Merlin (Albéniz)
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| Title: | Merlin |
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Title page of the piano reduction, Paris 1906 |
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| Shape: | Opera in three acts |
| Original language: | English |
| Music: | Isaac Albéniz |
| Libretto : | Francis Burdett Money-Coutts |
| Literary source: | Thomas Malory: Le morte d'Arthur |
| Premiere: | December 18, 1950 |
| Place of premiere: | Cine-Teatro Tívoli, Barcelona |
| Playing time: | approx. 2 ¼ hours |
| Place and time of the action: | London, legendary time |
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Merlin is an English language opera in three acts by Isaac Albéniz (music) with a libretto by Francis Burdett Money-Coutts. The text is freely based on Thomas Malory's Middle English prose epic Le morte d'Arthur (published 1469). The opera was written between 1897 and 1902, but was only staged for the first time on December 18, 1950 in Spanish in the Cine-Teatro Tívoli in Barcelona.
action
first act
In front of the east side of St Paul's Cathedral in London; Christmas before sunrise
In the enlightened church, monks chant the Veni redemptor gentium . Next to the church wall is a marble block with a jeweled sword on which a scroll hangs. The magician Merlin is waiting for the English lords and knights who want to elect the new king after the mass. Merlin wants Arthur , son of Uther Pendragon , to be chosen . The enslaved dance girl Nivian reminds Merlin of his promise to release her and the other dancers as soon as the true heir to the throne gains power. Merlin asks her to be patient. Their magical dances force the earth spirits to surrender their gold treasures to him. This is the only way he can counter Uther's false stepdaughter Morgan le Fay . Nivian withdraws disappointed.
The knights and nobles come from the church, among them Morgan le Fay with her son Mordred , King Lot of Orkney with his son Gawain , Arthur's knight Sir Ector de Maris and Morgan's captain Sir Pellinore. The monks and the Archbishop of Canterbury follow them singing. Merlin calls on the lords to proceed to the election of the king. The archbishop tells them about his vision that he is called to be king who draws the mystical sword Excalibur from the stone anvil. However, both Gawain and Mordred fail miserably at this task. Merlin tells Pellinore and Ector to take good care of the sword. The others go back to church and heralds announce a tournament.
Arthur and his stepbrother, Ector's son Kay , approach . Arthur realizes that he forgot his sword. He sees the sword in the marble block and spontaneously pulls it out without knowing its meaning. Ector and Pellinore watch him in amazement, and Pellinore goes to church to fetch the nobles. While Arthur and Kay admire the ornate sword, Ector approaches and tells Kay to kneel in front of the new King Arthur. The latter throws away the sword in shock. Ector picks it up. The nobles and monks come back and form a circle around Arthur. Ector and Pellinore swear their loyalty to the new king on the Bible. Merlin explains to those present that Arthur is not Ector's real son, but that he himself, at the request of the dying Queen Igraine, laid her newborn child in front of Ector's door. Arthur is thus not only confirmed by the divine sign, but also of royal origin. The crowd cheers. Morgan, however, is not ready to accept the new king. Two factions are formed: on the one hand Morgan, Mordred, Pellinore and their supporters, on the other Arthur with Lot and Gawain. Morgan and her people withdraw under threats. Ector hands Arthur Excalibur, who holds it high. Those present praise the new king. Arthur kneels in front of the archbishop and receives his blessing.
Second act
Throne room in Tintagil Castle
While Arthur is praying in front of a crucifix, Merlin enters the hall. He reports to the king of the victory against the troops of Morgan and Mordred, but warns him of the seductive arts of Guenevere , with which Arthur has since fallen in love. Trumpets announce the arrival of the knights. Enter Ector, Kay, Gawain, and the others. Guards lead Morgan, Mordred and Pellinore in prisoner. Although Morgan throws herself at Arthur's feet and begs for mercy, Merlin demands that you should never be forgiven. Gawain blames Pellinore for the death of his father Lot, who died in battle. The other knights also demand vengeance. Arthur, however, shows gentleness. He forgives his opponents in order to restore peace in his kingdom. After the prisoners have thanked him on their knees, Arthur ceremoniously knights Gawain. The nobles extol his generosity. All but Mordred and Morgan move out of the room. These two have not yet given up their claims. Morgan asks her son to be patient. She wants to make sure that Arthur takes the "dangerous" Guenevere as his wife. After Mordred leaves, Morgan asks the "Princess of Hell" for help against her mighty opponent Merlin.
Nivian appears and begs Morgan for help: Merlin is still forcing her and her sisters to dance to steal their gold from the ghosts. Now she sees herself surrounded by demons everywhere. Morgan explains to Nivian that she could gain her freedom if she stole Merlin's wand and locked him forever in the spirits' den. However, she could not win the staff by magic, but only by female cunning.
Third act
Forest clearing with blossoming trees; on one side a large rock with a dark cave entrance; behind it a lake
It's May afternoon and the choir is singing a happy Mailied. Arthur, who was sleeping under a beech tree, stands up. He has thought about his love for Guenevere and is now determined to marry her. He informs the arriving Merlin and sets off to ask her father for her hand. Merlin, who foresees the disaster, decides to call on Nivian's services again. Nivian and the other Saracen dancers force the earth spirits out of the cave with their dance. They chase the girls and both groups disappear into the forest. Night falls, the moon rises, and fog envelops Merlin and Nivian as the girls sing from the forest. In the meantime Morgan has also arrived unnoticed and watches the scene hovering over the trees. Nivian, dancing, approaches the magician, who watches her spellbound. She asks him for a "small gift" - his staff. Trusting that this is just a piece of wood for Nivian with no magical properties, he gives it to her. Nivian, however, brings him dancing to Morgan in the woods. Merlin enters the cave to get the treasure of the earth spirits. Morgan signals Nivian. This touches the rock with the stick, which immediately collapses and closes the entrance to the cave. The earth spirits run around confused. Nivian celebrates her regained freedom and disappears into the forest. Morgan looks after her in the full moonlight.
continuation
In the planned follow-up opera to the trilogy, Launcelot, Queen Guenevere, who is now married to Arthur, is falsely accused of poisoning one of the knights. The knight Launcelot is ready to fight for her, to prove her innocence. The two gradually fall in love. In the third part, Guenevere, Launcelot is lured into the queen's room by a forged letter, where they are caught together. Arthur declares war on Launcelot, but soon realizes that Mordred is actually his opponent. There is a duel between Arthur and Mordred, in which both kill each other. Guenevere retires to a monastery. At the end, Launcelot ponders the downfall of chivalry.
layout
Albéniz ' King Arthur project is heavily influenced by Richard Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen . He had been a follower of Wagner since his student days in the 1870s and had made detailed notes on his copy of the Ring score. The librettist Coutts was also familiar with Wagner. His text resembles Thomas Malory's original only roughly. Essentially, he selected elements that had parallels in Wagner's operas, for example the sword pulled out of the rock, the religious background choir during a political act (analogous to the pilgrims' choir in Tannhäuser ) or the magically protected gold treasure. The character of the Nivian shows clear similarities with the Alberich in Rheingold , just as the dancing girls are reminiscent of the Rhine daughters. Arthur and his allies correspond to the gods Wotan and Freia, while Morgan, Mordred and Pellinore are destined to bring about the fall of the empire. A detailed comparison of the scenes to Malory's original and the respective parallels in Wagner can be found in Haller.
The atmosphere of the prelude to the first act also reminds musically of the beginning of the Rheingold. The instrumentation is highly differentiated. First sustained tones of the double basses, horns and the double bassoon sound over a drum roll. Gradually the bassoon, bass clarinet and cello join in. The melody appears in cor anglais, clarinet and oboe, while the strings play in tremolo . At one point, a trombone choir playing a triple piano accompanies a theme of the low strings before the cor anglais begins with a ghostly melody.
Like Wagner, Albéniz also uses leitmotifs that he processes almost exclusively in the orchestra. Four of the main motifs go back directly to the ring or are inspired by it. They also appear in the completed parts of the follow-up opera Launcelot. The treatment of the voice, the renouncement of the simultaneous singing of several characters and the priority of an understandable declamation are typically Wagnerian. The same applies to the chromatic harmonies and the extensive renunciation of separate musical numbers.
In the middle of the third act there are two Spanish-style flamenco dances.
The text language of the libretto has often been criticized. Coutts was based on the ancient Malory vocabulary, but used a syntax that was mistakenly believed to be authentic to Malory's time at the end of the 19th century, and which he also put in rhymes. Ulrich Schreiber specifically criticized the "archaic language" and problems with the dramaturgy. The action is stopped by the dance interludes and ceremonial pieces. Nevertheless, the opera is "a remarkable example of the Central-Western European style of opera around 1900". The leitmotifs are processed less symphonically than with Wagner, but are forced “into a sometimes naive sequencing technique”.
orchestra
The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:
- Woodwinds : piccolo , three flutes , two oboes , English horn , three clarinets , bass clarinet , three bassoons , contrabassoon
- Brass : four horns , four trumpets , three trombones , bass trombone, tuba
- Timpani , drums : tam-tam , snare drum
- two harps
- Strings
Work history
Isaac Albéniz lived in London from 1890 to 1893. There he signed a contract with the entrepreneur Henry Lowenfeld, which in June 1893 also included the banker and poet Francis Burdett Money-Coutts (1852-1923). For a regular salary and his house, he transferred all rights to his music to Lowenfeld for ten years. For 800 pounds a year he also undertook to exclusively set Coutts' texts to music. He also had a personal friendship with the latter. The operas Henry Clifford , Pepita Jiménez and Merlin emerged from their collaboration . The Merlin was to form the first part of a King Arthur trilogy based on Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur collection . The operas Launcelot and Guenevere were planned as the second and third part . In a letter dated January 4, 1895, Albéniz wrote how important this subject was to him, which he had dealt with ten years earlier. By making Morgan le Fay one of the main characters, Coutts met exactly his intentions at the time. The composition of the Merlin dragged on for years. After almost completing it in 1898, he made several revisions.
On January 15, 1897, Coutts announced to Albéniz that he had completed Launcelot's libretto . In the same year the librettos for all three King Arthur operas were published by John Lane in London. Albéniz dated the manuscript of the prelude to the first act of Merlin to October 1898. His copy of the libretto trilogy at the end of Merlin is dated January 20, 1901, and the score is signed “Barcelona 25 de Abril de 1902”. The instrumentation of the first act remained unfinished. After Albéniz's death, at Coutts' insistence, the conductor of the Monte Carlo orchestra, León Jehin, carried out the final work. In 1806 Merlin's piano reduction was published by the Edition Mutuelle. Of the second opera, Launcelot, Albéniz only completed the piano reduction of the first act. He began the orchestral score of Guenevere in 1903, but broke it off after 31 pages.
The opera was never staged during the composer's lifetime. The prelude to the first act was performed on November 14, 1898 in Barcelona under the direction of Vincent d'Indy and was well received by the audience. Another performance was on January 22, 1899 at the Conservatoire de Nancy together with Johann Sebastian Bach's fifth Brandenburg Concerto , in which Albéniz took over the piano solo. His efforts to accommodate the work in Madrid in 1902 failed, as did a production at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. In 1905 the prelude to the first act was played at least once again in the “Grand Harmonie” concert hall there. On February 13, 1905, there was also a private concert performance of the entire opera in the house of the Tassel couple, with the composer accompanying the singers himself on the piano. For this purpose, the libretto was translated into French.
It was not until long after Albéniz's death, on December 18, 1950, that it was given its public premiere in the Cine-Teatro Tívoli in Barcelona. A Spanish text version by Manuel Conde was played as part of the traditional annual opera productions of the local youth football club. The musical direction of the Orquestra Clásica de Barcelona was José Sabatier. Teodoro Torné (Merlin), Jose María Nogueras (King Lot of Orkney), Jaime Carbonell (Gawain), Manuel Lobo (Mordred), Esteban Recasens (Arthur), Antonio Cantín (Sir Ector de Maris), José María Carbonell (Sir Pellinore), Manuel Conde (Kay), Santiago Such (Archbishop of Canterbury), Teresa Fius (Morgan le Fay) and Concepción Alsina (Nivian). Although the local critics praised the work, it disappeared after the premiere.
The Spanish conductor and musicologist José de Eusebio reconstructed a critical version with the help of parts of the score preserved in the Biblioteca de Cataluña in Barcelona, which should correspond to the intentions of the composer. He performed these in concert in English on June 20, 1998 in the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid. Only now has the opera received the recognition it deserves. Critics pointed to the work's atmosphere, colourfulness and dramatic power. A little later a record was made with Plácido Domingo in the role of Arthur.
The staged world premiere of the reconstructed original version took place on May 28, 2003 at the Teatro Real in Madrid in a production by John Dew , again under the musical direction of José de Eusebio. David Wilson-Johnson sang the title role, Stuart Skelton as Arthur, Éva Marton as Morgan and Carol Vaness as Nivian.
In 2011, Eusebio's version (with lines by Christian Baier and Roland Schwab ) was played as a German premiere under the direction of Heiko Mathias Förster in a production by Roland Schwab at the Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen. The stage was by Frank Fellmann, the costumes by Renée Listerdal. The main actors were Bjørn Waag (Merlin), Lars-Oliver Ruhl (Arthur), Majken Bjerno (Morgan le Fay) and Petra Schmidt (Nivian).
Recordings
- June 23, 1999 - José de Eusebio (conductor), German State Philharmonic Rhineland-Palatinate , Spanish National Chorus Madrid.
Bjørn Waag (Merlin), José Antonio García-Quijada Perez de la Serna (King Lot of Orkney), Jean Gränner (Gawain), Juan Artiles Revuelta (Mordred), Ki Chun Park (Arthur), Manuel de la Meras (Sir Pellinore) , Daniel Pérez Bueno (Kay), Andrew Murphy (Archbishop of Canterbury), Marie José Monteil (Morgan le Fay), Barbara Gilbert (Nivian).
live, in concert from the Völklingen Blower Hall; German premiere; Creation and completion by José de Eusebio; English. - 22-29 July 1999 - José de Eusebio (conductor), Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, Coro Nacional de España.
Carlos Álvarez (Merlin), Javier Roldán (King Lot of Orkney), Ángel Rodríguez (Gawain), Christopher Maltman (Mordred), Plácido Domingo (Arthur), Felipe Bou (Sir Ector de Maris), Javier Franco (Sir Pellinore), José López Ferrero (Kay), Carlos Chausson (Archbishop of Canterbury), Ana María Martínez (Morgan le Fay), Jane Henschel (Nivian).
Studio recording; Creation and completion by José de Eusebio; English.
Decca 467 096 2 (2 CDs). - June 9, 2003 - José de Eusebio (conductor), John Dew (staging), titular orchestra and choir of the Teatro Real Madrid.
David Wilson-Johnson (Merlin), Victor Garciá Sierra (King Lot of Orkney), Ángel Rodríguez (Gawain), Ángel Ódena (Mordred), Stuart Skelton (Arthur), Juan Tomás Martínez (Sir Ector de Maris), Federico Gallar (Sir Pellinore), Eduardo Santamaria (Kay), Stephen Morscheck (Archbishop of Canterbury), Éva Marton (Morgan le Fay), Carol Vaness (Nivian).
Video; live from Madrid.
BBC Opus Arte OA0887D (1 DVD).
literature
- Walter Aaron Clark: Isaac Albéniz: Portrait of a Romantic. Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-19-816369-X .
- Walter Aaron Clark: King Arthur and the Wagner Cult in Spain: Isaac Albéniz's Opera Merlin. In: Richard W. Barber (Ed.): King Arthur in Music. DS Brewer, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 0-85991-767-3 .
- Robert S. Haller: Malory Meets Wagner in Madrid: Albéniz's Merlin and the Mythologizing of Arthur. In: Ars Lyrica. Pp. 67-78, doi : 10.1484 / J.JAL.2.302707
- Juan Miguel Zarandona: The Arthurian Opera by Isaac Albéniz and Francis Money-Coutts (1852-1923): Libretto Translation Theories Applied to "Merlin". In: Arthuriana. Vol. 23, No. 2 (Summer 2013), pp. 3-19, JSTOR 43855441 .
Web links
- Merlin : Sheet Music and Audio Files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Libretto (English / Spanish) as full text at Kareol
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Walter Aaron Clark: King Arthur and the Wagner Cult in Spain: Isaac Albéniz's Opera Merlin. In: Richard W. Barber (Ed.): King Arthur in Music. DS Brewer, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 0-85991-767-3 .
- ^ A b c d Robert S. Haller: Malory Meets Wagner in Madrid: Albéniz's Merlin and the Mythologizing of Arthur. In: Ars Lyrica. Pp. 67-78, doi : 10.1484 / J.JAL.2.302707 .
- ^ A b Juan Miguel Zarandona: The Arthurian Opera by Isaac Albéniz and Francis Money-Coutts (1852-1923): Libretto Translation Theories Applied to "Merlin". In: Arthuriana. Vol. 23, No. 2 (Summer 2013), pp. 3-19, JSTOR 43855441 .
- ^ 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. 335–337.
- ↑ Isaac Albéniz. In: Harenberg opera guide. 4th edition. Meyers Lexikonverlag, 2003, ISBN 3-411-76107-5 , p. 23.
- ^ A b c d e f Walter Aaron Clark: Isaac Albéniz: Portrait of a Romantic. Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-19-816369-X .
- ↑ Jerome V. Reel Jr .: Merlin by Isaac Albéniz (review). In: Arthuriana. Volume 11, Number 4, Winter 2001, pp. 123-124, doi : 10.1353 / art.2001.0063 .
- ^ A b Andrew Clements: Black magic. Review of the staged world premiere in Madrid. In: The Guardian . June 2, 2003, accessed May 31, 2018.
- ↑ Merlin. Program 46 of the Musiktheater im Revier , 2011.
- ↑ Marieluise Jeitschko: No Spanish "ring". Review of the Gelsenkirchen performance. In: The German Stage . October 10, 2011, accessed May 31, 2018.
- ↑ a b c Isaac Albéniz. In: Andreas Ommer: Directory of all complete opera recordings (= Zeno.org . Volume 20). Directmedia, Berlin 2005.