Chester Kallman

Chester Simon Kallman (born January 7, 1921 in New York City , New York , † January 18, 1975 in Athens ) was an American writer and librettist .

Life

Training and work

Kallman was born in Brooklyn, New York, to dentist Edward Kallman and his wife Bertha, an actress. His mother died when he was very young; his father then remarried. Kallman attended Brooklyn College and graduated from the University of Michigan . Kallman was active as a writer in various ways. He wrote poems, wrote and translated opera libretti, a. a. for works by Igor Stravinsky , Carlos Chávez Ramírez and Hans Werner Henze , and worked as a music writer. Kallman was considered a theater specialist; hence the opera libretti, a. a. for The Rake's Progress (first performance 1951), always in close collaboration between WH Auden and himself. For The Rake's Progress , Auden hired Kallman to work out the libretto in January 1948. From then on Auden / Kallman formed a successful team of librettists; from their collaboration, u. a. the libretti for the Henze operas Elegy for Young Lovers and The Bassarids .

Private

In April 1939, at the age of 18, Kallman met the British poet and writer WH Auden in New York; a lifelong friendship and love relationship developed. He lived in a household with the writer WH Auden until his death in 1973. Despite Kallman's promiscuity, the cohabitation continued uninterrupted. Starting in 1957, Auden and Kallman lived in a summer house in Kirchstetten in Lower Austria every year during the summer months . In the later years of his relationship with Auden, Kallman put his own writing activities on hold and took over the couple's household chores.

Thekla Clark wrote a book about this relationship called Wystan and Chester . Auden's poem The Common Life (1965) is considered a hymn and declaration of love to Chester Kallman.

bibliography

Poems

• To Elegy (1951). New York: Tibor de Nagy Gallery. (pamphlet poem)
• Storm at Castelfranco (1956). New York: Grove Press.
• Absent and Present: poems (1963). Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.
• The Sense of Occasion: poems (1971). New York: George Braziller.

Libretti

• The Rake's Progress (1951, with WH Auden , music by Igor Stravinsky ) New York: Boosey & Hawkes.
• Delia, or A masque of Night (1953, with WH Auden ; published in Botteghe Oscure XII; left unaudited)
• with WH Auden: Elegy for Young Lovers . Libretto. German version of the text Elegy for young lovers by Ludwig Landgraf with the assistance of Werner Schachteli and the composer. Opera in three acts by Hans Werner Henze . Mainz: B. Schott's Sons, 1961
• Love Propitiated (1963, music by Carlos Chavez ; first performance under the title Panfilo and Lauretta , 1957, later under Love Propitated , 1961). New York: Mills Music.
• The Bassarids (1966, with WH Auden, music by Hans Werner Henze). Mainz: B. Schott's sons.
• Love's Labor's Lost (1973, with WH Auden, for music by Nicolas Nabokov). Berlin: Bote & Bock.

Translations (published)

• Bluebeard's Castle (1952; translation of the libretto by Béla Balázs for the opera by Béla Bartók ). New York: Boosey & Hawkes
• Falstaff (1954; translation of the libretto by Arrigo Boito ). New York: G. Ricordi.
• The Magic Flute (1956, with WH Auden , for an opera production by NBC Opera Production). New York: Random House.
• Anne Boleyn (1959; translation of the libretto by Felice Romani for the opera Anna Bolena Donizetti ). New York: G. Ricordi.
• The Prize Fight (1959; translation of the libretto by Luciano Conosciani for Vieri Tosatt's Partita a Pugni ). Milan: Ricordi.
• Don Giovanni (1961, with WH Auden , for an opera production by NBC Opera Production). New York: Schirmer.
• The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny , by Bertolt Brecht . (1976, with WH Auden). Boston: David Godine.
• Arcifanfano, King of Fools (published with a recording in 1992, with WH Auden , based on the opera by Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf ).

Editing

• To Elizabethan Song Book (1955, with WH Auden and Noah Greenberg). New York: Anchor Books.

swell

• Humphrey Carpenter : WH Auden: A Biography (1981).
• WH Auden and Chester Kallman: Libretti and Other Dramatic Writings by WH Auden (1988), ed. By Edward Mendelson .
• Dorothy J. Farnan: Auden in Love (1984)
• Thekla Clark: Wystan and Chester (1995).
• Richard Davenport-Hines: Auden (1996)

Web links

• WH Auden society

Individual evidence

1. ^ I saw this face, and I fell in love in: The Daily Telegraph, February 25, 2007.
2. ^ Auden's NY Households, From Slum to Sublime in: The Observer, February 25, 2007.
3. ↑ The Wrong Blond Review by Alan Bennett in: London Review of Books, May 23, 1985
4. ^ Auden's NY Households, From Slum to Sublime in: The Observer, March 5, 2009.