Freax (opera)
| Work data | |
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| Original title: | Freax |
| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Moritz Eggert |
| Libretto : | Hannah Dübgen |
| Premiere: | September 2, 2007 (concert) January 21, 2017 (scenic) |
| Place of premiere: | Bonn (concert) Regensburg (scenic) |
| Playing time: | approx. 130 minutes |
| Place and time of the action: | Circus today |
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Freax is an opera in two acts by Moritz Eggert with a libretto by Hannah Dübgen .
content
The plot is inspired by the American horror film Freaks from 1932 by Tod Browning . The small Franz wants the tall, beautiful Isabella. Isabella wants Hilbert, the show host. Hilbert wants great success. This is guaranteed by the star of the show: the short Franz.
Moritz Eggert to the opera
“Every society perceives the 'other' and 'foreign'”, says Moritz Eggert on the subject of his opera, “which the freaks represent through no fault of their own, as unpleasant and frightening. That hasn't changed significantly - today's freaks are either locked away somewhere or 'cured' by surgery, the public they used to have through traveling circuses (with all the negative connotations of these so-called 'freak shows': after all, they formed a place the encounter between 'normal people' and 'others') has given way to a mostly sad marginal existence, in which political correctness in dealing ('Aktion Mensch' instead of 'Aktion Sorgekind') often does not hide the coldness of feeling and ignorance. "
premiere
The opera was premiered on September 2, 2007 as part of the Bonn International Beethoven Festival. After Eggert and the director Christoph Schlingensief could not agree on the staging, the opera was only performed in concert and during the break a film adaptation of Schlingensief with the title Mutilation 2007 - Freax - A Discourse on Disabilities in the Opera was shown. During the performance in the foyer of the opera, members of Schlingensief's “Family” played behind the screen with actors from Bonn.
On January 21, 2017, the opera celebrated its scenic premiere in the Regensburg Theater . Hendrik Müller decided at short notice to take over the direction of the sick Jim Lucassen according to his concept. Unlike originally written in the libretto, the Regensburg production was set in a nursing home for old, impoverished artists.
criticism
The 2007 concert premiere was consistently rated negatively in the feature sections of German newspapers.
Manuel Brug von der Welt sums up Eggert's music: "To listen to, there is over-instrumented, third-class music, glistening foamed by Wolfgang Lischke and the Beethoven orchestra, between fairground and screeching, which in its better moments sounds like sausage from the twelve-tone meat grinder."
Wolfgang Fuhrmann from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung came to the dry conclusion: “At the beginning of the evening Eggert had pathetically announced to the auditorium: 'I will put my music in your hands. You, the audience, are now the best directors of this play. ' Afterwards, of course, they would have gladly returned the directing order. "
“Even the plot,” wrote Dorothea Marcus on September 4, 2007 in the taz , “which criticizes the exclusion of the disabled in a peculiar way and at the same time turns it around, should have made it clear to everyone involved that this is about an insoluble conflict: what this opera wanted to tell, blows its form. The way Eggert created the music, it cannot be singed with real 'freaks'. An opera with actors disguised as 'freaks' cannot be staged by Schlingensief, who has been working with a 'family' of short stature, among others for years. "
In contrast, the scenic premiere in Regensburg 2017 received significantly more positive reviews. The Passauer Neue Presse described it as a “top-class coup” and the staging as complex and exciting. For the reviewer of the Deutsche Bühne , the performance was thus proven. The staging is a "perfectly worked all-round package". Only "a few rough edges" were missing.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Moritz Eggert: Freax, On the history of origins on the composer's website, accessed on December 9, 2014.
- ↑ How the music critics in the German press react to Moritz Eggert's opera and Christoph Schlingensief's film "Fremdvermutmutelung". General-Anzeiger, September 5, 2007 ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Manuel Brug: "Freax", the miscarriage of a monster opera. In: Die Welt from September 3, 2007.
- ↑ Wolfgang Fuhrmann : Moritz Eggert's opera “Freax” and Schlingensief's Freakstars…. In: FAZ of September 3, 2007.
- ↑ Dorothea Marcus: Who says that cripples don't sing? In: taz of September 4, 2007, accessed December 9, 2014.
- ↑ Michaela Schabel: World premiere “Freax”: Horror-Musiktheater by Moritz Eggert. In: Passauer Neue Presse , January 22, 2017, accessed on October 25, 2017.
- ↑ Martin Bürkl: The proof of performance. In: Die Deutsche Bühne , January 20, 2017, accessed on October 25, 2017.