The silver lake
| Work data | |
|---|---|
| Original title: | The Silbersee - a winter fairy tale |
| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Kurt Weill |
| Libretto : | Georg Kaiser |
| Premiere: | February 18, 1933 |
| Place of premiere: | Altes Theater (Leipzig) , Magdeburg and Erfurt |
| Playing time: | about 80 minutes |
| people | |
Der Silbersee - A winter fairy tale is a play by Kurt Weill in 3 acts based on a text by Georg Kaiser . It was on February 18, 1933, Detlef Sierck ( director ) and Gustav Brecher ( Conductor ) in Leipzig premiere, 3 weeks after the seizure of power by the National Socialist German Workers' Party on 30 January 1933. It is the last project Weill before fleeing abroad on March 21, 1933 and was deposed by the Nazis on March 4, 1933 after the 16th performance in Leipzig.
action
Olim, a Prussian police officer, shoots the fleeing Severin, who has stolen a pineapple and lives with other hungry outsiders at the Silbersee. Severin survived, and Olim has had a remorse since then. He wins the main prize in the lottery and buys the castle on the Silbersee from the nobility, who were democratically disempowered during the Weimar Republic . He takes the victim in, takes care of him, and wants him to become his friend. Severin becomes depressed and hopes to be liberated through revenge on the policeman who shot him, so that a subliminal conflict develops on the property until Severin finally learns that Olim was that policeman.
Mrs. von Luber, who works as a housekeeper, plays off both men against each other, so that Olim feels threatened in life and limb by Severin and Mrs. von Luber assigns all his belongings with a supposed authorization. Mrs. von Luber celebrates the restoration of the old glory with Baron Laur and chases Severin and Olim from the castle. Severin and Olim are finally reconciled and want nothing more than to die in Silbersee. This suddenly freezes over and leads both to "brightness". After numerous allusions to Adolf Hitler's seizure of power at the time , the finale now admonishes the audience, like Olim and Severin, not to succumb to the Nazi agitation and to guard against the intrigues of the nobility: “You are not yet releasing the obligation to continue living. .. "
music
Although the Silbersee is based on a play and the majority of the plot is spoken, Weill's musical development requires trained singers and a medium-sized orchestra. As in other works, Weill uses a variety of forms such as the cantata , instrumental pieces, moritats and songs. He questions the boundaries of genres and genres. The Nazis therefore called the piece a “musical bastard” beyond the term degeneracy . Because it was not able to establish itself on the opera or theater stage due to its nature, it is still difficult to find a suitable form of performance.
Reception and consequences
The drama opera was premiered simultaneously in the three cities of Leipzig, Magdeburg and Erfurt. The Leipzig premiere on February 18, 1933 by the Leipzig Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Gustav Brecher was initially celebrated as the “big day of the city theater”. While theater critics who were less party- friendly reacted positively, the Nazi press sharply attacked the work as a "stunted thought drama":
“Kurt Weill's music stylistically (...) means a very remarkable development of the music for the Threepenny Opera . (...) The music has a very strong, dramatic nerve. "
“Anyone who (...) sees through Georg Kaiser's stunted 'thought drama' will not be bluffed by the dishonest social undertone of the 'winter fairy tale'. (...) Now he (Gustav Brecher) will get to know him (Adolf Hitler) and the power emanating from him, which throws away everything unhealthy and harmful! "
After protests and boycott threats, the play was canceled in all three cities. One day after the NSDAP banned the play on March 4, 1933, Georg Kaiser was expelled from the Prussian Academy of the Arts . On May 10, the play was burned in the edition illustrated by Caspar Neher on Berlin's Opernplatz . In May 1940, conductor Brecher and his wife Gertrud Deutsch (daughter of Felix Deutsch ), both on the run for seven years, committed suicide near Ostend for fear of falling into the hands of German occupiers.
After the Second World War, Der Silbersee was seldom performed, often in concert form and in shortened form. Hans Lietzau and Boris Blacher set up a short version with a reduced orchestra for the Schlossparktheater West Berlin on September 19, 1955, and with this production they also took part in the Berliner Festwochen . At the Holland Festival in The Hague , Josef Heinzelmann and David Drew showed a 90-minute concert version on June 25, 1971, narrated by Lotte Lenya (conductor Gary Bertini ). On September 10, 1975, a 50-minute concert version by David Drew for five soloists, choir and orchestra without dialogue parts was performed in Berlin (conductor Gary Bertini). Under the title Silverlake , a free arrangement with an English libretto by Hugh C. Wheeler and an extended incidental music by Lys Simonette was performed at the New York State Theater in New York City on March 20, 1980 . It was directed by Harold Prince and the conductor was Julius Rudel . In the autumn of 1995, a series of seven staged performances by the New Opera Vienna was given in the Art Nouveau Theater at Steinhof in Vienna. The conductor was Walter Kobéra . The work was staged by Bruno Berger-Gorsky at the time.
The German conductor Ingo Metzmacher conducted a concert performance of the work on December 15, 2007 with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Rundfunkchor Berlin in Berlin, which was recorded by Deutschlandradio Kultur . On January 29, 2009, the winter fairy tale was shown at the Augsburg Theater in a factually reduced production by Manfred Weiß. Under the direction of artistic director Lars-Ole Walburg , the work was shown at the Schauspielhaus Hannover on March 19, 2011 (musical direction: Thomas Posth) and was well received by the majority of the critics: “In the end, the whole artfully arranged evening looks like Tim Burton would have made a silent film. "
bibliography
- Stage works of Kurt Weill : librettos and other text-related materials in the Weill-Lenya Research Center OCLC: 83195904
Web links
- Details and audio sample in the Universal Edition
- Interview with Ingo Metzmacher in the Tagesspiegel , who performed the play in December 2007 in Berlin.
Individual evidence
- ^ Critique in the Berliner Tageblatt, February 20, 1933.
- ↑ 25 years of theater in Berlin. Theater premieres 1945–1970 . Edited on behalf of the Berlin Senate. Heinz Spitzing, Berlin 1972. pp. 183, 530.
- ^ Alan Rich: "Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back to the City Opera." In: New York Magazine , Vol. 13, No. 14, April 7, 1980, p. 78.
- ↑ Stefan Arndt: “Der Silbersee” celebrates its premiere at the Hanover Theater . In: HAZ , March 21, 2011.