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Schreker events ++
Stage premiere in Austria "Irrelohe"
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -> Stage premiere in Austria: "Irrelohe" at the Volksoper Wien
IRRELOHE Premiere:
Saturday, 16. October 2004, 19.30 Tickets:
+43/1/513 1 513 Conductor:
Dietfried Bernet
Count Heinrich, Master of Irrelohe - John Uhlenhopp Count Heinrich lives in the Irrelohe castle. A curse has hung over his family for generations-the Counts of Irrelohe are prone to repeated sexual excesses. Thirty years earlier Heinrich's father raped a young village girl, Lola, on the day of her wedding celebration. A child named Peter was conceived from this act.
70 years after Schreker's death, 80 years after the world premiere in Cologne under Otto Klemperer, the Volksoper presents "Irrelohe" in an Austrian stage première. The Austrian stage première of Schreker's opera "Irrelohe" (world première in 1924) at the Volksoper Wien has been entrusted to an Austrian creative team: Conductor Dietfried Bernet (recently at the Glyndebourne Festival, Vienna State Opera, Royal Opera Stockholm, among others) and the young director Olivier Tambosi who, after notable successes at the Metropolitan Opera (New York), the Lyric Opera Chicago and the Royal Opera House (Covent Garden), London, works for the first time on a major stage in his hometown. "Irrelohe" - the thrilling story of a castle weighed down by a curse and its inhabitants - is performed as part of the "Rediscovered Music" series.
Wednesday, 13 October, 2004, 8pm An introductory evening with a number of artists from the production who will give a foretaste of the upcoming première. Host: Birgit Meyer ->
Symposium "Degenerate
music -Rediscovered" In May, 1938, Nazi cultural politicians opened an exhibit in Düsseldorf with the title "Degenerate Music". The exhibit poster featured a black saxophone player to indicate a style of music-jazz-which was defamed under this concept, despite having made its triumphant progress from New Orleans via New York to Europe in the 20s. Also in this category defined by the Nazis as "degenerate" and prohibited were found all atonal music and all works by Jewish composers. Most of the affected musicians went into exile-provided that this was still possible. The result was a huge loss for European musical life and affected not only opera and operetta but the whole concert repertoire, pop music and cabaret as well. Numerous artists and their music fell into oblivion for a long time as a result of the performance ban. This season the Volksoper Wien presents four works which were formerly designated as "degenerate": "Irrelohe" by Franz Schreker (première on 16.10.), "Die Vögel" by Walter Braunfels (revival from 1. 11.), "Der König Kandaules" by Alexander Zemlinsky (revival from 7.11.) as well as "The Duchess of Chicago" by Emmerich Kálmán (première on 11.12). On the 14th and 15th of October, 2004, a symposium will be given at the Volksoper which will thoroughly explore the performed works and should give insight into the multilayered topic "Degenerate music - Rediscovered". A panel of respected advisers-all of whom have contributed greatly over the years to the rediscovery of this music-will enhance your understanding of the works, their composers as well as their origins. Musical contributions frame the program. Download
program (PDF) ->
Schreker Exhibition at the Jewish Museum in Vienna With works such as "Der ferne Klang", "Die Gezeichneten", "Der Schatzgräber" and "Irrelohe" Franz Schreker (1878-1934) was one of the most important opera composers of his generation. His seductive soundscapes opened up new perspectives, which were further developed only decades later by Witold Lutoslawski or György Ligeti. The dramaturgy of Schreker's operas anticipated the pictorial language of the cinema. As the writer of his own libretti, he was able to illustrate the many themes of a world in transition. Born in Monaco as the son of a Jewish Bohemian court photographer and a mother from an Austrian aristocratic family, he perceived already in his youth the contradictions of the declining Austro-Hungarian Empire. Schreker, who was a pupil of Arnold Rosé and Robert Fuchs, started his career in Vienna among others as conductor of the first performance of Arnold Schönberg's Gurre-Lieder. His pupils included, among others, the composers Ernst Krenek, Karol Rathaus and Alois Haba as well as the conductors Jascha Horenstein, Josef Rosenstock and Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt. From 1920, under his direction the Berlin Academy of Music became one of the leading musical educational institutions in the world. In 1933 the Nazis removed him from all positions and banned all performances of his works, he died shortly afterwards from a stroke. The exhibition provides a unique insight into the history of music and opera at the crossroads of Art Nouveau and New Realism, of the Romantic and the Modern movement, and thus into the cultural history of a turbulent epoch. On the example of Schreker's father it also deals with the situation of the Jews and their striving for emancipation and assimilation. Large parts of his estate including scores, manuscripts, personal documents and photos of historic performances will be on view for the first time. An audio-guide makes the tour through the exhibition a tremendous acoustic experience. A book of the same name including two CDs will be published by Wiener Mandelbaum Verlag (ISBN 3-85476-133-3) and will be available at a price of € 29.90. |
At
the beginning of the opera Christobald, Lola's bridegroom at the time
of the rape, appears seeking revenge on the son of the old Count. The
pattern recurs: just as 30 years ago the old Count "took" the wife of
Christobald, now the young Count Heinrich, "takes" from Peter the biggest
love of his life. Peter loves the forester's daughter, Eva. But a chance
encounter in the woods between Eva and Count Heinrich leads to strangely
wild and passionate love between them. At Eva and Heinrich's wedding disaster
strikes: Peter cannot accept that he has lost Eva to the house of Irrelohe
which already destroyed his mother's life and so he tries to prevent the
wedding but is stabbed by Heinrich during the ensuing quarrel. Christobald
has meanwhile set fire to Irrelohe castle. With the flames blazing in
front of their eyes, Eva and Heinrich set off on their new life.