The Rhine Mermaids
| Work data | |
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| Title: | The Rhine Mermaids |
| Original title: | Les Fées du Rhin |
| Original language: | French |
| Music: | Jacques Offenbach |
| Libretto : | Charles Nuitter / Alfred von Wolzüge |
| Premiere: | February 4, 1864 |
| Place of premiere: | Vienna, Kärntnertortheater |
| Playing time: | approx. 3.5 hours |
| Place and time of the action: | Near Bingen and Bad Kreuznach, 1522 |
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Die Rheinnixen (French: Les fées du Rhin) is a great romantic opera in four acts by Jacques Offenbach , the libretto is by Charles Nuitter (actually: Charles Louis Etienne Truinet). The playing time is about three and a half hours.
Historical background
The opera is set at the time of the Knight's War in autumn 1522. Franz von Sickingen (1481–1523) was elected captain of the Upper Rhine knighthood in 1522. In the summer of 1522 he started a feud against Richard von Greiffenklau , the clerical elector of Trier . Sickingen besieged the city in September 1522, but had to break off the siege after a few days because the Landgrave of Hesse and the Elector of Palatinate came to the aid of the Archbishop. During the counter-attack in the spring of 1523, the Ebernburg near Kreuznach was destroyed, and Sickingen had to retreat to its Nanstein Castle near Landstuhl (today the district of Kaiserslautern). He surrendered on May 7th and died that same day from his serious injuries. In the summer, an army of the " Swabian League " destroyed more than 30 castles and fortresses of knights and thus put an end to the knighthood movement in the Holy Roman Empire .
action
prehistory
Conrad von Wenckheim had Hedwig impregnated under a false priest after pretending to be married. Her daughter Armgard is a young woman at the beginning of the opera and is secretly engaged to Franz, who ran away to the soldiers.
first act
Hedwig's lease in the area of Sickingen near Bingen. Hedwig laments the brutal soldiery. Shortly afterwards, the village and the court were occupied by Palatine Landsknechten under Conrad von Wenckheim in order to storm Sickingen's castle not far from Kreuznach during the siege of Trier. Armgard's childhood friend Franz Waldung, the captain of the heap, has been suffering from amnesia since a war-related head injury. Armgard and other women and girls are harassed and forced to sing for the soldiers under the eyes of Franz at the soldiers' evening feast. Gottfried, a family friend, tries in vain to protect Armgard. While singing the pacifist "Vaterlandslied" she collapses and is considered dead. Only now does Franz return part of her memory.
Second act
In the vicinity of the lease, Hedwig mourns Armgard, who is dead, in the presence of Gottfried, and Hedwig tells him the story. In the meantime, she decided to save Armgard's life with the help of the fairies from Elfenstein. Conrad and Franz plan a secret attack on Sickingen's Ebernburg and force Gottfried to show them the way. Gottfried agrees to appear. Armgard comes to life and flees to the fairies.
Third act
The fairies (choir and ballet) gather in the forest near Elfenstein, near the Ebernburg. Hedwig hopes to find her daughter with these elementals. Armgard, who has awakened from a deep faint, joins them. She wants to save her childhood friend Franz. Hedwig sees her daughter again for the first time, but believes it is a dream. Armgard tries to get her mother to flee. The Landsknechte with Conrad, Franz and Gottfried are on their way to Sickingen's castle and are lured by the fairies from the right path into the forest. After Conrad bragged about the fake marriage in front of the mercenaries, Hedwig recognizes him and hopes for revenge from the fairies. Armgard releases Franz's spell and thus saves the soldiers from death.
Fourth act
In the headquarters in front of the ruins of "the Castle of Kreuznach", the mercenaries are preparing the siege of Sickingen's castle. Franz and Conrad report on their nightly adventure. In a duet, Armgard can convince Franz that she has returned to life. Hedwig is taken in front of Conrad, reveals herself to him and accuses him of killing her daughter. Franz arrives with Armgard, and Armgard can also convince Hedwig that she was only apparently dead. Gottfried and Hedwig are allowed to return to their village on Konrad's orders. Hedwig and Conrad make up. At this moment the soldiers are torn into the abyss with the help of the fairies. Armgard, Hedwig, Franz, Conrad and Gottfried, on the other hand, are saved and sing the refrain of the Vaterlandslied. This ends the opera.
Synopsis
The opera is in the context of romantic fairy operas such as ETA Hoffmann's and Albert Lortzing's Undine (premiered in 1816 and 1845), as well as Wagner's Die Feen . Realistic and fairytale scenes mix. Armgard's reawakening is reminiscent of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale of little brothers and sisters . The tendency of the opera is pacifist, in the end love triumphs over all atrocities of war.
Performance history
The first performance took place on February 4, 1864 at the Vienna Court Opera . The originally French libretto by Nuitter was translated into German for the premiere by Alfred von Wolhaben . At the request of the Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick , the work was given the misleading title Die Rheinnixen , based on the Rheingold planned by Richard Wagner from the ring tetralogy, the text of which was already known. The illness of one of the main actors, the tenor Alois Ander (who played Franz Waldung), had prompted Offenbach to make severe cuts, so that the work was only performed as a torso. The work was not a failure, but the Wagnerian press, which would have preferred to see Tristan on stage, opposed it.
On January 1, 1865, the Cologne Opera brought the work out as a German premiere, as in the world premiere in a heavily abridged three-act version. Despite extensive trials, the attempt failed. After the second performance, the work was canceled due to the low number of visitors.
After that, Die Rheinnixen fell into oblivion, with the exception of a few melodies that Offenbach reused in Hoffmann's stories , such as the drinking song from the first act or the fairy music that flowed into the Venice act as a barcarole . Armgard's “Vaterlandslied” on the other hand, which runs like a leitmotif through the opera, is singular and wrongly forgotten.
The opera was not performed in France until 2002. The French version envisaged by Offenbach was largely lost, with the exception of piano reductions. Only the complete German-language premiere score has been preserved.
In 1999 the two publishers Boosey & Hawkes and Bote & Bock started an Offenbach edition under the editor Jean-Christophe Keck , which also included this work. Thanks to René Koering, the head of the music department of the French radio and artistic director of the Montpellier Festival , the opera was performed in concert in German in the summer of 2002 under the direction of Friedemann Layer . This production was released a little later as a CD recording.
After the concert version on July 20, 2002, the first scenic performance based on the new Offenbach edition took place in January 2005 in the Cankarjev dom in Ljubljana , which was praised by the critics. The production was also shown in Winterthur , St. Pölten and Bozen . Armgard's arias were particularly well received.
On April 15, 2005, the Trier Theater was the first German stage to attempt a re-performance. The work was brought as an anti-war piece with brutally acting mercenaries, whereby Hedwig dreamed of a happy ending after the death of her daughter. The rapes presented were reminiscent of excesses from wars of the twentieth century. Some critics praised the honorable attempt, but also criticized the fact that the production was not adequate to Offenbach's music. In 2006 the work was staged semi- staged in the Cottbus State Theater (premiere on May 27, 2006). The Stadttheater Bremerhaven brought the opera in the 2007/08 season (premiere: December 25, 2007).
Despite another concert performance under Marc Minkowski on December 1, 2005 at the Opéra National de Lyon , the work is still waiting for a staged premiere in France. Under Georges Prêtre , the Vienna Philharmonic played the prelude of the Rhine Mermaids with the fairy dance in their New Year's Concert 2010.
Discography
- Overture: Philharmonia Orchestra under Antonio de Almeida , 1987 (Philips)
- Die Rheinnixen , complete recording (live) under Friedemann Layer , July 30, 2002 (Accord / Universal). Soloists: Regina Schörg (Armgard), Nora Gubisch (Hedwig), Piotr Beczała (Franz Waldung), Dalibor Jenis (Conrad von Wenckheim), Chœur de la Radio lettone, Orchester National de Montpellier, Accord 2003
literature
- Jean-Christophe Keck and Frank Harders-Wuthenow in: Supplement to the complete recording, 2002
- Les fées du Rhin. The Rhine Mermaids. Documentation 2002-2006. Offenbach Edition Keck. Boosey & Hawkes, Bote & Bock, Berlin 2006, Download: PDF ( Memento from March 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- Anatol Stefan Riemer: On the treatment of the choir in Jacques Offenbach's great romantic opera Die Rheinnixen. Bad Ems 2018 (Bad Emser Hefte No. 516), ISSN 1436-459X.
- Peter Hawig and Anatol Stefan Riemer: Music theater as a social satire . The Offenbachiads and their context . Muth, Fernwald 2018, ISBN 978-3-929379-46-4 . Contains an extensive chapter on the motif of memory in the Rhine mermaids with numerous musical examples.
- Anatol Stefan Riemer: »Palindromes, symmetries and circular structures. An analytical approach to Jacques Offenbach's theme and motif design in the Rheinnixen «, in: The» other «Offenbach. Report on the international symposium on the occasion of the 200th birthday of Jacques Offenbach in the University of Music and Performing Arts Frankfurt am Main on October 18 and 19, 2018 , ed. by Alexander Grün, Anatol Stefan Riemer and Ralf-Olivier Schwarz. Dohr, Cologne 2019 (Contributions to Offenbach Research, 4), pp. 103–128, ISBN 978-3-86846-153-4
Individual evidence
- ^ Theater ticket for the Vienna premiere in 1864
- ↑ “On January 1, 1865, not quite a year after the Vienna premiere, the Cologne theater director Moritz Ernst - a well-known man in the Rhenish theater scene at the time - brought the work out as a German premiere. As can be seen from the contemporary reports, the performance had been preceded by unusually extensive rehearsals and preparations. The best of the ensemble and a great ballet were supposed to guarantee the success of the Rheinnixen . After the second performance, the disappointed theater director had to discontinue the new opera due to a lack of visitor numbers; they preferred to go to Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld or Max Bruch's Loreley , pieces that were on the program at the same time with great success. (Cologne theater archive and a recently found antiquarian libretto with the stamp of the Cologne City Theater and the signature of the director Moritz Ernst). ”Quoted from St. Schmöe and F. Vetter in the online music magazine of April 2005.
- ↑ Excerpts from the performance in Ljubljana Part 1 ; Excerpts from the performance in Ljubljana part 2
- ↑ Martina Zadro as Armgard 1 ; Martina Zadro as Armgard 2 ; Martina Zadro as Armgard 3 (Vaterlandslied)
- ^ Review of the first German revival in Trier 2005
- ↑ Excerpts from the semi-staged performance in Cottbus 2006 ( Memento from February 22, 2016 in the Internet Archive )