) in the role of the Queen of Fanes; in
that of the King of Fanes, Pire Tolpeit; the Prince of Fanes was
Tomesch Dapòz; the role of Dolasilla was acted by Teresa
Nagler, that of Luyanta by Maria Altòn and that of Ey-de-Net
by Karl Valentin. Most song texts were written by reverend Angel
Dapunt; they were sung by several local music lovers, like Hans
Rubatscher, Edi Pizzinini, reverend Angel Frener, Rudolf Pizzinini
and others. The Music Chapel of the Badia valley was charged of
the instrumental accompaniment. The musicians were: Edi Pizzinini,
Hans Rubatscher and Hans Valentin. Three longer speeches, that
were delivered at the theater, had been written by Josef Moling,
schoolteacher at La Valle. Reverend Angel
Morlang himself was the general director of the show.
The performances took place on June 17th, July 8th, 16th and 29th
and August 25th, 1951. The show lasted every time over four hours;
during intervals, a musical entertainment was offered. The generally
dominant sensation was that the show wasn’t only an old
popular festival refurbished anew, but that this wholly special
and lively drama had a great significance for the style of the
future cultural life of the Dolomites; that it was no theatrical
performance like any other, but the national festival of the Dolomitic
Ladinians, eventually revised and brought to a new life.
Footnote:
in the Calendario Gardenese [Calendar of Gardena] for year 1952,
the drama “Fanes da tzakàn” was carefully
described in Ladinian language. Several writers, who unfortunately
for an excess of modesty only signed with their initials, found
a way to depict the whole story in several short pictures, what
they did beautifully. In detail, I must praise the lively description
of the high mountains world of the Fanes, signed S.U.P. Several
very nice drawings by miss Resi Gruber increase the value of this
publication, that represents an important moment of the Ladinian
cultural life.
___________________
Notes:
*)
In the wishes of the Foreign Ministry in Vienna, this passage
should be cancelled.
___________________
My
remarks
What
really Staudacher passed
to Wolff about the Fanes’
legend, and what he learned from other undisclosed sources, remains
obscure. The suspicion that cannot but arise is that Wolff,
having discovered that in Fassa little was known, and only from
a local point of view, in Gardena and Badia they knew nothing,
and in Marebbe very little, had retrieved his informants in Ampezzo
and in the surrounding area, but he never explicitly mentioned
them for “political” reasons, i.e. for not relinquishing
the paternity of the legend into the hands of the traditional
foes of the Marebbans. It is still to be understood, anyway, why
neither Alton nor Wolff,
contrary to Staudacher,
ever found any trace of the legend in Marebbe! Maybe the “nanny”
who told the whole story to the priest-to-be, and who he stated
(see Foreword 1) to be coming from Marebbe, learned of the legend
by a man from Ampezzo?
Finally, as Staudacher
passed most informations to Wolff
not by letter, but during vis-à-vis meetings, maybe we
shall never know what would have been most important, i.e. whether,
and how much, Wolff added or
modified of his own over the anthropological data that the genuine
tradition had handed to him.
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