Notre Dame (Opera)
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| Title: | Notre Dame |
| Original title: | Notre Dame |
| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Franz Schmidt |
| Libretto : | Franz Schmidt and Leopold Wilk |
| Literary source: | The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo |
| Premiere: | April 1, 1914 |
| Place of premiere: | Vienna |
| Playing time: | 2 hours |
| Place and time of the action: | Paris , 15th century |
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Notre Dame is a late romantic opera in two acts by Franz Schmidt . He wrote the libretto himself together with Leopold Wilk . The novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo served as a template . The world premiere was on April 1, 1914 at the Vienna Court Opera by Franz Schalk , after Gustav Mahler and Felix Weingartner rejected the performance of the opera, which was written in 1903-06 .
action
The opera takes place in Paris at the end of the 15th century.
first act
It's carnival. Gypsies gather on Grèveplatz . They lay out a carpet for Esmeralda to dance on. A group of the people is preparing to elect a fool pope. The candidate is someone who is good at making faces. The choice falls on Quasimodo, the bell ringer, whose exterior is severely disfigured by several disabilities. When the archdeacon Claude Frollo, a senior clergyman of Notre Dame Cathedral, is looking for his protégé, he discovers him in a fool's dress, being treated badly by a screaming crowd. Esmeralda has mercy on him and saves him. Thereupon the archdeacon forbids any carnival going on in the future.
Gringoire, poet and philosopher, once got lost in the “Wunderhof”, which normally only beggars, gypsies and thieves have access. As a punishment, he should be killed unless a woman was found to take him as a husband. Here, too, it was Esmeralda who saved his life by pretending to marry him. Gringoire overhears his wife Esmeralda as she is arranging a rendezvous for the coming night with the guard officer Phöbus. He is boiling with anger. Then suddenly his former teacher, the archdeacon, appears, who also desires Esmeralda, although his church vow should actually prevent him from doing so. He too heard the conversation and now recommends Gringoire not to let Esmeralda out of his sight. Perhaps this will prevent the rendezvous.
Gringoire succeeds in sneaking into the house where the shepherd's hour is supposed to take place. When Phöbus and Esmeralda confess their love for each other, Gringoire leaves his hiding place, unrecognized by Esmeralda. He rushes towards Phoebus with a knife and stabs him. To avoid being captured, he jumps through the window into the river.
Second act
Esmeralda was arrested as the supposed murderer of Phöbus. Claude Frollo visits her in the dungeon and explains to her that the guard officer survived the attack. This news awakens Esmeralda's spirits again. Suddenly the priest felt such a fervent desire for Esmeralda that he began to fear himself. He now believes Esmeralda is a witch and has put a spell on him. He can no longer stand it with her and leaves the prison in a rage.
In the square in front of the cathedral, Claude Frollo hands Esmeralda into the hands of the Inquisition. The gypsy is to be executed. Before the executioner can do his job, however, Esmeralda is "kidnapped" by Quasimodo into the church. From the tower he shows the crowd that he has granted the girl asylum. Quasimodo believes that Esmeralda is now saved forever, but he has vastly underestimated his former benefactor Frollo. With his fanaticism, he managed to get the king to declare the right of sanctuary ended.
When Esmeralda is shown to the place of execution, the archdeacon realizes that he has done wrong. It is now too late to turn back. In order to find his inner peace, he sacrifices the innocent.
Quasimodo's awe of his former benefactor Frollo has turned into bitter hatred. He grabs him and hurls him down from the platform. Because he sees all meaning forfeited in his life, he now also wants to look for death. Before that, however, he lets his beloved bells ring again.
Meaning, reception and discography
Notre Dame was Schmidt's greatest success. While the opulent music met with little criticism and Hugo von Hofmannsthal praised the easily understandable text of the song in a letter to Richard Strauss as exemplary, in it he described the libretto, which Schmidt himself had written with the full-time engineer and chemist Wilk, as "absurd" and "silly". The work had a certain popularity at the Vienna Court Opera before and the Vienna Volksoper after the war with several dozen performances. Outside of Vienna, however, the work was only played sporadically, most recently in 2010 at the Semperoper Dresden (initially planned by GMD Fabio Luisi , after his departure under the direction of Gerd Albrecht ) and in concert at Carnegie Hall in 2012 with the American Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein .
In 1949 the newly founded Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra recorded the work with Hans Hopf , Hilde Scheppan , Karl Ostertag and Max Proebstl under the direction of Hans Altmann (later published on CD). A recording from the Wiener Volksoper from 1975 with Julia Migenes , Josef Hopferwieser , Walter Berry and Ernst Gutstein under the direction of Wolfgang Schneiderhan was released on LP. In 1988 the Rias Berlin made a studio recording in collaboration with the Capriccio label with Gwyneth Jones , Kurt Moll , Horst Laubenthal , James King and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Christof Prick .
The interlude (intermezzo) from the first act (between the second and third scene) , which is still often required today in request concerts, has remained well known .
literature
- Hertha Bauer: Pocket dictionary for opera, operetta, ballet (= Humboldt pocket book No. 27). Humboldt, Frankfurt am Main 1954.
Web links
- Detailed table of contents at zazzerino.info
- Discography at operone.de