Fierrabras
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| Title: | Fierrabras |
| Original title: | Opera in three acts |
Salzburg Festival 2014 |
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| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Franz Schubert |
| Libretto : | Joseph Kupelwieser |
| Literary source: | Fierabras ; Book of Love by Johann Gustav Gottlieb Büsching and Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen ; Eginhard and Emma by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué |
| Premiere: | February 9, 1897 |
| Place of premiere: | Karlsruhe |
| Playing time: | approx. 2 ½ hours |
| Place and time of the action: | Southern France and Spain at the time of Charlemagne |
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Fierrabras or Fierabras ( D 796; piano version of the Overture op.76) is a heroic-romantic opera by Franz Schubert in three acts with spoken dialogues based on a libretto by Joseph Kupelwieser . Schubert composed the opera between May 25 and October 2, 1823; it was not performed during his lifetime.
action
Emma, daughter of Charlemagne , secretly loves the knight Eginhard, who was rejected by her father. Fierrabras, the son and general of the Moorish prince Boland, against whom Karl had just successfully fought, loves Emma and is also committed to Christianity. As a prisoner of the heroic Franconian Roland , Fierrabras comes to Karl's court, is pardoned, accepts the love affair between Emma and Eginhard, even stands up for them selflessly and becomes friends with Roland. He loves Fierrabras' sister Florinda, who renounces all Moorish ties in order to be able to unite with Roland, eventually even mounts the stake with him. Eginhard and the Frankish knights are supposed to make peace with the Moors at Karl's behest, but are captured and sentenced to death by Boland. Florinda confesses to the Franks, Eginhard can escape and lead Karl's army against the Moors, supported by Fierrabras. The Moors are defeated, but the couples find each other, only Fierrabras renounced.
Performances
After the failure of the premiere of Carl Maria von Weber's Euryanthe on October 25, 1823, the Fierrabras that had already been announced for the beginning of 1824 was canceled. Franz Schubert also received no fee for his extensive score, which he had written on behalf of Domenico Barbaja , tenant of the Vienna Court Opera. From 1829 on there was only a concert performance of individual numbers. It was not until February 9, 1897, under Felix Mottl, that the scenic premiere took place in the court theater in Karlsruhe . Many decades later, musically almost unabridged theater productions were dared, which received widespread attention:
- 1982: Theater Augsburg (direction and production: Filippo Sanjust )
- 1988: Theater an der Wien (conductor: Claudio Abbado , director: Ruth Berghaus , later taken over by the Vienna State Opera )
- 1994: Wuppertal Opera House (Conductor: Peter Gülke , Director: Friedrich Meyer-Oertel )
- 2002: Oper Frankfurt (conductor: Paolo Carignani , director: Tilman Knabe )
- 2002: Zurich Opera House (conductor: Franz Welser-Möst , director: Claus Guth )
- 2014: Salzburg Festival (conductor: Ingo Metzmacher , director: Peter Stein )
- 2019: Konzert Theater Bern (Conductor: Mario Venzago , Director: Elmar Goerden )
The Vienna performance from 1988, resumed in 1990 at the Vienna State Opera, came about due to the commitment of Claudio Abbado , then General Music Director of the City of Vienna. The productions in Zurich and Salzburg are based on initiatives by Alexander Pereira , who was then head of these institutions. The 2019 production by Konzert Theater Bern is thanks to the initiative of Mario Venzago . He partially shortened the spoken texts and added musical accompaniment to recitative (with original music by Franz Schubert ).
templates
Joseph Kupelwieser used a prose version of the medieval Fierabras epic, which is printed in Büsching - Hagen's Book of Love (1809), as well as the saga about Eginhard and Emma (comprehensible in dramas by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué (1811) and Helmina von Chézy (1817)). Other alleged templates discussed in Schubert literature, such as the Chanson de Roland , another Emma and Eginhard drama and the drama The Bridge of Mantible by Calderón (1636), could be excluded from recent research through text comparison.
In their handwritten sources, Kupelwieser and Schubert always write the Romanistically incorrect variant of the name “Fierrabras”. The editors of the New Schubert Edition, on the other hand, use the philologically correct (fier-à-bras) - and therefore equally meaningful - form of the name “Fierabras”.
literature
- Thomas Denny: Foreword to Fierabras in the New Schubert Edition , NGA .
- Thomas Denny: Schubert's Fierrabras and Barbaja's Opera Business . In: Schubert. Perspektiven (2005), Issue 1, Steiner: Stuttgart 2005, pp. 19–45.
- Friedrich Dieckmann : Fidelio's heirs. Fierabras and the Biedermeier consciousness. In: Opera today. An Almanac of the Music Stage , Vol. 8; Berlin 1985, p. 77 ff.
- Wolf-Dieter Hartwich: The Christian-Islamic conflict in Schubert's Fierrabras. Cultural aspects of the libretto and its templates. In: Otto Kolleritsch : “Dialect without earth.” Franz Schubert and the 20th century. Studies on valuation research, 34. Graz 1998, pp. 150–175.
- Christine Martin: The drafts of the particell for Schubert's Fierabras and their significance for the composing process of the opera . In: Schubert: Perspektiven (2007), Heft 1, Steiner: Stuttgart 2005, pp. 1–16.
- Liane Speidel: Franz Schubert - an opera composer? Using the example of the "Fierrabras" . (Wiener Schriften zur Stilkunde und Performancepraxis) Vienna 2012 [initially as a dissertation under her maiden name L. Redenbacher: Why was Franz Schubert not successful as an opera composer? an analysis using the example of Fierrabras . Vienna 2007.]
- Werner Thomas : picture and action in Fierabras. A contribution to Schubert's musical dramaturgy. In: Werner Aderhold et al. (Ed.): Franz Schubert. Years of crisis. 1818-1823. Arnold Feil on his 60th birthday. Bärenreiter, Kassel 1985, pp. 85-112. Also in: Werner Thomas: Schubert Studies . Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1990 ISBN 978-3-631-40687-8
Web links
- Fierrabras : Sheet Music and Audio Files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Plot and cast at Klassika
- Plot and libretto by Fierrabras on Opera-Guide landing page currently unavailable due to URL change
- Work data on Fierrabras based on the MGG with discography at Operone
Individual evidence
- ↑ Franz Schubert. List of his works in chronological order by Otto Erich Deutsch . Small edition. DTV, Munich, u. Bärenreiter, Kassel 1983, p. 194.
- ↑ Peter Gülke: Franz Schubert and his time . 3rd edition Laaber 2002, p. 152.
- ^ Ernst Hilmar : Franz Schubert . Rowohlt, 4th edition, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2002, p. 44.
- ^ Johann Gustav Büsching , Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen (Ed.): Book of love. First volume. Hitzig, Berlin 1809, pp. 143-268 ( digitized version ).
- ↑ Thomas Denny: Foreword to Fierabras in the new Schubert edition , NGA .