Weiße Rose (opera)

Die weiße Rose (The White Rose) is a chamber opera in one act by composer Udo Zimmermann. The opera tells the story of Hans and Sophie Scholl, a brother and sister in their early twenties, who were guillotined by the Nazis in 1943 for leading Die Weisse Rose, a non-violent resistance group. The opera premiered at the Dresden Conservatory on 17 June 1967 with a German libretto by the composer's brother, Ingo Zimmermann, who is a well known journalist and writer in Germany. The opera was received fairly well but did not spark the interest of a professional production, which the composer had hoped.

Convinced that he could make a production that would achieve more lasting success, he revisited the work in the early 1980s with the intent of dramatically revising the opera. The original opera used a conventional narrative style, and although Zimmermann liked his brother's libretto, he felt that the opera would be better served by a more expressionistic and poetic portrait of the Scholls. Collaborating with a new librettist, Wolfgang Willaschek, the two men decided to remove the linear narrative, cut out all the supporting characters, and concentrate only on the thoughts of Hans and Sophie Scholl in the moments before their death. Willaschek decided to use the Scholls’ own letters and diaries, the pamphlets of the White Rose, the writings of the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (also executed by the Nazis), and the Bible as sources for the new libretto. The resulting opera became a psychological map of the Scholls’ spiritual journey. Musically, Zimmerman kept some of the music from the original opera, composed some new music, and reorchestrated other parts of the original score. The opera has an approximate running time of 70 minutes.

The revised version of the opera premiered at the Hamburg State Opera on 27 February 1986 and was lauded by the audience and the press. The opera became an international success and has enjoyed performances at many of the world's leading opera houses and with leading orchestras including the Vienna State Opera, Komische Oper Berlin, Zurich Opera, the Salzburg Festival, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra among many others.

Roles

Cast	Voice type	Premiere of revised opera, 27 February 1986 Conductor: Udo Zimmermann)
Hans Scholl	tenor*See note	Lutz-Michael Harder
Sophie Scholl	soprano	Gabriele Fontana

• Note- The tessitura and range of the role of Hans is such that a number of baritones with good upper extension have also learned and performed the role.

Synopsis

Background

It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes ... reach the light of day? — From the first leaflet of the White Rose.

In early 1943, Hans Scholl and his sister Sophie were arrested by the Gestapo, summarily tried, and beheaded for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets in Munich and several other German cities. Between June 1942 and February 1943, the White Rose (made up of the Scholls, some of their friends, and a professor at the University of Munich) had prepared and distributed six different leaflets, in which they called for the active opposition of the German people to Nazi oppression and tyranny. A draft of a seventh leaflet, written by Christoph Probst, was found in the possession of Hans Scholl at the time of his arrest by the Gestapo, who destroyed it.

The White Rose was influenced by the German Youth Movement, of which Christoph Probst was a member. Hans Scholl was a member of the Hitler Youth until 1936 and Sophie was a member of the Bund Deutscher Mädel, membership of both groups was compulsory for young Germans.

Members of the White Rose, Munich 1942. From left: Hans Scholl, his sister Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst. Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The ideas of dj 1.11. had strong influence on Hans Scholl and his brothers and sisters. dj.1.11 was a youth group of the German Youth Movement, founded by Eberhard Koebel in 1929.

The Scholls were motivated by their Christian beliefs. They had witnessed the atrocities of the war, both on the battlefield and against the civilian population in the East, and sensed that the reversal of fortune that the Wehrmacht suffered at Stalingrad would eventually lead to Germany's defeat. They rejected fascism and militarism and believed in a federated Europe that adhered to principles of tolerance and justice. Although the group knew they would surely be arrested, they did what they did in order to affirm for their contemporaries that the spirit of freedom still exists, and to show later generations that not all Germans turned a blind eye to the evil that rampaged around them.

Plot

Grave of Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst, in the Perlacher Friedhof, next to the Stadelheim prison in Munich.

Setting: Munich and parts of Poland

The plot of the opera does not move in a linear fashion but rather proceeds in a series of images, at once metaphorical and disturbingly concrete. There are evocations of the Bavarian mountains where Hans and Sophie loved to hike. There is the sound of children playing to the music of a hurdy-gurdy. There are starker images also: a Jewish prisoner to whom Hans gave some tobacco on his way to the eastern front; a refugee mother dragging the body of her dead child; the frozen corpse of a soldier, “another death recorded on a routine list.” Towards the end, the images are combined: the mountain climb becomes a kind of transfiguration in death; the frozen child returns to life. But the opera ends with the only overt reference to the Scholls’ political activities, as brother and sister shout their desperate challenge to humanity against the insistent march of a gathering army and the cries of a vast mob coming from all around the theater.

And then silence. The echoes of the music die away, but the voices of Hans and Sophie Scholl resonate in the silence.

Recordings

• Die weisse Rose with Udo Zimmermann (conductor), Gabriele Fontana (Sophie) , Lutz-Michael Harder (Hans) and the Instrumentalensemble München. Released on the Orfeo label in 1988.

Sources

• F. Hennenberg: Udo Zimmermann: Leidenschaft Musik – Abenteuer Theater: Komponist – Intendant – Dirigent (Bonn, 1992)

• M. Ernst, ed.: Udo Zimmermann: ein Fünfzigjähriger im Spiegelbild von Zeitgenossen: eine Biographie in Zitaten (Leipzig, 1993)

• Lars Klingberg: "Udo Zimmermann", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed September 19, 2008), (subscription access)