Lunea

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Opera dates
Title: Lunea
Nikolaus Lenau, oil painting by Friedrich Amerling

Nikolaus Lenau, oil painting by Friedrich Amerling

Shape: "Lenau scenes in 23 life sheets"
Original language: German
Music: Heinz Holliger
Libretto : Handel Klaus
Premiere: 4th March 2018
Place of premiere: Zurich Opera House
Playing time: approx. 1 ½ hours
people

Lunea is an opera (original name: "Lenau scenes in 23 life leaves") by Heinz Holliger (music) with a libretto by Händl Klaus . It deals with the life of the poet Nikolaus Lenau and was premiered on March 4, 2018 at the Zurich Opera House .

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The work has no linear plot, but shows the personality of the Austrian poet Nikolaus Lenau , who at the age of 42 fell mentally deranged after a stroke. The 23 so-called “life sheets” are “texts, figures and situations from his life cosmos in visions, flashes of thought and dream images”. The individual sections are often extremely concentrated and sometimes only consist of a few words.

In addition to the main character Lenau, who is almost always present, his mother, friends and lovers have their say. His friend Anton Schurz (later his first biographer) has a balancing effect, especially at the beginning. He also has the function of an "alter ego" Lenau and can often be heard in a duet with him. Sophie von Löwenthal, the wife of his friend Max Löwenthal, has a special meaning. Lenau had both official and secret, intimate correspondence with her. She and his mother, portrayed by the same singer, shaped his entire life. Marie Behrends was a Frankfurt mayor's daughter who Lenau almost married. Your actress also takes on the role of the famous singer Karoline Unger , who Lenau met in 1839. The third female leading role is assigned to Lenau's sister Therese, Anton's wife. Associated with her are his maternal friend Emilie Reinbeck from Stuttgart and his early lover Bertha Hauer. In addition, a twelve-part madrigal choir takes part in Lenau's dialogues and trains of thought.

The following overview is based on the summary of the contents of the individual sheets in the appendix to the libretto. The titles are written backwards from the middle.

First sheet. In the Döbling insane asylum , Lenau reflects on his “own downfall”. He mentally turns to his sister Therese.

Second sheet. Lenaus suffered his first stroke on September 29, 1844 in Stuttgart in the presence of his friends Emilie and Georg Reinbeck .

Third sheet. Lenau comforts himself in his room in Döbling.

Fourth sheet. Lenau's lover Sophie visits him in Döbling.

Fifth leaf. Sophie brought Lenau a self-made cap.

Sixth sheet. Lenau's mother takes the place of Sophie.

Seventh sheet. Lenau remembers the inkblot leaflets of his friend Justinus Kerner and compares himself with such a sheet. His brother-in-law Anton Schurz is also present.

Eighth leaf. In Bad Ischl Lenau met Marie, whom he wanted to marry, and Sophie, whom he did not want to give up.

Ninth sheet. Lenau thinks of his first meeting with ten-year-old Sophie during a visit to her brother Fritz Kleyle in 1820.

Tenth sheet. In 1823 Lenau fell in love for the first time and moved in with Bertha Hauer and her mother. He doubts that he is the father of his daughter Adelheid, who was born in 1826. They split up in 1828.

Eleventh sheet. Lenau met the singer Karoline Unger in 1839 . Sophie prevents a love affair. Lenau imagines a mad aria sung by Karoline. In a "fall of time", his mother tells him about the happy love affairs of his sisters. Lenau feels sorry for himself.

Zwölftesetflöwz ttalB. At the cemetery near his sister Therese's house, Lenau imagines a joint grave with her and Anton. Action and language run backwards.

ttalB setnheirD. In 1832 Lenau bought a piece of land in America. He feels repulsed by this country and its materialistic inhabitants.

ttalB setnhezrieV. With the Reinbecks, Lenau suffers a fit of madness and jumps out of the window. At the same time he plays a wild dance on the violin and believes in his healing.

ttalB setnhezfnüF. Lenau has gone completely mad. In Döbling he writes confused notes, some of them in his Hungarian childhood language. He feels guilty and longs for the Himalayas.

ttalB SetnhezcheS. Lenau remains alone in madness.

ttalB setnhezbieS. Lenau thinks more about the past. Self-dissolving until death.

ttalB setnheztchA. Further narrowing of the world. Marie's comfort song.

ttalB setnheznueN. "A rush of tears in knowing."

ttalB setsgiznawZ. Increasing exhaustion. Brief memories of his friends and relatives.

ttalB setsgiznawzdnunEi. Although the friends continue to believe in him, he has to let go.

ttalB setsgiznawzdnueiwZ. Time comes to a standstill.

ttalB setsgiznawzdnueirD. "Quiet birds chirping in the orchestra - they are almost gone"

layout

The title of the opera, composed as an anagram from the letters of the name “Lenau”, evokes associations with the word “Luna” (moon), which is also found in the English word “lunatic” (moonstruck, insane).

The opera requires a total of five singers: two baritones, two sopranos and one mezzo-soprano. While the main role of Lenau is exclusively assigned to one singer, the others take on supporting roles in addition to their main role. There is also a twelve-part madrigal choir, some of whose members sing almost as solos.

Holliger viewed the time of Lenau's stroke as the “axis of symmetry of a completely asymmetrical life”. He wanted to depict the different phases of life and work “simultaneously rewinding and fast forwarding” and thereby “completely messing up the perception of time”. The focus of the composition after eleven and a half sheets is the word “fire”, which Holliger understood as a “symbol for the burning of a poet's sheet” and applied it as the axis of symmetry of the opera. The word “Reue [f]” appears symmetrically in the following bar. He wrote the following scenes partly "backwards", which also affects the order of the letters of individual words. For example, the word “gidlusch” was derived from the word “guilty”. On the seventh leaf the soloists sing the text “We fold you and split your face”, while the choir simultaneously recites the same words in a whisper backwards: “chid netlaf riw netlaps dnu tchiseg nied”. A strict geometry is not the basic concept of the opera, however. Although the result is an overall shape, the individual parts are “nested in one another in a fragmentary and kaleidoscopic manner”. Holliger compared this with the "leaps [n], flashbacks, parallel [n] time levels" of a dream.

Lunea contains many ensemble movements, duets and trios that correspond dramaturgically to those in Mozart's operas, since they “do not stand for unity and harmony, but for the difference and the increasing distance between the characters” (Roman Brotbeck). In these pieces there are a number of stylistic (not literal) quotations from the history of music from Gregorian chant to the polyphony of the Renaissance, canons and chorales to the operatic aria. At the encounter with the singer Karoline Unger in the eleventh sheet, Holliger quotes Antonina from Donizetti's opera Belisario, sung by her at the premiere, and the aria “ Lascia ch'io pianga ” from Handel's Rinaldo .

The music supports the “expressive, torn character of the lyrics”. Since Lenau played the violin himself, this instrument also has a special solo role in opera. The orchestration is extremely varied. The critic of the Deutsche Bühne described it as a “sound painting” with “an almost breathtaking spectrum of colors and gestures”, allusions to the music of the Romantic period by Franz Liszt or Robert Schumann , but also with a variety of dark sounds that gave the “impression of the inescapable” “Particularly stand out.

As in many other works by Heinz Holliger, the note B has a special meaning here. He points to the composer's biographical identification with the main character Lenau, which runs through the entire opera in various allusions.

The work begins softly with arpeggios of harp, cymbal and piano over sustained winds, to which bells and hummed chords are added. A “sound current” is created, the incessant movement of which also includes the quiet parts. The critic of the Swiss music newspaper was reminded of a "dark lake, the surface of which is rippled by a breeze".

At the end the music slowly fades away. A brass chorale, bird voices imitations of the woodwinds and the word “Lunea” whispered by the choir form the conclusion “as if through an extreme filter”.

orchestra

The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:

Work history

Holliger had known Lenau's poems for a long time without being particularly impressed by them. It was only when he got to know his notebook from Winningen around 2000 that he was spellbound by the inconsistent diary notes it contained with their “language of a boldness and novelty that was breathtaking for the time”. They were probably created shortly before Lenau's disorder, were collected by his brother-in-law Anton Schurz and published in 1906. Holliger set 23 of these notes to music for the singer Christian Gerhaher . This collection, also called Lunea , was created between 2010 and 2013 in a piano and an orchestral version . Although the compilation is often referred to as a song cycle , the order of the pieces, which the composer calls “sheets”, is not fixed. The piano version was premiered in 2013 in Zurich by Christian Gerhaher. The orchestral version forms the core of the "Lenau Scenes" composed by Holliger in 2017 on behalf of the Zurich Opera House . Holliger described the composition process as follows:

“I was particularly attracted by the openness of the text level. It is spotlight-like impulses, expressive centers of force that grasp the piece of space. This is how the composition came about. I kept writing small fragments of music and sketches directly on the libretto pages until the pages were littered with my notes. Only later did I put everything together and put it in a chronological order. "

- Heinz Holliger : Interview with Claus Spahn in the magazine of the Zurich Opera House, MAG 56, February 2018

The order of the pieces was ultimately determined by his librettist Handel Klaus , as Holliger said he could not make up his mind. He added additional sentence fragments from Lenau. Every single word of the libretto comes from his hand. The older songs integrated Holliger "as chorales in Bach - Passion " to the opera.

The world premiere took place on March 4, 2018 at the Zurich Opera. The Philharmonia Zurich and the Basel madrigalists played under the direction of the composer. The staging was done by Andreas Homoki , the stage by Frank Philipp Schlößmann , the costumes by Klaus Bruns , the lighting design by Franck Evin and the dramaturgy by Claus Spahn . Christian Gerhaher (Lenau), Ivan Ludlow (Anton), Juliane Banse (Sophie), Sarah Maria Sun (Marie / Karoline) and Annette Schönmüller (Therese) sang . A recording was broadcast on SRF 2 Kultur radio .

The production was voted "World Premiere of the Year" in Opernwelt magazine's critics' survey .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e f g h i j Lenau scenes in 23 life sheets by Heinz Holliger. Work information at the Zurich Opera House , accessed on January 16, 2019.
  2. a b c d e work information from Verlag Schott Music , accessed on January 16, 2019.
  3. a b c Jörn Peter Hiekel : Dream worlds of a romantic poet. World premiere review. In: Die Deutsche Bühne , March 5, 2018, accessed on January 16, 2019.
  4. a b c d e f g h i Roman Brotbeck: Enigmatic clear. This is what the ambivalences of bright moonlit nights sound like: reflections on “Lunea”, Heinz Holliger's composed homage to the language artist Nikolaus Lenau. In: Opernwelt Jahrbuch 2018, p. 30.
  5. ^ John H. Mueller: Zurich: Lunea - by Heinz Holliger. Premiere. In: Online Merker, March 5, 2018, accessed on January 16, 2019.
  6. Georg Rudiger: Tender background noise. World premiere review. In: Schweizer Musikzeitung , March 7, 2018, accessed on January 16, 2018.
  7. Peter Hagmann: Folded and split. World premiere review. In: Opernwelt , April 2018, p. 16.
  8. Heinz Holliger: "Lunea". Program from November 28, 2018 on SRF 2 Kultur radio, accessed on January 16, 2019.