The interrupted festival of sacrifice
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| Original title: | The interrupted festival of sacrifice |
Program leaflet for the first performance in 1796 |
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| Shape: | Heroic-comic opera in two acts |
| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Peter from Winter |
| Libretto : | Franz Xaver Huber |
| Literary source: | Jean-François Marmontel : Les Incas ou La Destruction de l'empire du Pérou |
| Premiere: | June 14, 1796 |
| Place of premiere: | Kärntnertortheater Vienna |
| Playing time: | approx. 2 ½ hours |
| Place and time of the action: | Peru in the 16th century |
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The interrupted festival of sacrifice is a heroic-comic opera with spoken dialogues in two acts by Peter von Winter with a libretto by Franz Xaver Huber . The premiere took place on June 14, 1796 in the Kärntnertortheater Vienna.
content
Scholtze's Complete Opera Guide in the 1910 edition reproduces the plot as follows (linguistically slightly modernized):
The Englishman Murney freed Peru from the Portuguese and became the regent's friend. The jealous general Mafferu decides to destroy the hated man. To this end, he connects with Elvira, Murney's wife, a Portuguese woman whose brother died in the defeated Portuguese army. That is why she hates her husband, who also has a love affair with Myrha, the Inca’s daughter. The latter is also won over to the plan through false news. At the end, a sun priest is bribed, who produces an artificial thunder on the occasion of a temple festival and claims Murney's life because the stranger has blasphemed the sun. In vain Murney protests his innocence and finally surrenders to his fate, the false statements made to Mafferus, Elvira and Myrhas. The Inca tries in vain to save his friend, and his son Roka decides to free the threatened man by force of arms in an extreme case. The high priest Villac Umu and the fanatical people vigorously demand Murney's death by fire, so that the gods' command may be satisfied and the land not succumb to the vengeance of the heavenly ones. With the greatest reluctance, the Inca, harassed on all sides, especially by Mafferu and reminded of royal duty, finally gives in and has Murney led to the stake, where Roka is already waiting with his followers to thwart the murderous attack. The repentant women are the first to confess that they have been pressured into giving false testimony, and when the high priest maintains the authority of the oracle over all exculpatory evidence, the bribed priest also confesses his offense. The enraged Inca orders the Mafferu, crushed by the force of these statements, to be led to death in Murney's place. Murney, however, asks nobly to spare his mortal enemy, who is now only punished with eternal banishment. The Inca dress the saved friend himself with new honors, and priests and people praise the almighty sun. (Gustav Modes Text Library No. 78.)
layout
Winter's score shows, with only a small tribute to the couleur locale of the exotic setting Peru and in addition to a few more conventional numbers with stereotypical melodic phrases, a whole series of theatrically effective mass and ensemble scenes.
Instrumentation
The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:
- Woodwind : two flutes , two oboes , two clarinets , two bassoons
- Brass : four horns , two trumpets
- Timpani
- Strings
Work history
With the Festival of Sacrifice , which (based on the novels of Jean-François Marmontel ) effectively addresses the conflicts between Europeans and Incas in the 16th century, Winter became almost the only German opera composer of his generation to achieve European fame alongside Mozart and Weigl . That this was done with a libretto that was actually more typical of Viennese suburban theaters, with mixed in comic scenes and spoken dialogues, is less surprising when you consider that Italian adaptations that were composed afterwards, sometimes included recitatives accompanied by a string quartet , and in theater practice gradually all of them serious sphere was reduced, which, however, robs the work of original and by no means disturbing plot elements and musical numbers.
The musical quality of the opera enjoyed great popularity and popularity with audiences in the first half of the 19th century, and in 1917 a new production was daring in Leipzig.
literature
- Anke Schmitt: The exoticism in German opera between Mozart and Spohr . Wagner, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-88979-035-6 , ( Hamburg contributions to musicology 36), (At the same time: Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 1988).
- Malcolm S. Cole: Peter Winter's The Interrupted Festival of Sacrifice. Fact, Fantasy, and Performance Practice in post-josephinian Vienna , In: Malcolm Cole, John Koegel (Eds.): Music in Performance and Society. Essays in Honor of Roland Jackson . Harmonie Park Press, Warren MI 1997, ISBN 0-89990-106-9 , ( Detroit monographs in musicology - Studies in music 20), pp. 291-324.
Web links
- Manuscripts and performances (1770–1830) of The Interrupted Sacrifice Festival in the DFG opera project
- Text printing Munich 1803
Individual evidence
- ↑ Johannes Scholtze (Ed.): Complete opera guide through the repertoire operas. 2nd edition, Mode, Berlin 1910 ( digitized version )
- ^ Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater. Vol. 6 works. Spontini - Zumsteeg. Piper, Munich and Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-492-02421-1 , p. 746.