Death in Venice
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| Title: | Death in Venice |
| Original title: | Death in Venice |
Production by Graham Vick |
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| Original language: | English |
| Music: | Benjamin Britten |
| Libretto : | Myfanwy Piper after Thomas Mann |
| Premiere: | June 16, 1973 |
| Place of premiere: | The Malting's, Snape |
| Playing time: | about 3 hours |
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Death in Venice is an opera in two acts by Benjamin Britten , the last before his death in 1976. The libretto in English is by Myfanwy Piper in an adaptation of Thomas Mann's important novella Death in Venice . The world premiere took place on June 16, 1973 as part of the Aldeburgh Festival in Snape near Aldeburgh in England , and Britten's partner, the tenor Peter Pears, sang the role of Gustav von Aschenbach .
action
See also Death in Venice , the description of the Thomas Mann novella.
first act
The aging writer Gustav von Aschenbach is plagued by a creative crisis and decides to take a trip to Venice to relax (scene 1). On board the ship, he encounters pleasure-seeking youths, accompanied by an old dude with youthful make-up, who feed the first doubts about the healing outcome of his plan (scene 2). The overture is followed by the crossing to the hotel on the Lido with a gondola, the imperturbable and eerie ferryman of which is reminiscent of the mythical Charon and is a first harbinger of doom for the impending danger (scene 3). Aschenbach moves into his room in the hotel and, while eating, meets an unknown Polish boy for the first time, whose beauty captivates him immediately (scene 4).
One day on the beach, Aschenbach is still unable to work and watches the children playing, with whom the boy joins. Aschenbach learns his name, Tadzio (scene 5). Aschenbach notices the little beneficial effect of his stay on his state of mind and decides to leave, which fails because his luggage is inadvertently checked in incorrectly. Aschenbach notes that he was secretly reluctant to leave because of his growing feelings for Tadzio (scene 6). In a dream sequence, Tadzio competes as an athlete in the games of the Greek god Apollo and wins the ancient pentathlon, which prompts Aschenbach to the mythical transfiguration of Tadzio as part of his classicist ideal of beauty. A brief encounter with Tadzio after the dream in which Aschenbach is unable to speak to him elicits Aschenbach's decisive admission of his love for Tadzio, which closes the first act (scene 7).
Second act
Aschenbach finds himself in his mind and regards his love for Tadzio as "ridiculous", although not "dishonorable". During a visit to the hotel barber, he gets vague indications of an epidemic in Venice, but when asked, the barber dismisses this as unimportant (scene 8). Aschenbach crosses over to the city, where he notices the smell of disinfectants, along with crowds of people reading public notices. At the request of Aschenbach, however, the citizens also dismiss the threat. Aschenbach learns about an outbreak of cholera in Venice from a German newspaper. In the further decline, Aschenbach recreates the Polish family Tadzios all over the city with the first signs of the incipient love madness (scene 9). In the evening, traveling singers perform in the hotel, whose performance is attended by both Aschenbach and Tadzio's family. Aschenbach buries himself in thoughts about his desire for Tadzio and feels mocked by the singer (scene 10).
In a travel agency, Aschenbach learns about the outbreak of cholera and receives an urgent warning to leave immediately (scene 11). He considers warning the Polish family, but drops this thought again and gives up fantasies about what it would be like if only he and Tadzio were left alive (scene 12). In a second dream, Aschenbach witnesses a dispute between Apollo and Dionysus over the rule of beautiful order or intoxication and chaos, whereby Apollo is defeated. In the intoxication of love, Aschenbach gives himself up completely to his fate and states the complete loss of his earlier ideals and self-discipline (scene 13). On the deserted beach, Aschenbach watches Tadzio and other boys playing a game (scene 14). Aschenbach succumbs to the temptation to let the barber prepare him for his youth in order to please Tadzio (scene 15).
During a last visit to the city, Aschenbach met Tadzio, who was briefly separated from his family, but Aschenbach did not know how to face him. Aschenbach feels reminded by his own appearance of the aging dude on the steamship (scene 16). On the last day before the Polish family left, Aschenbach watched the boys' game on the beach for the last time, which ended in Tadzio being strangled and humiliated. Aschenbach wants to rush to his aid, but he lacks the strength. He then dies of the plague that attacked him. Tadzio walks out to sea alone (scene 17).
music
The opera is composed in 17 scenes and set for a comparatively small orchestra , along with extensive percussion . The music is characterized by a complexly crafted motif that runs through the opera in a nuanced, feverish-dissonant harmonics spun out in a powerful subliminal manner. The plot is regularly interrupted in secco recitatives by the protagonist Gustav von Aschenbach that are accompanied by the piano and reflect on the events .
The boy Tadzio manifests himself as a mute dancer role, especially musically in the impulsive, archaic percussion, the motifs of which are inspired by Balinese gamelan music; this expresses the ambivalence of this figure, who is to be seen as the embodiment of an Apollonian ideal of virtue and well-proportioned beauty as well as, especially in the second act, as the protagonist of the intoxicating will to die, the Dionysian principle.
Benjamin Britten assigns a bass baritone a total of seven roles ("The Traveler", "The Elderly Dude", "Gondolier", "Hotel Manager", "The Hotel Hairdresser", "Leader of the Street Singers" and "Voice of Dionysus") as allegorical messengers of death anticipate Aschenbach's downfall and can be identified with protagonists of the ancient realm of the dead. So this Mephistophelian and satyr-like figure initially confronts Aschenbach as a mysterious traveler in the Munich cemetery; as a gondolier, he reminds Aschenbach of the ferryman Charon, just as the hotel manager is connoted as a Rhadamantic figure.
Aschenbach is first of all committed to the Apollonian principle: he places his rational, theoretical, intellectual instincts striving for measure, order and harmony at the center of his life. The encounter with Tadzio leads to an inner conflict between this ideal and his intoxicating, Dionysian desire, which has been pushed aside up to now, which brings Aschenbach to death both inside and out. (The pair of terms Apollonian-Dionysian was coined by Schelling and Nietzsche .)
This inner conflict is realized dramatically by Britten and Piper in a dream scene that brings the gods Apollo and Dionysus together in a contest in which Apollo is defeated, which also seals the final breakup of Aschenbach.
Web links
- Death in Venice at the Britten-Pears Foundation (creation, sound samples)