Arabella (Strauss)

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Work data
Title: Arabella
Stage design by Helmut Jürgens, Bavarian State Opera 1952

Stage design by Helmut Jürgens ,
Bavarian State Opera 1952

Original language: German
Music: Richard Strauss
Libretto : Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Premiere: July 1, 1933
Place of premiere: Dresden State Opera
Playing time: approx. 2 ½ hours
Place and time of the action: Vienna, 1860s
people
  • Count Waldner, Rittmeister a. D. ( bass )
  • Adelaide, his wife ( mezzo-soprano )
  • Arabella ( soprano )
  • Zdenka (soprano)
  • Mandryka ( baritone )
  • Matteo, hunter officer ( tenor )
  • Graf Elemer (tenor)
  • Count Dominik (baritone)
  • Graf Lamoral (bass)
  • Fiakermilli ( coloratura soprano )
  • Card reader (mezzo-soprano / soprano)
  • Welko, Mandrykas Leibhusar (speaking role)
  • Djura and Jankel, Mandryka's servants (speaking roles)
  • A room waiter (speaking role)
  • Arabella's companion, three players, a groom, fiaker, ball guests, hotel guests, waiters

Arabella is an opera in three acts by Hugo von Hofmannsthal ( libretto ) and Richard Strauss (music; op. 79). The work is the final fruit of the longstanding collaboration between the two artists. The first performance took place on July 1, 1933 in the Dresden State Opera .

action

The action takes place in an operetta-like environment, in Vienna in the 1860s. The protagonists are an impoverished aristocratic family and their marriageable daughters, Arabella and Zdenka, as well as the rich Slavic nobleman Mandryka and the young officer Matteo. After all sorts of amorous entanglements, the drama comes to a happy end .

prehistory

Graf Waldner is a hapless and passionate player. When his debts grew over his head, he moved with his wife Adelaide and their two daughters Arabella and Zdenka to a well-off hotel, where he tried to maintain the appearance of aristocratic wealth. He is also trying to find a good match for his older daughter Arabella. Since there is no money to dress both daughters appropriately, Zdenka is simply put into men's clothes and passed off as a boy "Zdenko".

First elevator

Adelaide lets a fortune teller predict the future. She sees difficult times and money problems approaching her husband, but she predicts a rich bridegroom for her daughter Arabella. However, the second daughter will endanger this relationship. Counts Elemer, Dominik and Lamoral have been courting Arabella for a long time, and the mother secretly hopes that one of them will be the chosen one. The penniless Lieutenant Matteo is also in love with Arabella and makes her advances. Arabella always rejects him brusquely.

Zdenka, who only knows Matteo as Zdenko, always gives him courage, Arabella secretly loves him. In Arabella's name, Zdenka writes love letters to Matteo, in which she expresses her secret feelings for him.

However, Arabella is still hoping for the one right person she met on the street recently. It is the Croatian Count Mandryka. Count Waldner had sent a picture of his daughter Arabella to Mandryka's uncle, his former "regimental comrade", in the hope that the old gentleman would fall in love with the picture and immediately ask for Arabella's hand. Now Mandryka, himself a widower, has inherited his uncle and lost his heart to the woman in the picture. He comes to Vienna and asks for Arabella's hand. The count agrees with great pleasure, especially since Mandryka gives him a lot of play money. Mandryka and Arabella will be introduced to each other at the Fiakerball.

Arabella is very much looking forward to this event. There she will meet her three suitors and decide with whom she will marry. "My Elemer ..." Secretly, however, she hopes to meet the stranger there.

second elevator

When Mandryka meets Arabella at the ball, he is completely carried away by her. He tells her about his late wife, about life in his villages, “where a girl draws a glass of water from the well for the groom as a sign of engagement”. Arabella is very impressed by Mandryka, and she recognizes in him the long-awaited right person "And you will be my master ..." Then Arabella asks to be allowed to be alone at the ball for an hour to say goodbye to her young girl days.

Arabella is crowned prom queen by the Fiakermilli . She dances with the three counts for the last time and says goodbye to them. Arabella takes no notice of Matteo, who also appears at the ball on Zdenka's advice. Zdenka can reassure Matteo, who wants to flee abroad because of Arabella's rejection. She gives him an envelope with a key in it. She claims that Arabella will be waiting for him in the hotel room this key fits.

Mandryka, who overheard this conversation, feels betrayed. When a little Arabellas ticket arrives shortly afterwards, in which she informs him that she has already returned to the hotel, he sees his suspicions confirmed. He can't hold back his anger. Count Waldner and his wife accompanied him back to the hotel, outraged by his speeches.

third elevator

The key opened the door to Zdenka's room for Matteo. In the dark he did not realize that it was not Arabella but Zdenka who had given himself up to him. When Matteo meets Arabella shortly afterwards in the hotel lobby, he is astonished. Especially since she treats him with the same coolness as always. Arabella cannot understand Matteo's behavior. The arguments become increasingly violent. When Mandryka and her parents enter, the matter escalates. Arabella is stunned by the changes Mandryka has seen since the Fiakerball. Preparations are already being made for a duel between Mandryka and Matteo. Only when Zdenka rushes out of her room in woman's clothes does the whole thing clear up (“Zdenkerl, you're the better one”). Mandryka is deeply ashamed. He asks Waldner in Matteo's name for the hand of his daughter Zdenka. When everyone has withdrawn, Mandryka is convinced that he has lost Arabella's love. Then she steps out of the room (“That was very good, Mandryka, that you haven't left yet”) and, in keeping with the custom of his homeland, hands him a glass of water.

layout

Musically, in Arabella , Strauss makes use of the proven leitmotif technique and an orchestra that is moderately large for his circumstances. The highlights of the score are the passages designed according to Slavic folk tunes (duet Arabella - Zdenka: "But the right one", duet Arabella - Mandryka: "And you will be my master"), as well as the closing scenes of the first and third act. Thanks to its fine art of characterization and intelligent humor, the text by Hofmannsthal avoids the subject slipping into the trivial . Nevertheless, the work is often accused of merely wanting to repeat the Rosenkavalier's recipe for success without achieving the quality of the content.

Emergence

In September 1927, before finishing the score of the Egyptian Helena , Strauss wrote to Hofmannsthal: “But now I have nothing more to work with: totally burned down! So please: write your poetry! It can even be a second Rosenkavalier… ”In December 1927 the author and the composer agreed on the scenario of the Arabella project, and in December 1928 the libretto written by Hofmannsthal was available. Revisions and changes followed in the spring of the following year. On July 10, 1929, five days before his death, Hofmannsthal sent the final monologue (“Mein Elemer…”) for the first act to Strauss.

As a reminiscence and homage to his long-time friend and companion, Strauss set the Arabella to music in Hofmannsthal's last version. Strauss completed the score in October 1932 and dedicated it to the general manager of the Dresden State Theater, Alfred Reucker (1868–1958), and the general music director of the Semperoper , Fritz Busch . The premiere took place in Dresden on July 1, 1933, with Viorica Ursuleac in the title role; Clemens Krauss was in charge of the musical direction after the dedicatee Fritz Busch had been ousted from office by the Nazis; Directed by Josef Gielen .

Audio samples

Recordings

  • 1955 Metropolitan Opera - Rudolf Kempe - in English
    Ralph Herbert (Graf Waldner); Blanche Thebom (Adelaide); Eleanor Steber (Arabella); Hilde Güden (Zdenka); George London (Mandryka); Brian Sullivan (Matteo); Clifford Harvuot (Count Dominik); Lawrence Davidson (Count Lamoral); Roberta Peters (Die Fiakermilli)
    Dante VL 2014-3 (3 CD)

literature

  • Cultural library of classical music and theater pieces , volume 2, opera and operetta guides , musicals , Pawlak, Hersching 1986, ISBN 3-88199-297-9 (licensed edition Noetzel, Wilhelmshaven).
  • Text book for Richard Strauss: Arabella , DECCA Records 1957.
  • Arabella. Lyrical comedy in three acts by Hugo von Hoffmannsthal. Music by Richard Strauss. , B. Schott's sons • Mainz / Boosey & Hawkes, London, 1933.
  • Gerhard Splitt: Richard Strauss, the Dresden premiere of 'Arabella' and 'New Germany' . In: Matthias Herrmann (ed.): Dresden and advanced music in the 20th century. Vol. 2, 1933-1966. Laaber 2002 (= Music in Dresden. Series of publications by the University of Music Carl Maria von Weber 5), pp. 285–303.

Web links