The tenant (opera)
| Opera dates | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The tenant |
| Shape: | Opera in three acts |
| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Arnulf Herrmann |
| Libretto : | Handel Klaus |
| Literary source: |
Roland Topor : Le locataire chimérique |
| Premiere: | November 12, 2017 |
| Place of premiere: | Frankfurt Opera |
| Playing time: | 1 hour 50 minutes (without a break) |
| Place and time of the action: | here today |
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The Tenant is an opera based on motifs from the novel The Tenant (Le locataire chimérique) by Roland Topor with music by Arnulf Herrmann . The novel was written in 1964, the opera was written between 2012 and 2017. The libretto was written by Händl Klaus .
The commissioned work by the Frankfurt Opera was premiered there on November 12, 2017, directed by Johannes Erath ; it was conducted by Kazushi Ōno . The work and production were largely received with enthusiasm by the public and the press.
content
subject
Topor's novel was filmed in 1976 by Roman Polański under the title Le locataire . The film staged the pressure to adapt in petty-bourgeois milieus towards strangers as a surreal metaphor. Arnulf Herrmann has the processes that are more anonymous these days, such as B. a shitstorm on the Internet, condensed on the question of adapting and giving up one's own identity under external pressure.
The advance notice of the Frankfurt Opera said: “How far are you ready to go? In the end, it is of secondary importance whether the external pressure is actually exerted in all its facets or whether it is only felt as such from a certain point on. What is your own? What is the foreign? And how does the assertion of personal freedom relate to this, especially under external pressure and dependence? "
In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the critic Gerhard R. Koch described the risk of choosing a subject as a fatal double embrace - on the one hand by "the linguistic suggestive novel", on the other hand by "the powerful film". He placed the work between Kafka's Metamorphosis and Sartre's Closed Society : "Hell, that's the others."
structure
The opera is divided into three acts:
- I. The new tenant
- II. Neighbors
- III. transformation
The work consists of 23 scenes that should merge into one another. At the premiere the opera was given without a break.
action
The action takes place in a rented house environment that can be associated with Vienna around 1900, but leaves every local color behind in the course of the staging. Arnulf Herrmann and Händl Klaus have renamed the characters and eliminated the Polanski's Polish-Jewish background of Trelkovsky, who was looking for an apartment. The tenant is now called Georg, his previous tenant Johanna.
There is a housing shortage.
I. Georg is happy to have found a room. The previous tenant had killed herself and fell out the window. Soon after he moved in, the residents began to intervene in Georg's life, to interfere in his habits, first with complaints about alleged noise pollution, then with demands to participate in the eviction of other tenants. A climate of fear, intimidation and self-restraint develops.
II. Georg does not want to lose his room and practices obedience in advance. His space literally contracts. But it is not entirely clear what the real threat and what fear is that has lodged in his head, or whether it is already paranoia that he suffers from.
III. Georg loses himself, loses his identity, merges with the unknown person of the previous tenant. The “fixed idea” develops that they have to share their fate. He goes from man to woman and rushes out the window.
music
With his microtonality, the composer Herrmann "skillfully [...] overstimulates the spectrum of perception". The setting is wind-heavy and has been described by one critic as "a multifaceted sound". In the Frankfurter Rundschau, Bernhard Uske draws an analogy on the one hand to Berg's Wozzeck - "hard, stoic-looking interval steps of a repetitive, redundant, even dull atmosphere" - on the other hand to heavy metal - "cold, fiery, brutal, contemplative with little brightness."
““ The tenant ”culminates in a seemingly endless final scene that elevates the union of the dead with the living in an almost oratorio-like rigidity to a real love death.” Michael Stallknecht in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung . “As if in slow motion, the leap is composed out, with the low and high orchestral voices drifting further and further apart, until the listener also loses their feet.” (There).
The use of sound materials was largely described as unusual and innovative , in particular the almost penetrating knocking of the neighbors - "To the hangman the eternal pounding!", According to the NZZ - and the glass roof breaking in slow motion during the death jump, "as it were put under a microscope" . Thanks to the all-round sound system using forty loudspeakers distributed throughout the room, the audience felt in the finale, "as if they had just flown through the air, were now lying in the middle of the shattering glass, and they will soon fall, very deep."
instrumentation
The following orchestral line-up is required according to the score :
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There are also electronic sound materials that are used repeatedly during the opera:
- Knocking noises
- Metallic hammering
- Crunch of breaking glass in slow motion
- Playback of white noise and radio sequences
Work history
Arnulf Herrmann wrote three “songs” for the part of Johanna, which were premiered as “Three songs at the open window” in 2014 at the Musica Viva (Munich) . At that time, Anja Petersen stepped in at short notice . She got excellent reviews.
premiere
| role | World premiere at Oper Frankfurt , November 12, 2017 |
|---|---|
| George | Björn Bürger |
| Johanna | Anja Petersen |
| Mr. Zenk | Alfred Reiter |
| Mrs. Bach | Hanna Schwarz |
| Mrs. Greiner | Claudia Mahnke |
| Mrs. Dorn | Judita Nagyová |
| Grains | Michael Porter |
| Krell | Theo Lebow |
| Ingo, waiter | Sebastian Geyer |
| Mr. Kögel | Miki Stojanov |
| orchestra | Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra |
| Choir | Philharmonia Choir Vienna |
| conductor | Kazushi Ōno |
| Choir direction | Walter Zeh |
| Director | Johannes Erath |
| Stage design | Kaspar Glarner |
| Costumes | Katharina Tasch |
| light | Joachim Klein |
| Video | Bibi Abel |
| Sound design | Josh Jürgen Martin |
| dramaturgy | Zsolt Horpácsy |
Staging
Director Johannes Erath decided - already with the video sequence at the beginning - for “a hypersurreal scenery that does not lose any of its flair even when the stage is played. The erosion of the plot and the deformation of the protagonist are one. ”The leading team - director Erath, set designer Kaspar Glarner and video artist Bibi Abel -“ succeeded in creating a fascinating puzzle of the real and the surreal. ”This leads to the“ apparent abolition of gravity in the finale of the opera : the floor of the room swings into the vertical and almost aerial acrobatic - hanging in the securing rope harness - Georg walks, sits and falls on this vertical, while Johanna awaits him lying on the stage floor. "The main actor enters -" in a video precisely timed to the music "- the balcony "and finally jumps down as a shadow on the balcony walls."
Björn Bürger in the world premiere, Oper Frankfurt , November 2017
Response to the Frankfurt premiere
The Frankfurt premiere was largely received with high approval and enthusiasm by the public and the press. Susanna Benda wrote in the Stuttgarter Nachrichten : "[...] this is how you leave the Frankfurt Opera House after two hours on Sunday evening full of sounds and images with the certainty of having experienced something very special." Criticism came from the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , in which it was said that the librettist and composer had not succeeded in “making Georg's increasing exclusion and self-exclusion really tangible as a process in just under two non-stop hours”.
The overwhelming praise of the critics went to the librettist and the composer as well as to all those involved in the production. “A performance from a single source. [...] The whole apparatus of the Frankfurt Opera was obviously behind this premiere with enthusiasm. ”The orchestra cut the“ best figure ”, including the“ extraordinarily precise ”and“ gorgeous virtuoso ”choir, which was hired from Vienna,“ played a very important role ”in the success . The Japanese conductor Kazushi Ono has proven himself to be a highly competent lawyer for Herrmann's multi-layered score, "whose sounds he balanced with great aplomb and a great deal of feeling for effects". In his music theater review for Die Deutsche Bühne , Detlef Brandenburg found that the opera orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonia Choir had achieved “standards” under his leadership .
The actress of Johanna, the "fabulous Anja Petersen, keeps her siren singing higher and higher", and the singer of the title role, Björn Bürger, completed "a vocal-acting tour de force , which he masters intensely, in many ways and in a very impressive way" . Big applause "for an enormous ensemble achievement". Mirko Weber summed up in the time : “Analogous to the music, the directors like to overstimulate the perception when they tilt the stage set into a vertical position in order to also fight against the laws of gravity. Georg and his room are finally falling out of time, but not out of memory. The Frankfurt Opera has a compelling world premiere in its repertoire. "Detlef Brandenburg:" This world premiere set high standards and tore by far the largest part of the audience to great enthusiasm. "
Web links
- ISSUU , score of Act I and Act II
- Arnulf Herrmann , website of the composer
- Oper Frankfurt , scenes from the opera
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bettina Boyens: Arnulf Herrmann composed “The Tenant” for the Frankfurt Opera. Frankfurter Neue Presse, November 11, 2017, accessed on November 18, 2017
- ↑ a b c d e f The metamorphosis . Music theater review by Detlef Brandenburg, Die Deutsche Bühne, November 13, 2017
- ↑ Oper Frankfurt: THE RENTAL ( Memento from December 1, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) , accessed on November 9, 2017
- ↑ a b c Gerhard R. Koch : The taps are dripping, the neighbors are knocking , When living becomes a nightmare: Arnulf Herrmann's opera “Der Mieter” based on the novel by Roland Topor is premiered in Frankfurt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , updated on November 14, 2017
- ↑ a b c Bernhard Uske: World premiere of “The Tenant” in Frankfurt , Who disrupts order: Arnulf Herrmann's opera does not cultivate crude stairwell realism, Frankfurter Rundschau , November 13, 2017
- ↑ a b c d Mirko Weber : How easily it breaks ... , Stuttgarter Zeitung , November 13, 2017
- ↑ a b c d Michael Stallknecht: Falling to Death , Neue Zürcher Zeitung , November 17, 2017
- ↑ a b c Susanna Benda: Staggering between the worlds , Arnulf Herrmann's opera “Der Mieter” in Frankfurt, Stuttgarter Nachrichten , November 13, 2017
- ^ Gerhard Rohde: Great piano sound, flowing string quartets , NMZ Online , edition: 11/2014 - 63rd year
- ↑ a b c d Wolf-Dieter Peter: The unreal of reality , world premiere of Arnulf Herrmann's psycho-opera “The Tenant” in the Frankfurt Opera, NMZ Online , November 13, 2017
- ↑ Bernd Feuchtner: The Metamorphosis , world premiere of Arnulf Herrmann's opera “Der Mieter” in Frankfurt, KlassikInfo, November 12, 2017
- ↑ Andreas Bomba: Suggestive, depressing, intense: Arnulf Herrmann's opera “Der Mieter” , Frankfurter Neue Presse , November 14, 2017
- ^ Mirko Weber: "The tenant". How to go crazy , November 15, 2017 DIE ZEIT No. 47/2017, November 16, 2017 (subscription required).