Jonny plays
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| Title: | Jonny plays |
Piano reduction (cover picture by Arthur Stadler ) |
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| Shape: | Jazz opera |
| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Ernst Krenek |
| Libretto : | Ernst Krenek |
| Premiere: | February 10, 1927 |
| Place of premiere: | New Theater Leipzig |
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Jonny plays on ( op. 45 ) is an opera in two parts by Ernst Krenek . It was premiered on February 10, 1927 in the New Theater in Leipzig in a production by Walther Brügmann , had 421 performances in its first season, was also a global success and is considered a model of the freedom of the arts in the golden twenties . It is also a typical example of the “Zeitoper” genre of the Weimar Republic, which deliberately brings props of technical progress to the stage and reflects the lifestyle of contemporaries as well as social or political debates typical of the time.
Origin and historical classification
After the premiere on December 31, 1927, the first performances of riots at the Vienna State Opera that went back to the early Nazi movement were disrupted. From 1929 on, performances in Munich were also disrupted, until the opera was finally banned by the National Socialists after the “ takeover ” in 1933 and branded as “ degenerate music ”. The jazz musician on the cover picture on the piano reduction was abused for the advertising poster of this Nazi exhibition.
Krenek's own libretto has been translated into 14 languages. The relationship of the Austrian Krenek to the progressive genre of the contemporary opera of the Weimar Republic and generally to Weimar Modernism is nonetheless ambiguous. His Jonny in particular shows this ambivalence, it was "an expression of modernity and at the same time a protest against it." The defamation of the work by the National Socialists can therefore easily encourage the idea that Krenek, like Brecht or Weill, is located in the left or at least liberal spectrum. But the question arises “whether the artistic avant-garde, to which Krenek undoubtedly belongs, can automatically be equated with the socio-political avant-garde.” Because the composer Max is the real hero of the opera (not by chance a namesake from Weber's “Freischütz”) the embodiment of the melancholy romantic ego, Jonny is therefore in the tradition of the romantic artist drama, despite its reputation as a work of the Weimar avant-garde.
In Jonny this romantic consciousness collides violently with the new mass cultural developments of the “Golden Twenties”: New Objectivity , Film, Radio, Schlager, Jazz, Mass Sports , Consumerism , Americanism , Big City Cult: Jazz stands for all of this through the caricature of a minstrel figure -Musician Jonny. Krenek deliberately used the typical “Negro” cliché in Jonny and emphasized several times that he did not intend to glorify the American lifestyle, but on the contrary, not unlike Thomas Mann in this, he is more on the side of the old, bygone bourgeois age: "The deployment of this whole soulless technical apparatus makes the antithesis on which the piece thrives clear in the shortest possible way : the antithesis of the vital and spiritual form of human existence ... In this sense, Jonny is almost a part of this technical-mechanistic side of the world, he reacts just as easily, pleasingly exact and amoral as one of these well-constructed machines. ”Accordingly, Krenek speaks of the“ innermost strangeness of the blood between the European and this unscrupulous conqueror who believes he has everything that is good in the world ”to justify why the European Anita is immune to Jonny's attraction.
The left press has by no means welcomed Krenek's Jonny unanimously, but rejected it as a “ bourgeois ”. Adorno also drew attention to the anti-modern character trait in Krenek's work in 1935: “He only covered the area of romanticizing the American essence once and quickly enough on his adventurous journey, and it is ultimately the Austrian's fault if someone wanted to settle him there ; He who really only used the famous Jonny train station to escape from the realm of marketable primal feelings and polished new objectivity as quickly as possible to more mountainous and wooded regions. "This alpine world, that is the romantic setting of the 1st picture in Jonny, that is the real world of the composer Max, and one can assume that his alter ego is also that of the composer Krenek.
action
The opera takes place in the high Alps, in a central European city and in Paris during the 1920s.
First part
The composer Max seeks inspiration for his art in the solitude of a glacier. He meets the singer Anita, who has lost her way from the nearby hotel. She recently appeared in one of his operas. She fears the lonely glacier world and asks Max to accompany her back to the hotel. Max and Anita soon become a couple and move into an apartment together, but Max is constantly jealous. When Anita leaves for Paris to sing in his new opera, Max is even jealous of his own work and is left alone and sad.
The black jazz band violinist Jonny plays in the Paris hotel where Anita stayed during her guest performance. He is a gifted womanizer and is currently in a relationship with Yvonne, one of the housekeeping staff. Jonny is after the violin of the famous violin virtuoso Daniello, who is also staying in the hotel. Jonny therefore tries in vain to break into Daniello's room. In the meantime, Anita comes back to the hotel from her performance. She is intoxicated by the erotic atmosphere of the city, but also thinks of Max who stayed at home. Jonny tries to seduce Anita, but is disturbed by Daniello, who puts Jonny in his place with a racist remark: "Ôte-toi, négrillon!" , but then Anita in turn makes court. Anita can't resist Daniello and spends the night with him in her room. Jonny uses this opportunity to gain access to Daniello's room with a fake key and steals the violin. To get her safely out of the house, he hides her in Anita's banjo case, which she used for her role in the opera.
The next morning, Anita leaves for Max. The vain Daniello is beside himself that Anita wants to leave him, she gives him a ring to say goodbye and to commemorate. Then Daniello was horrified to discover the theft of his precious violin and alerted the hotel management and the police. The hotel manager fires the innocent Yvonne because he suspects her. Anita comforts her and offers her to come with her as her maid. Daniello hears this and has an idea to get revenge on Anita. He gives Yvonne the ring with the request to pass it on to Max in secret to arouse his jealousy. Anita's manager brings her a lucrative contract for a tour of America. Jonny cancels his contract as the hotel's jazz musician and now travels to Anita to get hold of the violin in the banjo case.
Second part
Max waited for Anita all night at home: now that he has entered into a relationship with Anita, he has left the icy cold of the glacier, but has become vulnerable and dependent on the warmth of people. Since Anita returns home late because of her affair, the joy of reunion is clouded, it comes to an argument: Modern life with its turmoil remains alien to Max, the lonely glacier had given him stability. Anita replies that Max was not fixed at the time, but frozen: he now has to find support in himself and not in others. When Anita leaves the room, Yvonne (now Anita's maid) gives Max the ring to Daniellos. Max immediately understands the connections and desperately falls to the glacier.
In the meantime Jonny has arrived and is surprised to meet Yvonne. He now steals the violin from the banjo case and explains to the perplexed Yvonne that it belongs to him as the representative of the New World, because Old Europe has run down and no longer knows what to do with it. Max has now reached the glacier and wants to plunge into the depths. In a surreal pronunciation with the mysterious voices of the glacier, he, the finite and suffering person, is rejected by the eternal and unhappy ice: "You have to live, you have to suffer!". Suddenly Max hears Anita's voice from the loudspeaker of the nearby mountain hotel, singing the aria from his opera on the radio. She brings him back to life: Max makes his way to the train station, where Anita and her manager are about to leave for America for her engagement.
On the terrace of the mountain hotel there is also Daniello among the hotel guests, who wants to recover from the loss of the violin. Jonny's jazz band can be heard on the radio: Daniello immediately recognizes the unique tone of his stolen violin and calls the police. Jonny is now on the run from the police and wants to catch the train to Amsterdam to take the ship to his American homeland. But he loses his train ticket on the street. The police find the ticket and go to the train station on it. Once there, Jonny sees his pursuers and wants to get rid of the violin: he puts it with Max's luggage, who is then arrested as an alleged violin thief. Daniello witnesses the scene and reports it to Anita with great satisfaction. Yvonne, who knows the real thief, wants to go to the police and relieve Max. This leads to a tussle with Daniello, who literally gets under the wheels of the arriving train.
In front of the police station, Yvonne meets Jonny, who is waiting for an opportunity to regain possession of the violin. He promises Yvonne, if possible, to save both the violin and Max. He stuns the chauffeur of the police car, pulls the police hat down over his face and takes his place at the steering wheel. Max and two policemen get into the car that is supposed to bring him for interrogation. The car speeds through the illuminated city streets, and while driving, Max argues about how he could sink so deep: Because he was lived instead of directing his own life. With the courage of desperation, he decides to change this on the spot and gives the order: "Chauffeur, back to the train station!" The policemen are completely perplexed that the supposed chauffeur is blindly obeying the inmate's orders. So they can be thrown out of the car by Jonny. At the station, the display announces the train's imminent departure: "To Amsterdam 11:58 am". The big station clock shows almost 11:58 a.m., so Anita, the manager and Yvonne are eagerly waiting for Max: will he come? Literally at the last minute, Max jumps into Anita's arms on the departing train.
Jonny stays behind and climbs the station clock with the stolen violin. Suddenly this is transformed into a huge globe on which the black triumphantly plays. Everyone around him is dancing to the jazzy rhythms from America, which are now beginning to conquer the old world: “The hour of the old time strikes / the new time is dawning now. / Don't miss the connection. / The crossing begins / to the unknown land of freedom. / The crossing begins / so Jonny plays us up to dance. / The new world comes across the sea / sailed with shine / and inherits old Europe through dance. "
Web links
- Article at musikmph.de
- Three (MP3; 1.3 MB) audio samples (MP3; 2.6 MB) at the (MP3; 2.8 MB) online music magazine
- The work at operone; with CD tips
- Report on a performance of the Wuppertal stages with photos of the scene
- Photos from a performance by the Neubrandenburg / Neustrelitz Theater
- including a narrative report by the main actor in the character Johnny about the Munich premiere, which was so disturbed by rioters organized by the NSDAP that it had to be canceled. For fear of the following 13 performances, hardly any more guests dared to go to the opera.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Julius Korngold : Feuilleton. Opera theater. Jonny plays on by Ernst Krenek. In: Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt, No. 22734/1928, January 1, 1928, pp. 1–5. (Online at ANNO ). .
- ↑ Martin Lade: Abysses of Progress. Ernst Kreneks Jonny plays and the spirit of the times. Program booklet Oper Köln, season 2004/2005, p. 18.
- ↑ Ibid, p. 13
- ↑ Krenek quoted from Martin Lade, ibid, p. 13.
- ↑ Ibid. P. 13
- ↑ Adorno quoted from Martin Lade, ibid p. 15