Life with an idiot (opera)

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Opera dates
Title: Living with an idiot
Original title: Жизнь с идиотом
(Schisn s idiotom)
Shape: Opera in two acts
Original language: Russian
Music: Alfred Schnittke
Libretto : Viktor Erofejew and Alfred Schnittke
Literary source: Viktor Erofeev:
Living with an Idiot
Premiere: April 13, 1992
Place of premiere: Het Muziektheater Amsterdam
Playing time: about 2 hours
Place and time of the action: Soviet metropolis, before the fall of the USSR (not specified in the text)
people

Life with an Idiot (Russian: Жизнь с идиотом , Schisn s idiotom ) is an opera in two acts (four scenes) by Alfred Schnittke (music) with a libretto by Viktor Erofejew, based on his story Life with an Idiot from 1980. It was written on First performed on April 13, 1992 by the Dutch Opera in Het Muziektheater Amsterdam.

action

The opera is largely told from the perspective of a Russian writer called “I”. The scenes are his apartment and the basement of a madhouse.

prolog

The chorus sums up the story, interrupted by interjections "Ichs" and his wife: "Life with an idiot is full of surprises!" The wife thinks her husband is crazy because he chose Vova of all people. She announces to Vova that he will have a son. "I" shouts that he will be his son himself.

first act

First Scene

"I" was sentenced to accept a lunatic of my own choice for lack of compassion. His friends are happy with him about the relatively mild sentence. The writer now tells his story, with flashbacks illustrating what happened. For the “inner reckoning with life” he decided on “according to form and content” “folksy looking” god fool Vova. At the time, his first wife had just died - presumably from scarlet fever and the usual mistreatment that followed. He then married a great admirer of Marcel Proust . He admits that he often confuses his two wives. Meanwhile, his second wife is also dead: Vova cut off her head with large secateurs, which he usually used to cut his toenails. She herself tells the brutal murder from her point of view (tango by Wowa and his wife): Wowa's face looked "extremely schoolmasterly". She remembers with delight her excitement during the act. “I” reports how he watched, drank tomato juice and masturbated.

Second scene

“I” tells of his visit to the madhouse when he chose Vova. His wife didn't go because the engine of her car was on strike. She says that she never chose Vova. The guard receives "I" in an unfriendly manner and only lets him in with two bottles of vodka after a bribe. A "chorus of idiots" describes the approximately one hundred sad figures in the basement of the house. The situation triggers a hallucination in "I". In it he remembers an argument with his works manager and a representative of the party committee who suspected him of plan sabotage. “I” is now looking for a “blessed fool” among the madmen, but is confused by the red light and the stuffy air. A young madman sings the folk song “There was a birch in the field”. There he sees a “tall guy around thirty” on a bench with a “very human face”. The guard warns him that he is biting, and that is exactly what happens. Finally, “I” discovered Vova pacing up and down the room, with the “look of a somewhat provincial […] university lecturer” and “bulging forehead” and “adorable shed hair”, the one with you conceited opponents seem to discuss. The guard describes him as docile and understanding. Although its only sound is the exclamation “Ach!”, The guard says that he can also be talkative. "I" is pleased to see that Vova has red hair. He signs, pays the guard and takes Vova with him: "Vova was mine now."

In a short interlude, the wife, "I" and Vova stammer senseless sounds. Then "I" announce a report on how he "became".

Second act

First Scene

At first, Vova behaves properly in the apartment. The warden's assertion about his talkativeness turns out to be a lie: He sticks to “Ach!” And all “I's” attempts to find out something about his past fail. When walking through the snow-covered streets, however, passers-by are frightened of him for no apparent reason. One day, Vova scattered the food from the refrigerator on the floor. A little later he tore up the book collection, including Proust, who was loved by his wife. "I" and his wife try to control him more. Wowa's behavior is getting worse and worse: objects disappear, he smears feces on the wallpaper, urinates in the refrigerator, destroys the furniture and the phone, rages around and walks around naked. The couple fearfully retreats into the next room, where the two argue violently. Vova also penetrates there, brutally hurls "I" out of the room and rapes the woman. In a panic, "I" runs to the kitchen to get a knife. The wife and Vova scream loudly. Suddenly it gets quiet, "I" throw away the knife and take a cold shower. Waltz music symbolizes the peace that has returned.

Second scene

After Vova has been house-trained again, normality returns to the apartment. However, Vova has started an intimate relationship with his wife, which is why "I" sleeps on the couch in the living room with earplugs. Vova gives her violets. “I” bought him a new coat and replaced his wife's destroyed Proust collection, whereupon Vova also brought him flowers. In addition, he now helps with the household. Surprisingly, the wife becomes pregnant despite “certain inclinations” Wowas. She has fallen seriously in love with him and no longer tolerates criticism of “I” against Vova. Still, she has the child aborted. When Wowas realizes this, he gets angry, beats her up and enters into a homosexual relationship with "I" - which a "chorus of homosexuals" describes pictorially. "I" and Vova happily move first into an adjoining room and later into the bedroom, while they leave the dining room and the couch to the angry woman. The latter recapitulates her life, tears up letters and books and, like before, vows on the carpet. "I" and Vova ignore that at first. After a while, they lose patience, mock and beat them. Since the woman gives them nothing more to eat, they starve and lose weight more and more. Finally, the woman gives Vova the choice: “Vova! Either him or me! ”She even promises him a son. Vova looks sad at first. But then he freaks out, fetches the secateurs and uses them to behead her. He stuffs her body into the garbage can in the stairwell and disappears. "I" will never see him again. But he himself is taken to the madhouse, where the guard greets him “as an old friend”. There "I" sings the song about the birch tree, bites and notes his life story. Wowas “Äch!” Calls can still be heard. The wife and then "I" join in.

layout

Although the librettist Erofejew denied this, the figure of the idiot shows great similarities with Lenin, which led to the fact that he received his figure in several productions: The name "Vova" is the pet form of his first name Vladimir, as is his described appearance and his facial expressions as well as the "perverted libidinal ties" suggest this. Clear allusions to the aesthetics of the Soviet Union also indicate that it must at least be viewed as a “personification of Soviet power”. Twice in the first act - with the narration of the head and the scream "I", Vova should cut off his "inflamed organs" - Schnittke quotes the International . These bodies link Soviet politics with murder and castration. The recording of a folk song (here the song from the birch, which Mili Balakirew had previously processed in an overture and Pyotr Tchaikovsky in the finale of his 4th symphony ) is also a typical Soviet requirement. In the opera it sounds in the madhouse of all things. The desire for a “god fool”, who corresponds to a character from Mussorgski's opera Boris Godunov and is accompanied by a distorted quote from this opera (with flexaton ), is an allusion to Stalin's aesthetic of socialist realism . Nevertheless, Schnittke and Erofejew did not want to write an allegory on the history of the Soviet Union, but rather a "general parable of the individual loss of self-worth in the social process" (Ulrich Schreiber). In addition to being Lenin, Wawa was also portrayed as Caligula , Napoleon , Hitler or Semjon Budjonny in the various productions . In Wuppertal he was shown as a "staid family member". According to Schnittke, all interpretations should “discover the irrational and destructive nuances of the opera and add others”.

The figure of the writer Marcel Proust, who also appears personally in the opera, has a parallel in the opera L'écume des jours by Schnittke's Moscow colleague Edisson Denissow , written a few years earlier , where the philosopher “Jean Sol-Partre” has a similar function.

Schnittke's music is shaped by “polystyle”, a mixture of styles from the most varied of eras. It also contains a number of musical references. In addition to the international, the folk song and the Mussorgsky quote already mentioned , there is a tango from the 1930s and a trumpet motif from Shostakovich's 11th Symphony . The prologue quotes the opening chorus from Bach's St. Matthew Passion . In addition, there are individual quotes from Schnittke's string composition Moz-Art a la Haydn or his ballet Peer Gynt.

The story is not told chronologically, but contains several time leaps. Not only "I" acts as the narrator, but also his already murdered wife and the choir. This results in a “total self-alienation of the characters” (Ulrich Schreiber). A central idea of ​​this absurd opera is the priority of the irrational over the rational.

orchestra

The orchestral line-up of the opera contains the following instruments, which should be distributed over the entire area of ​​the orchestra pit:

In the second image of the first act, the flute (alto flute), oboe (English horn), clarinet (bass clarinet), bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone and tuba can play widely distributed in the auditorium.

Work history

Schnittke's opera Life with an Idiot was commissioned by the Dutch Eduard van Beinum Foundation. The libretto is by Viktor Erofejew . It is based on the story of the same name. Schnittke got to know this in 1985 at a private reading by the author and thought it was suitable for setting to music. He shared the content with some composer friends (including Luigi Nono ) and publishers. The contract negotiations for the foundation and the Amsterdam Opera were conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich .

The original libretto version corresponds almost entirely to the original. In consultation with Erofeyev, Schnittke himself then tightened the skin by about a third. As a result, two secondary episodes were essentially omitted, namely the character of the foreign diplomat Craig Benson (whose house idiot “I” ends up) and the precise description of the protagonist's offense that triggered the action. After the cut, only a short “hallucination” remained of the latter during the madhouse scene. Marcel Proust's personal appearances, on the other hand, were supplemented for the opera version. At Rostropovich's request, Schnittke added the tango and the waltz to the score.

For the work, Schnittke interrupted work on his opera Historia by D. Johann Fausten. He created the vocal framework in the winter of 1990/91, then completed the short score and, from May 1991, the full score. Because of a stroke, he had to interrupt work for three months until the beginning of October 1991. The rest of the composition was done under time pressure due to illness. The piano reduction for the performers was created in sections by the composer Wolfgang Nicklaus and Schnittke's son Andrei.

At the world premiere of the Dutch Opera on April 13, 1992 in Het Muziektheater Amsterdam, Mstislaw Rostropowitsch conducted the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and a vocal ensemble. Boris Pokrowski and Ilja Kabakow were responsible for the production and equipment . It sang Dale Duesing (I), Romain Bishop (alter ego of the ego), Teresa Ring Wood (wife), Howard Haskin (Vova), Leonid Zimnenko (guards), Robin Leggate (Marcel Proust). The conductor Rostropovich also appeared as an actor, cellist and pianist. The production was so successful that the work was immediately played in other opera houses. It is the first internationally successful Russian opera after the collapse of the USSR.

This was followed by a joint production by the Vienna Chamber Opera and the Moscow Chamber Theater, also staged by Pokrowski, with equipment by Wiktor and Rafail Wolski. It was played in Vienna in February 1992 (conductor: Wladimir Siwa; singers: Jewgeni Bolutschewski, Olga Schalajewa, Nikolai Kurpe) and in Moscow in June 1993 (conductor: Alexandr Lewin; singers: Jakow Radinek, Nina Jakowlewa, Sergei Ostrumow).

The German premiere took place on March 26, 1993 in the Wuppertal Opera House . The opera was given here in a German translation by Jörg Morgener based on Beate Rausch's translation of the story. It was a co-production of the Wuppertaler Bühnen with the Gelsenkirchener Musiktheater im Revier . Johannes Kalitzke directed the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra . The direction came from Friedrich Meyer-Oertel , the stage design by Dieter Flimm and the costumes by Annette Beaufays . John Riley-Schofield ("I"), Rebecca Littig (wife), Werner Hollweg (Vowa), Marek Wojciechowski (caretaker), Ole Jörgen Kristiansen (Marcel Proust) and Kenneth Beare (boy) sang .

In 1995 the work was staged by Jonathan Moore at the English National Opera in London. The leading roles were sung by David Barrell ("I"), Louisa Kennedy-Richardson (wife) and Alasdair Elliott (Vova).

There were further performances in Turin in 1993, in Madrid and Lisbon in 1994, in Bremen, Glasgow and Dresden in 1995, in Buenos Aires in 1996 and in 2002 in the Darmstadt State Theater .

A production by Novosibirsk from 2003 under Yevgeny Wolynski was also shown as a guest performance in Germany the following year. The conductor was Yevgeny Wolynski, the director was Henryk Baranowski , and the set was designed by David Borowski.

In May 2017, the opera premiered in a production by Georg Rootering at the Stadttheater Gießen . The stage and costumes came from Lukas Noll, the lighting design from Ulrich Schneider. Martin Spahr was the musical director. The vocal soloists were Gabriel Urrutia ("I"), Annika Gerhards (wife), Bernd Könnes (Wowa), Tomi Wendt (caretaker), Grga Peroš (Marcel Proust) and Shawn Mlynek (boy).

Recordings

  • April 1992 - Mstislav Rostropovich (conductor), Boris Porkrowski (staging), Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, a vocal ensemble.
    Dale Duesing (I), Romain Bischof (alter ego of the I), Teresa Ringholz (wife), Howard Haskin (Vowa), Leonid Zimnenko (caretaker), Robin Leggate (Marcel Proust).
    Live from Amsterdam; Cast of the premiere.
    Sony CD: S2K 52495.

literature

  • Amrei Flechsig: "The idiot is our reality". The grotesque in Russian culture and Alfred Schnittke's opera “Living with an Idiot” . In: Schnittke studies . tape 2 . Georg Olms, Hildesheim, Zurich, New York 2018, ISBN 978-3-487-15683-5 .

Web links

  • Action about life with an idiot (opera) on Opera-Guide landing page due to URL change currently not available

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Ulrich Schreiber : Life with an idiot. In: Attila Csampai , Dietmar Holland : Opera guide. E-book. Rombach, Freiburg im Breisgau 2015, ISBN 978-3-7930-6025-3 .
  2. ↑ Udo Bermbach (Ed.): Opera in the 20th century. Development tendencies and composers. Metzler, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-476-01733-8 , pp. 328-330.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Jürgen Köchel: Schisn s idiotom. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater . Volume 5: Works. Piccinni - Spontini. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1994, ISBN 3-492-02415-7 , pp. 599-600.
  4. ↑ a b Living with an Idiot. Program of the Wuppertaler Bühnen, 1992/93 season.
  5. ↑ a b c d Robert Maschka: Life with an idiot. In: Rudolf Kloiber , Wulf Konold , Robert Maschka: Handbuch der Oper. 9th, expanded, revised edition 2002. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag / Bärenreiter, ISBN 3-423-32526-7 , pp. 652–655.
  6. ↑ a b Living with an Idiot. In: András Batta: Opera. Composers, works, performers. hfullmann, Königswinter 2009, ISBN 978-3-8331-2048-0 , pp. 552-553.
  7. ↑ a b Alfred Schnittke: Life with an Idiot. German-language text book. Music publisher Hans Sikorski, Hamburg 1993.
  8. ↑ a b Alfred Schnittke. In: Andreas Ommer: Directory of all complete opera recordings (= Zeno.org . Volume 20). Directmedia, Berlin 2005.
  9. ↑ Living with an Idiot. In: Harenberg opera guide. 4th edition. Meyers Lexikonverlag, 2003, ISBN 3-411-76107-5 , pp. 807-808.
  10. ^ The operas by Alfred Schnittke. Special edition of the Sikorski quarterly magazine 2001 (PDF) , p. 8.
  11. ↑ Reviews of the Darmstadt performance from 2002 on publicopera.info, accessed on November 13, 2017.
  12. ^ Ulrich Schreiber : Opera guide for advanced learners. The 20th century III. Eastern and Northern Europe, branch lines on the main route, intercontinental distribution. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-7618-1859-9 , pp. 105-107.
  13. ↑ Gerhard R. Koch : Böse, böse - Schnittke: Living with an idiot - pouring | Theatre. Review of the Gießen performance in 2017. In: Opernwelt from July 2017, p. 40.