Beatrice Cenci (opera)

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Opera dates
Title: Beatrice Cenci
Portrait of Beatrice Cenci attributed to Guido Reni or Elisabetta Sirani

Portrait of Beatrice Cenci attributed to Guido Reni or Elisabetta Sirani

Shape: Opera in three acts
Original language: English
Music: Berthold Goldschmidt
Libretto : Martin Esslin
Literary source: Percy Bysshe Shelley : The Cenci
Premiere: in concert: April 16, 1988
stage: September 10, 1994
Place of premiere: concert: Queen Elizabeth Hall London
stage: Magdeburg
Playing time: approx. 1 ¾ hours
Place and time of the action: In and around Rome, 1599
people
  • Count Francesco Cenci (high baritone )
  • Lucrezia, his second wife ( old )
  • Beatrice , his daughter from his first marriage ( soprano )
  • Bernardo, her brother ( mezzo-soprano )
  • Cardinal Camillo ( bass )
  • Orsino, a prelate ( tenor )
  • Marzio, a hit man (baritone)
  • Olimpio, a hit man (bass)
  • a judge (tenor)
  • a singer at Graf Cenci's banquet (tenor)
  • Prince Colonna (baritone)
  • Andrea, a servant (baritone)
  • an officer (tenor)
  • two carpenters (tenor, baritone)
  • Servants, dancers, prison guards, people

Beatrice Cenci is an opera in three acts by Berthold Goldschmidt (music) with a libretto by Martin Esslin based on Percy Bysshe Shelley's tragedy The Cenci. It was completed in 1951, but only premiered on April 16, 1988 in concert in London and on September 10, 1994 staged in Magdeburg.

action

The opera is set in and around Rome in 1599.

first act

Garden terrace of the Cenci Palace near Rome

Lucrezia, the second wife of Count Francesco Cenci, and Beatrice , his daughter from his first marriage, complain about the brutality of the family father, who keeps his children in the house like prisoners and mistreats them. Lucrezia consoles her stepdaughter with the fact that, like her sister, she will later have a family of her own. Beatrice's brother Bernardo arrives and tells him that his father just beat him up for no reason. Beatrice tries to comfort him (trio: "Ours is an evil lot"). A servant reports that the prelate Orsino is waiting in the room and that he urgently wants to speak to the countess and her daughter. Everyone goes.

On behalf of Pope Clemens , Cardinal Camillo informs the Count that the murder he has committed should be covered up if he pays a large amount of atonement in return. Even though it's a third of his property, Cenci accepts. He openly admits that nothing excites him like brutal violence.

After the two have left, Beatrice and Orsino appear. The two had a relationship when they were young, but cannot marry because of Orsino's priesthood. Beatrice has therefore written a petition to the Pope to release Orsino from his priesthood. Orsino has no plans to deliver the letter. He wants to win Beatrice over in another way.

Orchestral interlude

Great hall in the Cenci Palace

Count Cenci holds a great festival in his palace. After the greeting, he speaks of his love for his wife and children and can be confirmed by Beatrice. After performances by dancers and a singer (“You art fair, and few are fairer”), Cenci happily announces news to the guests: two of his sons slandered him while studying in Salamanca and filed a complaint with the Pope. Now both are dead: Rocco was killed in the collapse of a church, and Christofano was stabbed to death by a jealous rival that same night. Laughing, Cenci fills a goblet with wine, holds a toast and hurls the goblet to the floor. Camillo and the guests think he is mad, but nobody dares to attack him. The guests hurry away in horror. Beatrice begs the cardinal to save her from the house, but he too fears Francesco's revenge. She is left alone with her father. He threatens her: "From now on, Beatrice, you will do what I want from you and obediently submit to the magic silently." The following rape is not shown.

Second act

Hall in the Cenci Palace; Staircase to a gallery with access to other rooms

The deeply shaken Beatrice seeks consolation from Lucrezia, but does not manage to call her father's deed by name. She compares her emotional despair with the howling wail of a hurricane ("Rough wind, that moanest loud grief"). When Orsino enters, she asks his advice. However, she does not consider his proposal for legal action to be effective. On the one hand, she lacks the right words and, on the other, Francesco's power is too great and her accusation would be rejected as implausible. Orsino therefore recommends taking the law into your own hands. He promises to bring two killers he knows that night and leaves.

When Beatrice hears her father calling for her, she quickly flees. Shortly afterwards, Cenci appears and Lucrezia warns him against further acts of violence against his daughter. He orders a servant to bring him a cup of wine. Lucrezia pours sleeping pills into it unnoticed, and Francesco drinks the wine. Before he retires tiredly, he fantasizes about driving his children Bernardo and Beatrice so far into despair that only his own name will be remembered by the world.

Lucrezia and Beatrice impatiently wait for the assassins to free them. Finally, Olimpio and Marzio enter through a small side door. The two women show them Francesco's room and wait until they return after the deed is done. They report that they strangled Francesco and threw the body in the garden to make it look like an accident. Beatrice gives them the promised money and the two men leave.

A horn signal announces the arrival of Cardinal Camillos, who enters with papal soldiers and demands to speak to the count. Cenci should be arrested immediately because there are new suspicions. The soldiers search the house and the garden and soon find his body. Camillo immediately realizes that it is not an accident. In addition, Marzio falls into Orsino's hands with the money and the written assignment. Lucrezia and Beatrice are arrested and taken away on suspicion of complicity in murder.

Third act

A prison cell

Bernardo visits Lucrezia and Beatrice in their cell. The sister tells him about a dream in which she saw the prison as paradise. Camillo, the judge, scribe, witnesses and soldiers arrive to begin the interrogation. Torture is used on the parricide charge. Marzio is presented and names Beatrice as the client. However, she denies. When the judge shows her Orsino's letter of assignment, she recognizes his handwriting - but Orsino has fled Rome and can no longer be prosecuted. To advance the interrogation, Lucrezia is taken to the torture and returned shortly after she confesses. Beatrice can no longer deny it. She only wishes "an end to this agony". The judge immediately sentenced them to death by the ax and withdrew with his entourage. Camillo promises Beatrice to seek mercy from the Pope. The three family members fall asleep exhausted.

nocturne

When a bell in the distance announces dawn, Camillo returns and informs them that his efforts have been unsuccessful. The Pope confirmed the judgment on the grounds that a matricide escaped only yesterday. Parricide is increasing so that soon only the youth will be alive. Beatrice closes with the world ("False friend, wild thou smile or weep ...?").

Interlude

Early morning; a great place; right steps to the scaffold, which is still being worked on

Workers and spectators controversially discuss the impending executions. Some demand vengeance for the count, others show understanding for the abused women and demand their freedom. Beatrice and Lucrezia are brought in in a procession. Bernardo made one last unsuccessful attempt to implore the Pope for mercy. When Beatrice says goodbye to him, he faints. Beatrice asks her mother to tie her hair one last time. Then both are led to the scaffold. When they are beaten, the crowd cries out in horror, pity and cruelty. Camillo draws the conclusion: “In all eternity: Guilty ... and yet probably guiltless. Every nausea is nausea, blood demands blood. "

Solemn singing can be heard in the distance. The Pope went to San Pietro in Montorio to pray for those who were executed. As the procession approaches, the crowd joins the requiem singing.

layout

The libretto leaves out the most violent moments of the plot. The rape of Beatrice, the murder of her father and her execution are not shown directly. This allows a concentration on the mental state of the characters. Goldschmidt accordingly foregoes a musical increase in the violence inherent in the subject.

The musical setting of the opera is intended to be transparent and symphonic and, at least in the first two acts, shows the influence of Goldschmidt's teacher Franz Schreker . The harmony is largely tonal . But there are also some free tonal passages. The singing style of this opera corresponds more closely to the bel canto idiom than that of Goldschmidt's first opera, The powerful cuckold . The nmz - authors Georg Rudiger that 'meanders [the music] between monumentality and intimacy of chamber music, between contrapuntal, more brittle sounding Barockallusionen and late Romantic exuberance, between dark orchestral colors and sweet violin solos. "

The tonality and other traditional elements of the work were perceived as "out of date conservative" at the time of its creation. In this, however, it meets the requirements of Ferruccio Busoni 's "young classicism". The tragic subject is processed with “subtle delicacy”.

Particularly effective pieces of the opera are the duet Lucrezia / Beatrice and the song of the tenor at the banquet in the first act, in the first scene of the second act Lucrezia's aria "Rough wind, that moanest loud grief" and in the last act Beatrice's farewell "False friend, wild thou smile or weep…? ”The texts of the last two come from Shelley's poems.

orchestra

The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:

Work history

Berthold Goldschmidt's opera Beatrice Cenci was written between 1949 and 1950. It is based on Percy Bysshe Shelley's tragedy, The Cenci, which is a true story from the late Renaissance period. The subject of the real person Beatrice Cenci was often artistically and musically processed, for example as an opera by Ludomir Różycki ( Beatrix Cenci, 1927), Havergal Brian ( The Cenci, 1951), Alberto Ginastera ( Beatrix Cenci, 1971) or Giorgio Battistelli ( The Cenci, 1991). For Goldschmidt, the choice of this topic was probably also a reaction to the brutal suppression of the opposition during the time of National Socialism, which was then only recently. He turned against human contempt and tyranny.

In 1948 Goldschmied first wrote a radio play music on the subject. He soon found out about the British Arts Council's “Festival of Britain 1951” competition, the winners of which were promised a performance of their works. He immediately began to work his composition into a complete opera. The libretto was written by Martin Esslin , who kept as much of the original text as possible, “as far as this was compatible with reducing the five acts of the original to three and also with the eased equilibrium of the rhymes”, and incorporated some poems by the same author. Goldschmidt completed the score in April 1950.

The opera was one of the four winners of the competition. However, none of these works was performed. After the judges had learned the identities of the composers of the four winning entries, they regretted their decision. According to Goldschmidt's memories, they were stunned that it was Alan Bush (a communist), Karl Rankl (a personal adversary of one of the jurors), Goldschmidt and the Australian Arthur Benjamin . This result was unpleasant “from a patriotic point of view”.

In 1953, excerpts from Goldschmidt's opera were heard in a BBC performance.

The concert premiere took place on April 16, 1988 in the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. Odaline de la Martinez directed the Pro Musica Chorus of London and the London Chamber Symphony. The singers included Henry Herford (Francesco Cenci), Helen Lawrence (Beatrice) and Stuart Kale (Orsino).

In terms of scenery, the work was first performed on September 10, 1994 under the direction of Max K. Hoffmann and the direction of Mathias Husmann from the Magdeburg Theater on Jerichower Platz. Here u sang a. David Cumberland (Francesco Cenci), Irena Syla (Lucrezia), Heather Thomson (Beatrice), Paul Sketris (Orsino) and Parry Price (judge).

The conductor Lothar Zagrosek recorded Beatrice Cenci on CD in the same year and performed it in concert in Berlin.

The staged first performance in Great Britain took place on July 9, 1998 at Spitalfields Market Opera, London, by students of Trinity College of Music . The conductor was Gregory Rose. Directed by Stephen Langridge. There were two follow-up performances on July 10th and 11th.

The Dortmund Opera showed the work in 2012 in a production by director Johannes Schmid, who jumped in at short notice . The set was designed by Roland Aeschlimann, the costumes by Andrea Schmidt-Futterer . Jac van Steen conducted the Dortmund Philharmonic at the premiere . Christiane Kohl , Lucrezia Katharina Peetz, Count Andreas Macco and the boy Bernardo Ileana Mateescu sang the title role .

In 2018 Goldschmidt's opera under the musical direction of Johannes Debus was shown at the Bregenz Festival in a production by Johannes Erath with a stage design by Katrin Connan and costumes by Katharina Tasch . The leading roles were sung by Gal James (Beatrice), Christoph Pohl (Francesco), Dshamilja Kaiser (Lucrezia), Michael Laurenz (Orsino), Christina Bock (Bernardo) and Per Bach Nissen (Cardinal). It was here that the German translation made by the composer himself was played for the first time. The production was broadcast live on Austrian television and then released on DVD.

Recordings

literature

  • Barbara Busch: Beatrice Cenci. In: Bertold Goldschmidt's operas in the context of music and contemporary history. Library and information system of the University of Oldenburg, 2000, ISBN 3-8142-0747-5 , pp. 171-278 ( online, PDF ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Barbara Busch: Berthold Goldschmidt as an opera composer (PDF), pp. 23-25.
  2. ^ A b Peter P. Pachl : Far from reality made present - Berthold Goldschmidt's "Beatrice Cenci" in Bregenz. Review of the performance in Bregenz 2018. In: Neue Musikzeitung , July 20, 2018, accessed on July 28, 2019.
  3. ↑ a b c Michael Struck :  Goldschmidt, Berthold. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
  4. ↑ a b Georg Rudiger: Empty decadence. Review of the production in Bregenz 2018. In: Die Deutsche Bühne , July 19, 2018, accessed on July 28, 2019.
  5. ↑ a b c Ulrich Schreiber : Opera guide for advanced learners. The 20th Century I. From Verdi and Wagner to Fascism. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2000, ISBN 3-7618-1436-4 , pp. 536-537.
  6. ^ Bernard Keeffe, Stefan Lerche (trans.): The opera. In: Supplement to the CD Beatrice Cenci. Sony CD: 66 836, p. 25.
  7. ↑ a b c work information from Boosey & Hawkes , accessed on July 24, 2019.
  8. ^ Teresa Chylińska:  Różycki, Ludomir. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
  9. ↑ Information in the libretto. Quoted from the booklet for the CD by Lothar Zagrosek, p. 54.
  10. ↑ April 16, 1988: "Beatrice Cenci". In: L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia ., Accessed on July 28, 2019.
  11. ↑ September 10, 1994: "Beatrice Cenci". In: L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia ., Accessed on July 28, 2019.
  12. ^ A b Christoph Zimmermann: Dortmund: Beatrice Cenci by Berthold Goldschmidt. Premiere. Review of the performance in Dortmund 2012. In: Online-Merker, May 27, 2012, accessed on July 28, 2019.
  13. ↑ Barbara Busch: Beatrice Cenci. In: Bertold Goldschmidt's operas in the context of music and contemporary history. Library and information system of the University of Oldenburg, 2000, ISBN 3-8142-0747-5 , p. 277 ( online, PDF ).
  14. ↑ Berthold Goldschmidt. In: Andreas Ommer: Directory of all complete opera recordings (= Zeno.org . Volume 20). Directmedia, Berlin 2005.
  15. ↑ Information on the DVD of the Bregenz Festival 2018 on the CMajor label, accessed on July 24, 2019.