Bernarda Albas House (Opera)

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Opera dates
Title: Bernarda Alba's house
Shape: Opera in three acts
Original language: German
Music: Aribert Reimann
Libretto : Aribert Reimann
Literary source: Federico García Lorca :
La casa de Bernarda Alba
Premiere: October 30, 2000
Place of premiere: National Theater Munich
Playing time: about 2 hours
Place and time of the action: A village in Andalusia,
around 1935
people

Bernarda Albas Haus is an opera in three acts by Aribert Reimann with its own libretto based on Federico García Lorca's drama La casa de Bernarda Alba , translated by Enrique Beck . It was premiered on October 30, 2000 in the National Theater in Munich .

action

first act

White interior with thick walls and arched doors in summer

Bernarda Alba's feeble-minded mother María Josefa and her two maids await the return of the landlady and her five grown daughters from the funeral of their second husband. After the death of her father, Bernarda withdrew completely from the outside world and rules her household with great severity - for which she hates the maid La Poncia. Gradually the women of the mourners arrive and then Bernarda and her daughters arrive. Bernarda immediately begins to order the maids around. She doesn't want the men who are already getting drunk in the courtyard to come into the house. Bernarda speaks a requiem for the deceased. The women leave and La Poncia begins cleaning the floor. Bernarda sets an eight-year mourning period during which no one is allowed to leave the house. Your daughters should use this time to make bedclothes for their trousseau. Magdalena explains that she never wants to get married. The 39-year-old Angustias from Bernarda's first marriage, on the other hand, wants to marry the young Pepe el Romano. Her sisters tease her because Pepe is obviously only interested in her money. After her father's inheritance, Angustias now also receives the majority of her stepfather's money, while her half-sisters should get significantly less. María Josefa enters. She adorned herself with flowers and announced that none of her granddaughters would ever marry. She won't leave anything to them either, but wants to get married again and enjoy life in her home village. The others lock her up on Bernarda's orders.

Interlude I

Second act

White interior in Bernarda's house

In the presence of La Poncia, Angustias, Amelia and Martirio work on the sheets for their trousseau. The conversation turns to Angustia's relationship with Pepe. The young man appears suspicious to La Poncia. She heard him last night around four o'clock, although his rendezvous with Angustias was over at half past one. Adela comes in. She is obviously very overtired. After the maid has called out the other sisters, La Poncia confronts Adela: Adela apparently also meets Pepe and thus betrays her own sister. When the other three return, it becomes apparent that Martirio also knows about Adela's secret. Shortly afterwards, she also uses an opportunity to talk to Adela in private, but Adela does not confess anything. Angustias accuses her sisters of stealing a picture of Pepe that she kept under her pillow. After a general search, La Poncia finds it in Martirio's bed, whereupon Bernarda hits her. When the sisters quarrel, Bernarda throws everyone out. La Poncia warns her mistress of the consequences of her severity, which have led to the violent feelings between the sisters. She says that Pepe should rather marry Adela than Angustias. Little by little, Angustias, Martirio and Adela return. The maid reports that people are converging on the street and everyone goes out to find out why. Martirio and Adela come back quickly and argue about Adela's relationship with Pepe. Shortly afterwards, Magdalena, Angustias, La Poncia and Bernarda also return. La Poncia says that a neighbor's daughter killed her illegitimate child and was lynched by the villagers at that moment. Adela gets nervous, but Bernarda mercilessly demands: "Beat her to death!"

Interlude II

Behind the stage, Adela asks Saint Barbara for protection "from the spark and the evil lightning bolt".

Third act

Four white, slightly bluish walls in the courtyard of Bernarda's house; night

Bernarda asks Angustias to reconcile with Martirio so that the dispute is not carried out and the facade is preserved. Since Pepe won't come this evening, they want to go to bed early. The four other sisters join them. They talk about the dark night and the stars, which Adela is particularly fascinated by. Angustias says goodbye. Shortly afterwards Amelia, Magdalena, Adela and Martirio also leave. Despite further warnings from La Poncia, Bernarda is confident that she can sleep soundly. She withdraws. La Poncia confides her worries to the maid. She compares Martirio, whose love for Pepe remains unrequited, with a "well of poison". After the two have left, old María Josefa appears with a sheep in her arms, which she mothers like a small child. Adela steps into the room in underclothes, looks around and disappears through the door to the courtyard. A little later Martirio appears, wondering about her grandmother's behavior. María Josefa answers her in vague, prophetic words and then leaves with the sheep. Martirio asks Adela to give up her ambitions on Pepe and confesses her own love for him. However, Adela insists that the relationship will continue even if Pepe should marry Angustias. She is ready to incite the villagers' hatred for it. Martirio then calls for her mother and reveals Adela's secret. Adela now openly rebels against Bernarda, snatches the baton from her and breaks this instrument of punishment, the "scepter of the ruler". Bernarda reaches for her rifle and runs out. Martirio follows her. Shortly afterwards, a shot is fired, and Martirio tells the worried Adela that it is "over with Pepe el Romano". Adela withdraws to her room in horror. Martirio explains to La Poncia and Amelia that Pepe has ridden away. Bernarda hadn't aimed well. After a knock rang out from Adela's room, La Poncia and Bernarda break open their door: Adela has hanged herself. Bernarda tells the others to dress her like a virgin. The villagers are supposed to believe that she “died untouched”. From now on the house should be silent.

layout

music

The three acts of the opera are linked by interludes. They merge without a break.

Apart from a small male choir placed behind the scene, the opera is composed exclusively for female voices. The orchestra is unconventional. Reimann dispenses with high strings, but instead calls for twelve cellos. With the woodwinds he demands all pitches of flutes and clarinets, but no oboes. The horns are missing from the brass section. There are four concert grand pianos, two of which have to be prepared with pieces of rubber in order to make audible "the inability to breathe" in their covered, quickly silent sound. The other two wings mostly take over the tasks of the missing percussion mechanism. Reimann himself commented on the chosen cast as follows:

“The terrifying realism of the piece is reflected in the orchestra: Everything is exposed, nothing is claused [...] The hard base of my orchestral apparatus in Bernarda are four pianos; neither drums nor double basses are occupied. With three very different sound fields I try to bring out what lies behind the people - in the closed space of this house, from which there is no escape. The pianos have a strong connection to Bernarda's daughters […] There are also woodwinds […] I have left out the soft-sounding instruments such as bassoons or horns. Otherwise it would not have been possible to convey Bernarda's power behavior. The third sound field is made up of twelve cellos. "

- Aribert Reimann

The full sound of the cello is assigned to La Poncia, who, as the only sensible person in the opera, forms an antipole to the domineering Bernarda. The role of the crazy grandmother María Josefa corresponds both musically and dramatically to that of the fool in Reimann's opera Lear .

The music does not contain any typical Andalusian sounds. In the second interlude, Adela sings the medieval song Santa Bárbara bendita, quoted by Lorca in the last act, to a vocalise that had previously been heard in a dialogue between her sister Angustias and her mother. Adela, however, sings it an octave higher because she thinks she is Pepe's true bride. Amelia, Magdalena, Angustias and La Poncia sing the third verse of the song together in Spanish after Adela's death. Martirio then explains: "You are a thousand times lucky that you could have him."

Ulrich Schreiber considers the role of Martirio, a dramatic coloratura soprano , to be “the most interesting figure, not just in terms of her psychological development”. She used her fioritures "as a weapon against the environment" and largely dominated the opera through her "hysterical continuous tone".

orchestra

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

Work history

Bernarda Alba's house is Aribert Reimann's seventh opera. It was created between 1998 and 2000 on behalf of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. The composer created the libretto himself based on Enrique Beck's German translation of Federico García Lorca's 1936 drama La casa de Bernarda Alba . Reimann had already dealt extensively with Lorca's tragedy from 1992 after completing his opera Das Schloss . The Spanish playwright and his play Die Audience had already been pointed out to him by a German-Mexican on a trip to Mexico in 1987. The libretto follows the original almost verbatim, but contains some dramaturgical changes. Reimann removed an episode and moved the account of the funeral of Bernarda's second husband to the beginning after her mother's scream.

The world premiere took place on October 30, 2000 in the National Theater in Munich . The production was done by Harry Kupfer , the set by Frank Philipp Schlößmann and the costumes by Klaus Bruns . Zubin Mehta was the musical director . The actors were Helga Dernesch (Bernarda Alba), Inge Keller (María Josefa), Anne Pellekoorne (Angustias), Jennifer Trost (Magdalena), Margarita De Arellano (Amelia), Claudia Barainsky (Martirio), Anna Korondi (Adela), Isoldé Elchlepp (La Poncia), Snejinka Avramova (maid) To indicate the “hopelessness of the trapped girls and the emotional coldness in hot Spain”, 230 chairs were placed on the stage. The production was voted "World Premiere of the Year" in Opernwelt magazine's critics' survey .

There were further performances in 2001 at the Komische Oper Berlin (conductor: Friedemann Layer , co-production with the Bavarian State Opera) and in the Auditori Jardins del Castell in Barcelona (conductor: Winfried Müller) and in 2002 at the Stadttheater Bern (conductor: Daniel Klajner ).

Recordings

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Reclam's Opernlexikon (= digital library . Volume 52). Philipp Reclam jun. at Directmedia, Berlin 2001, p. 296.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Ulrich Schreiber : Opera guide for advanced learners. 20th Century II. German and Italian Opera after 1945, France, Great Britain. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2005, ISBN 3-7618-1437-2 , pp. 163-165.
  3. ↑ a b c d work information from Schott Music , accessed on March 16, 2019.
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Burde : Bernarda Alba's house. In: Reimann. Life and work. Schott, Mainz 2005, ISBN 3-7957-0318-2 , pp. 373-397.
  5. ^ A b András Batta: Opera. Composers, works, performers. hfullmann, Königswinter 2009, ISBN 978-3-8331-2048-0 , p. 511.
  6. ↑ a b Aribert Reimann. In: Andreas Ommer: Directory of all complete opera recordings (= Zeno.org . Volume 20). Directmedia, Berlin 2005, p. 15034.