Marx in London
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| Title: | Marx in London |
| Shape: | "A Comedy" in two acts |
| Original language: | English |
| Music: | Jonathan Dove |
| Libretto : | Charles Hart |
| Premiere: | December 9, 2018 |
| Place of premiere: | Bonn Opera |
| Playing time: | about 2 hours |
| Place and time of the action: | London, 24 hours in the summer of 1871 |
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Leading roles
Supporting roles
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Marx in London is an opera (original name: "A Comedy") in two acts by the British composer Jonathan Dove , which was premiered on December 9, 2018 at the Bonn Opera. The libretto of the comedy is by Charles Hart based on an original scenario by Jürgen R. Weber . The opera is a commission from the Bonn Theater in cooperation with the Scottish Opera in Glasgow.
action
The comic opera describes 24 hours in the life of Karl Marx . It is August 14, 1871. Marx, who has lived in exile in London since 1849, is constantly watched by the English secret service. A spy hired on Marx regularly reports to his superiors, as allegedly an "anarchist action" is imminent in which Marx is involved.
first act
Marx is in his apartment and is playing a game of chess with his housekeeper Helene Demuth . They are chatting when Marx's daughter Jenny Julia Eleonor Marx , nicknamed Tussy, walks in. She claims to have discovered a spy on the street. And indeed a young man, Henry Frederick Demuth, called Freddy, is standing in front of the house, looking for the Marx family and his origins.
Tussy warns her father about the potential spy, who may even be an assassin. But she does not find a hearing with Marx who feels disturbed in his togetherness with Helene. Then Tussy storms into the street and confronts Freddy with her suspicions. Tussy is distracted by several workers who are tasked with clearing the house of the heavily indebted Marx family. Marx rushes over and he and his daughter try to prevent the removal of their furniture.
Meanwhile, Freddy has come into the house and meets Helene in the living room, who confronts him. Helene wants Freddy to leave the house as soon as possible. She absolutely wants to prevent a meeting between Marx and Freddy. When Marx returns to the living room after an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the furniture from being seized, Freddy poses as the new piano teacher. Since the workers have just removed the piano, Freddy has to leave the apartment. Marx complains about the loss of his furniture and also leaves the apartment because Helene announces the arrival of his wife Jenny Marx , whom he does not want to meet for reasons that are still unknown. Jenny comes in and complains bitterly to Helene about her husband. Marx had already incurred debts again and was not in a position to pay them off. Tussy follows Freddy, who seems to like her. But she still mistrusts him and doubts that he is a piano teacher. She tries to put him to the test and get him to play the piano.
Marx has meanwhile gone to the pawnbroker (pawnbroker). He offers the pawnbroker the contents of a suitcase. He seems to be interested in the purchase.
Jenny and Helene are sitting in the living room and get drunk. They no longer know how to prevent family bankruptcy . Friedrich Engels comes to visit. Marx's comrade in arms and family friend has already helped Marx financially several times. Jenny, who doesn't want to ask Engels for help again, remembers that she can still sell her family silver. She looks for it but cannot find it. Because the silverware is in the suitcase that Marx is currently offering the pawnbroker.
The pawnbroker refrains from buying the silver. He thinks Marx is a thief and calls for the police. Thereupon Marx fled with suitcase and silver, much to the delight of the English spy, who was also watching these events closely.
Jenny, Helene and Engels ponder Marx's ingratitude and carelessness. After Jenny - heavily drunk - fell asleep, Helene informed Engels about Freddy's visit. She recognized Freddy by the napkin ring that he wears on a chain around his neck. Helene and Engels hope that Freddy will no longer pursue them all.
Tussy, who continues to pursue Freddy, discovers a revolver on him. This reinforces their suspicions that Freddy is a spy and an assassin. Freddy tries to flee, but cannot shake Tussy off.
Marx has since fled to the British Library with his suitcase . He's reading a book about furunculosis . His pain when sitting suggests that he is struggling with the disease himself. Exhausted, he falls asleep and dreams of a free world. When he wakes up again, his valuable suitcase has been stolen.
Jenny, Helene, Engels and Marx brood over today's events. Marx discovers a man with a suitcase and pursues him. The supposed thief can escape him.
Second act
Marx is still looking for the thief of his trunk. He discovers him again, but escapes again.
Tussy has caught up with the fleeing Freddy and confronts him about his revolver and his interest in the Marx family. Freddy claims he is a gunsmith and developed the revolver himself. He justifies his interest in the Marx family with the fact that he was an orphan and only found out about his adaptation after the death of his parents. He is looking for his real parents. Freddy shows Tussy his talisman, the napkin ring that he wore around his neck as a baby. Tussy recognizes the engraving of her family in the napkin ring. She is startled and realizes that her family is hiding a secret.
Marx has caught up with the supposed thief of his suitcase and wants to snatch the suitcase from him. It comes to a wrestling match, in the course of which the suitcase opens. Instead of silverware, wads of money fall out. Marx realizes that he was chasing the wrong man and the wrong suitcase. The owner of the suitcase, Franz by name, collects his money again and leaves.
Tussy asks Freddy to teach her how to shoot a revolver. She blatantly confesses to him that she wants to become an actress. They both flirt with each other and get closer.
A political rhetoric competition is to be held at the Red Lion Club. The club's visitors are waiting for the appearance of the Italian anarchist Melanzane, whom everyone already considers to be the winner of the competition. Marx and Engels have also come to the club and meet here. Another visitor to the club is Franz, the man with the suitcase. Franz explains that he worked successfully as a gold digger in Australia, which explains the large amount of money in his suitcase. Franz wants to give the money to the winner of the competition as prize money. There is a verbal contest between Melanzane and Marx. Melanzane gives a lengthy speech, peppered with common words, but is already being celebrated by the audience as the winner of the competition. Marx, angry about the political platitudes that Melanzane uttered, vigorously opposed this in his speech, and succeeded in getting the audience to his side. Marx wins the competition and the prize money. The money is quickly used up, because Marx celebrates his victory with numerous local rounds in the Red Lion Club.
Jenny ponders her husband's disappearance. She is concerned that Marx will not come back to her.
Freddy, accompanied by Tussy, meets Helene again and confronts her. After some hesitation, Helene reveals herself to be Freddy's mother. But she doesn't want to tell him who his father is. Tussy and Freddy conclude that Engels is the father. Helene continues to refuse any information. Marx comes back, meets Helene and wants to seduce her. Tussy and Freddy are also getting closer and closer. Suddenly Engels enters the house together with the workers and the guests of the Red Lion Club. They bring all their furniture back to the Marx family. Engels sold part of his wine cellar and used the furniture.
Jenny woke up. Shortly before she enters the living room, Freddy is hidden by those present, because Jenny knows nothing of his existence. Jenny comes in and asks Marx for information about the whereabouts of her family silver. When the police appear, led by Chief Inspector Littlejohn, Marx is also hiding. A confusion arises and Freddy from Jenny and Marx are almost discovered by the police in their hiding places. The police are asking what the stolen suitcase is all about. Jenny explains that it is the family's silverware, which belongs to her and Marx in equal parts. It was gone. The English spy, also in the room, confesses that he stole the suitcase from Marx. He assumed that the suitcase contained conspiratorial secret papers and only later noticed the actual contents of the suitcase. The police are just about to retire when the anarchist Melanzane storms in. He wants to shoot his adversary Marx. Freddy, who jumps out of his hiding place, manages to prevent the act. Helene and Engels, who want to prevent an incestuous relationship between Tussy and Freddy, explain to the two that they are half siblings.
After all problems seem to have been solved, the actors go for a picnic in front of the city gates and look into a (better?) Future.
layout
The opera begins with the simulated sound of an old typewriter. The music is eclectic . The harmonies are predominantly tonal and only slightly enriched with dissonances. There are melodic echoes of Ludwig van Beethoven , George Gershwin and minimal music . The reviewer of the opera world described the strongly syncopated rhythmic basis as a “mildly jazzed Stravinsky variant”. According to the reviewer of the Neue Musikzeitung , this sound is catchy and suitable for the stage, but "significantly more substantial than the usual musical meter ware, [...] with a distinct originality cresendo in the second part".
orchestra
The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:
- Woodwinds : three flutes (3rd also piccolo ), three oboes (3rd also English horn ), three clarinets (3rd also bass clarinet ), three bassoons (3rd also contrabassoon )
- Brass : four horns , three trumpets , three trombones , tuba
- Timpani , drums (three players)
- harp
- Piano , celesta , harmonium (possibly as a sample from the keyboard ), keyboard (typewriter sample)
- Strings
Work history
The opera was commissioned by the Bonn Theater on the occasion of Karl Marx's 200th birthday . Charles Hart's libretto is based on a scenario by Jürgen Weber .
Weber also staged the world premiere on December 9, 2018 in the Bonn Theater. The stage and costumes were by Hank Irwin Kittel and the lighting design by Friedel Grass. David Parry directed the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn . The soloists were u. a. Mark Morouse (Karl Marx), Yannick-Muriel Noah (Jenny), Marie Heeschen (Tussy), Christian Georg (Freddy), Ceri Williams (Helene), Johannes Mertes (Engels), David Fischer (Spy), Boayn Di (Pawnbroker) and Jonghoon You (Melanzane). It was a co-production with the Schottish Opera. A recording of the Bonn production was broadcast on March 2, 2019 on Deutschlandfunk Kultur radio and on March 1, 2020 on WDR3.
The reviewer of the Deutsche Bühne praised the quality of the performance, the staging and the set design. The atmosphere is right and the story is conveyed. However, he missed the substance. Although the work is described as a comedy, there is hardly any laughter. The punch lines were either crushed by the gesture-duplicating “careless rides” of the staging or the “wide-ranging complexity” of the music. The announced “political explosiveness” is lost in the cliché. The conciliatory end was "in his [...] very shyly ironicized by the director commitment to brute kitsch as an art form [...] difficult for many people to endure". The reviewer of the opera world also found the work "in the long run [...] not very amusing" and the stylization of the production "not very credible and certainly not witty, as Dove's music is ultimately only a copy of what it imitates and caricatures. The Concerti reviewer noted that the performance was 'fun, good fun'. However, the director could have been "significantly more disrespectful" instead of depicting the events naturalistically. Dove knows the musical constructions of the comedies of Mozart , Rossini and Verdi and is eager to “emulate the old colleagues with technical mastery”.
Web links
- Libretto of the opera at ISSUU
- Marx in London in the repertoire of the Bonn Theater
Individual evidence
- ↑ Program of the Bonn Opera for the Marx Opera in London by Jonathan Dove.
- ↑ a b c Jürgen Otten: Much steam about nothing. Review of the world premiere production. In: Opernwelt , February 2019, p. 30.
- ^ Joachim Lange: In Bonn: Family "Karl Marx in London" premiered by Jonathan Dove and R. Weber. In: Neue Musikzeitung , December 12, 2018, accessed on February 15, 2019.
- ↑ a b Information in the libretto.
- ↑ Martin Kettle: Marx in London review - Dove's opera spins comic capital from revolutionary icon. In. The Guardian , December 10, 2018, accessed February 15, 2019.
- ^ Theater Bonn plays "Marx in London". Article from March 2, 2019 on Deutschlandfunk Kultur , accessed on March 9, 2019.
- ↑ Andreas Falentin: Without explosiveness. Review of the premiere. In: Die Deutsche Bühne , December 10, 2018, accessed on February 15, 2019.
- ↑ Peter Krause: The Marx Musical. Review of the premiere. In: Concerti , December 11, 2018, accessed February 15, 2019.