Round trip

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Opera dates
Title: Round trip
Shape: Sketch with music
Original language: German
Music: Paul Hindemith
Libretto : Marcellus Schiffer
Premiere: July 15, 1927
Place of premiere: Baden-Baden town hall
Playing time: about 12 minutes
Place and time of the action: A living room with a breakfast table
people
  • Robert ( tenor )
  • Helene, his wife ( soprano )
  • Aunt Emma (silent role)
  • The professor ( baritone )
  • The nurse ( bass )
  • The maid (speaking role)
  • A sage (tenor)
Stage design by László Moholy-Nagy for the Kroll Opera in 1930

There and back is a miniature opera (original name: “Sketch with Music”, op. 45a) by Paul Hindemith (music) and Marcellus Schiffer (libretto).

content

During the playing time of twelve minutes, a marriage drama is told: Robert surprisingly appears at his wife Helene, who is having breakfast in the presence of the deaf corner shop, and hands over a birthday present. The maid brings a letter that arouses the man's suspicion. In response to his persistent questions, Helene admits that the letter was from her lover. Robert then shoots his wife, an incoming professor and the nurse can only determine her death. Robert rushes out of the window. A sage appears to the notes of a harmonium and explains that a “higher power” does not want a “small thing” to lead to suicide. The plot then runs back scene by scene in reverse order.

Importance of the work

With Hin und zurück - after he had already composed a full-length opera with Cardillac - Paul Hindemith undertook an experiment with the genre of comic opera, which he did in his second collaboration with the librettist Marcellus Schiffer in 1929 with the work Neues vom Tage mit ein Then again full evening work served again. In Hin und zurück Hindemith plays ironically with the traditional forms of opera, on the one hand in terms of music, as in Helene's coloratura aria to the inconsequential words "Froh und Früh Erwacht", on the other hand with regard to the exaggeration of feelings (jealousy) and reactions typical of opera (Murder and suicide) in connection with coincidences (the almost simultaneous arrival of the husband and letter from the lover) and a sudden external influence (the sage as Deus ex machina ). The music from Hin und zurück satirized this through the inclusion of elements of the then contemporary light music , which is expressed in the line-up of the small orchestra through the participation of saxophone and piano.

Origin and performances

Paul Hindemith composed Hin und zurück from May 9 to 12, 1927. The composer revised the central scene of the sage even before the premiere, replacing the originally intended bass part with a tenor and the accompaniment by flute and clarinet with the one playing backstage Harmonium. The work was premiered on July 17, 1927 at the Festival of German Chamber Music in the large stage hall of the Kurhaus Baden-Baden. The program that evening also included the world premieres of three other short operas: The Abduction of Europa by Darius Milhaud , the Mahagonny Songspiel by Kurt Weill (text by Bertolt Brecht ) and The Princess on the Pea by Ernst Toch . Conductor of the premiere of There and Back was Ernst Mehlich . Walther Brügemann directed the set by Heinz Porep. The work was then performed in numerous theaters, including in 1930 at the Kroll Opera in Berlin, directed by Hans Curjel and set by László Moholy-Nagy under the direction of the conductor Otto Klemperer . Even after the Second World War, Hin und zurück was performed again and again, for example at the Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen in April 2009 and on May 18, 2011 as part of a concert by the Stuttgart Philharmonic , directed by Hugo Wieg (conductor: Gabriel Feltz ).

orchestra

The following instruments play in the chamber music orchestra:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rudolf Stephan: Foreword to Volume I, 6 "Scenic Attempts" in Paul Hindemith, All Works (1982)
  2. ↑ Until the blood in the repertoire of the Musiktheater im Revier ( memento of August 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on February 3, 2016.
  3. ↑ "There was always a feel-good moment". Interview with Gabriel Feltz in the Stuttgarter Nachrichten , accessed on February 3, 2016
  4. ^ There and back in the catalog raisonné by Paul Hindemith , accessed on February 3, 2016