Schiller's second full-scale stage play, another five-act prose tragedy, but with a political rather than a family theme this time, loosely based on the real story of the Fieschi conspiracy against Doge Andrea Doria in Genoa in January 1547. In Schiller's version, Fiesco is a handsome, clever and politically astute young man who joins a republican coup against the excessive power of the Doria family only to become convinced that what Genoa needs is not the quasi-democratic rule his patrician allies are aiming for, but a strong, competent dictatorship by someone with the kind of abilities that only Giovanni Luigi Fiesco can offer.

The logic of drama sees to it that Fiesco is punished for his arrogance, but Schiller doesn't seem to be quite so sure that he made the wrong decision in opting for dictatorship. Certainly, Fiesco and Andrea Doria are the characters who get all the best lines and who come across as positive forces, whilst the "noble republican" character, Verrina, is a strongly negative element, a man who is happy to mortgage his daughter's life to his political ideals ("schwer, ernst und dunkel", as Schiller sums him up in the dramatis personae).

The most interesting character is probably Muley Hassan, the archetypal Mediterranean wheeler-dealer (and a more than slightly racist caricature), who acts as a double-agent spying on the Dorias for Fiesco and on Fiesco for the Dorias, increasing his personal wealth with every passage between camps. He also has the one line in the play that has entered the German language: "Der Mohr hat seine Arbeit getan, der Mohr kann gehen" (The Moor has done his work, the Moor can go) — still a great line to quote under your breath when you feel your boss isn't giving you the recognition you deserve.

The women get more to do than in Die Räuber, but their parts aren't exactly out of the ordinary — Julia is a femme fatale to be seduced and spurned by Fiesco, Leonore a faithful neglected wife, Berta an innocent victim. Schiller does, however, remember to put in a couple of reasonable parts for Leonore's maids. And there's a little bit of Shakespearean cross-dressing in the last act.

Given all this, it's probably not surprising if you've never seen this performed on stage, but it is quite an interesting study of political character. ( )