Neuber (Frederika) Carolina

Neuber (Frederika) Carolina (née Weissenborn), (1697–1760), one of the earliest and best-known of German actress-managers. After an unhappy childhood she eloped with a young clerk, Johann Neuber (1697–1759), and with him joined a theatrical company. Ten years later they formed a company of their own. ‘ Die Neuberin’, as she was called, was at this time at the height of her powers and had already attracted the notice of Gottsched, who enlisted her help in his projected reform of the German stage, persuading her in 1727 to stage French classical plays instead of the old improvised comedies, farces, and harlequinades. High-spirited and intolerant of restraint, however, she soon found herself in conflict with his rigid principles and they parted in 1739, after which the fortunes of her company declined. Even the collaboration of the young Lessing was of no avail, and after struggling along until the outbreak of the Seven Years War, which reduced them to poverty, husband and wife died within a year of each other. Carolina Neuber's association with Gottsched is generally regarded as the starting-point of the modern German theatre. She did a great deal for her profession, ruling her company with a firm hand, and insisting on regularity and order. Her style of acting, in its day, was a vast improvement on the old clowning and farcical horse-play and prepared the way for the subtle and more natural methods of Ekhof and Schröder.