The donkey's shadow (Strauss)
| Work data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The donkey's shadow |
| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Richard Strauss |
| Libretto : | Hans Adler |
| Literary source: | The Abderites by Christoph Martin Wieland |
| Premiere: | June 7, 1964 |
| Place of premiere: | Benedictine abbey in Ettal |
| Playing time: | approx. 1 ½ hours |
| Place and time of the action: | Abdera in the 5th century BC (at the time of Democritus ) |
| people | |
The Donkey's Shadow is a musical comedy or a musical comedy (with similarities to an opera ) in six frames for speaker, soloists and orchestra by Richard Strauss . It is the composer's last play on the stage and could not be completed by him due to his death. The libretto is by Hans Adler .
Emergence
In 1947, the director of the Benedictine grammar school in Ettal asked Richard Strauss whether he could write a cheerful Singspiel for his students on a humanistic or Christian basis. The elderly composer immediately agreed, but asked for a text, if possible on the subject of the Abderites . The inhabitants of the Thracian city of Abdera were considered simple-minded people and were, so to speak, the shield citizens of antiquity. Hans Adler wrote a libretto based on an episode from the satirical novel Die Abderiten by Christoph Martin Wieland , and the future work was called Des Esels Schatten . Stories with the same title also appear in other versions in antiquity.
Richard Strauss died in 1949 while sketching the composition. Karl Haußner , music teacher at the Benedictine high school of the Ettal monastery, former conductor and composition student of Joseph Haas , added to and orchestrated the work and made it ready for performance. The world premiere took place on June 7, 1964 in the Benedictine abbey in Ettal. The play was and is occasionally performed, often as a “youth opera”, for example at the Antikenfestspiele in Trier as well as in Gießen , Dresden and Uelzen .
action
Struthion, a dentist, rents a donkey from Antrax, a donkey driver, to transport goods in the Thracian city of Abdera. To escape the blazing heat of the day, Struthion goes into the donkey's shadow. Antrax tells him not to do this because he has rented the donkey but not its shadow to the dentist. Lengthy legal battles ensued, which only ended when the death of the donkey, which was forgotten in the time-consuming quarrel and starved to death, became known.
Recordings (selection)
- CD 1998: Karl Anton Rickenbacher , German Symphony Orchestra Berlin with Peter Ustinow as narrator.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ classics
- ↑ report in Opera Archives , called on February 3, 2015.
- ↑ Gießener Allgemeine from August 31, 2008.
- ^ Children's and Youth Opera Dresden, June 2011 at thereseschmidt.de, accessed on April 6, 2018.
- ↑ Holdenstedter Schlosswoche Uelzen.