Prometheus (Orff)

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Work data
Title: Prometheus
Original language: Ancient Greek
Music: Carl Orff
Libretto : Aeschylus
Literary source: Prometheus of Aeschylus
Premiere: March 24, 1968
Place of premiere: State Theater Stuttgart
Playing time: about 2 hours
people

Prometheus is an opera by Carl Orff . The consistently ancient Greek text is based on a template by Aeschylus , the only surviving part of the Prometheus trilogy with the title ( Greek Προμηθεὺς Δεσμώτης - Promētheús desmṓtēs - The bound Prometheus ) . The world premiere took place on March 24, 1968 in the Stuttgart State Theater under the direction of Ferdinand Leitner in a production by Gustav Rudolf Sellner in stage design and costumes by Teo Otto . On August 1, 1968, as part of the Festival of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, a new production was enthusiastically welcomed by the composer, under the direction of Michael Gielen , directed by August Everding and furnished by Josef Svoboda . Among the increasingly frequent performances in recent years, the new production of the work at the Ruhrtriennale 2012 in Duisburg under the musical direction of Peter Rundel achieved particular success; Concert performances took place in Munich in 2013, at the Carl Orff Festival Andechs in Diessen am Ammersee in 2015 and again in Munich in 2015.

action

Titan Prometheus , who is forever in Scythian iron chains because of the alleged fire-robbery, does not want to reveal secret knowledge that he claims to have to the Olympic ruler Zeus . After Hermes has finally asked Prometheus one last time to finally name the hetaera who will cost Zeus and his followers the eternal rule and Prometheus refuses, he is sent to the shadowy realm of Hades amidst thunderbolts and an earthquake .

Kratos (Greek "power") and Bia (Greek "violence"), the servants of Zeus , drag Prometheus to the Caucasus , where, on Zeus' orders, they force the reluctant Hephaestus to chain Prometheus to a rock near the Caucasus. Hephaestus feels sorry for Prometheus, but is also afraid of Zeus and complies.

After Hephaestus, Kratos and Bia have left, the choir of the daughters of Oceanus appears , assuring him of his friendship and inquiring about the reason for this punishment, with the choir leader doing most of the dialogue. Prometheus tells of the fight against Kronos , where he helped Zeus overthrow his father through cunning and cleverness. Zeus then distributed the offices, but did not think of the people, so that only Prometheus stood by them, gave them fire, hope and the art of prophecy. The choir warns him about his boldness, whereupon Prometheus declares that he did it for the sake of the people despite his knowledge of his punishment.

The choir flies away, whereupon Okeanos comes ridden on his griffin. He describes himself as Prometheus' greatest friend and claims that he rushed here as quickly as possible. But Prometheus asks him if he would like to delight in his suffering, and is outraged again at Zeus. Okeanos also warns him about the lack of submission to the new ruler. Prometheus should submit and ask for grace so that he might be redeemed. But the latter reacts with irony to this advice from Oceanus, who did not support the people with him. Okeanos offers to appeal to Zeus, but Prometheus advises against it, referring to his brother Atlas and Typhon ; Okeanos should not fare like them. Okeanos can be persuaded and flies away.

The choir returns and laments Prometheus' sad fate. Then Prometheus tells what knowledge he brought people, including medicine, seafaring, meteorology, prophecy. He also prophesies that Zeus will abdicate and Prometheus will be redeemed. But, he says, he shouldn't report Zeus' future so that his prophecy would come true. The choir sings about the suffering of Prometheus and the lack of help from the people supported by Prometheus.

The horned Io is added. Prometheus announces the end of Zeus through a son of Hera . When Io learns that Prometheus has mastered the art of divination, she wants to know her own fate. But first she tells how she dreamed of the love of Zeus. Therefore Inachus , the father of Io, received the oracle to expel his daughter from the land. To cover up her love for Io, he turned her into a cow. But this was not hidden from Hera; she sent Argos as a guard and let the cow from a brake hunt. Prometheus now announces Ios future: She will cross the Bosphorus (which will be named after her) and finally reach Canopus via Ethiopia and into the Nile Delta to give birth to Epaphos . A descendant of Io in the 13th generation, a "hero of the bow" ( Heracles is meant ) will one day save Prometheus. Since Io can no longer bear the stings of the brake, she escapes.

Prometheus reveals to the Oceanids that Zeus will find his end through the curse of Kronos. Hermes arrives and demands that Prometheus reveal to Zeus who will overthrow him. He threatens lightning and storms that would afflict Prometheus badly; an eagle sent by Zeus would come to eat Prometheus' liver. Since Prometheus refuses to divulge this knowledge, he is punished by Zeus: the rock with the titanium forged on it sinks into Hades.

music

orchestra

The score of Orff's Prometheus provides for an orchestral line-up that is unique in music history:

The large drum line-up requires 15 to 18 players:

  • 5 timpani
  • 2 small timpani with wooden top
  • 1 snare drum with snare strings
  • 3 Basque drums
  • 2 large drums , one of which has a cymbal attached to the body
  • 1 O Daiko
  • 1 taiko
  • 4 darabukkas
  • 2 congas
  • 1 lithophone
  • 2 xylophones
  • 2 chromatic tenor xylophones
  • 2 marimbaphones
  • 1 bass xylophone
  • 1 carillon
  • 1 metallophone
  • 1 bass metallophone
  • 6 tubular bells
  • 1 triangle
  • 1 pair of cymbals (beaten up)
  • 3 hanging basins (small - medium - large)
  • 5 hanging Turkish basins
  • 3 hanging Chinese basins
  • 2 cymbales antiques
  • 1 pair of small cymbales antiques (c 5 )
  • 6 pairs of antique cymbals
  • 3 hoopla
  • 3 gongs
  • 2 metal plates (e 3 and f 3 )
  • 1 bell plate (Contra-C)
  • 1 guero
  • 5 wooden blocks
  • 3 wooden bells
  • 1 large wooden bell
  • 1 African log drum
  • Wooden panels
  • 1 pair of bamboo tubes
  • 2 pairs of Hyoshigi
  • 1 wasamba
  • 1 am Sasara
  • 4 maracas
  • 2 Angklung (g 1 and b 1 )
  • 7 glasses (matched)
  • 1 wind machine
  • 1 thunder machine

The chromatic tenor xylophones are instruments from the Orff-Schulwerk . Since they are not used in orchestras because of the chromatic arrangement of the bars, but only they enable the execution of chromatic glissandos, marimbaphones are used in current performance practice instead of the instruments of the Orff-Schulwerk, only the glissandos are still performed on the tenor xylophones. The score of Prometheus therefore reflects the performance practice of all three ancient operas by Orff.

While performing the percussion parts at the time of the premiere made considerable demands on the percussionists, Orff's score no longer presents any insurmountable obstacles thanks to the extraordinary development of percussion technique in recent decades.

Musical language

As Pietro Massa was able to show, an intensive exchange of ideas with the classical philologist Wolfgang Schadewaldt , the musicologist Thrasybulos Georgiades and with Wieland Wagner as the director originally intended by the composer accompanied the development process of Orff's ancient operas. The decision to set the original Greek text to music, which was revolutionary for the time the work was written, was only made by Orff after extensive consultation with Wolfgang Schadewaldt, who advised the composer on detailed questions of Greek metrics. Since the quantity metric of ancient Greek is incompatible with the accent metrics of modern European languages ​​as well as the time meter of European art music, the composer chose the solution not to have the text, which is rhythmically declaimed over long stretches of the opera, declaimed in a rhythm that corresponds to the ancient Greek meter of the original, but rather to transform the syllable order of the ancient Greek text with an autonomous musicalized rhythm. Since large parts of the score provide for a rhythmic declamation of the solo parts, which is only occasionally interrupted by the interjections of the gigantic percussion, Prometheus' score marked a new stage in Orff's departure from traditional pitch structures, even compared to the previous ancient operas.

The concentration on an ensemble of percussion instruments with a definite and indefinite pitch, originally born out of the fascination that the only still viable group in the orchestra exerted on the composers of the 20th century, appears again in Prometheus' score in comparison to Orff's earlier ancient operas intensified. The piano and xylophone, more familiar with marginal tasks in the traditional orchestra, play the role in the Prometheus score that the string body played in the orchestral composition of the Viennese Classic. Traditional instruments of the European orchestral tradition - such as flutes, oboes, trumpets and double basses - appear to be entrusted with functions that were performed by the rare percussion instruments in the orchestra of the 19th century.

The inclusion of numerous non-European instruments that had previously not been used in the orchestra of European art music cannot be interpreted as musical exoticism , especially since the composer hardly uses the new timbres unmixed. The gathering of instruments from all parts of the world in the Orffs Symphony Orchestra serves rather to underpin the claim to bring the general human element of the myth to the fore in the setting of the ancient Greek myth.

In retrospect of music history, Orff's ancient operas appear as an extraordinarily original special path in music theater after 1950, which has again received more attention in the years since 2000, not least because of the relationship between Orff's musical language and the tendencies of minimal music .

Recordings

literature

  • Alberto Fassone: Carl Orff. Libreria Musicale Italiana, Lucca 2009, ISBN 978-88-7096-580-3 .
  • Hellmut Flashar : staging of antiquity. The Greek Drama on the Modern Stage 1585–1990 , CH Beck, Munich 1991.
  • Hellmut Flashar : Orff's stage work in the mirror of the correspondence between Carl Orff and Wolfgang Schadewaldt , in: Thomas Rösch (Ed.): Text, Music, Scene - Das Musiktheater von Carl Orff , Schott, Mainz 2015, pp. 103–111, ISBN 978-3-7957-0672-2 .
  • Stefan Kunze : The ancient world in the music of the 20th century , Buchner, Bamberg 1987, ISBN 3-7661-5456-7 .
  • Stefan Kunze : Orff's tragedy arrangements and modernity , in: Yearbook of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts 2/1988, pp. 193–213; reprinted in: Stefan Kunze: DE MUSICA. Selected essays and lectures , ed. by Erika Kunze and Rudolf Bockholdt. Schneider, Tutzing 1998, pp. 543-564.
  • Jürgen Maehder : Non-Western Instruments in Western 20th-Century Music: Musical Exoticism or Globalization of Timbres? , in: Paolo Amalfitano / Loretta Innocenti (eds.), L'Oriente. Storia di una figura nelle arti occidentali (1700-2000) , Bulzoni, Roma 2007, vol. 2, pp. 441-462.
  • Jürgen Maehder : The dramaturgy of the instruments in the ancient operas by Carl Orff , in: Thomas Rösch (Ed.): Text, music, scene - Das Musiktheater by Carl Orff , Schott, Mainz 2015, pp. 197–229, ISBN 978-3 -7957-0672-2 .
  • Pietro Massa: Carl Orff's antique dramas and the reception of Hölderlin in post-war Germany , Peter Lang, Bern / Frankfurt / New York 2006, ISBN 3-631-55143-6 .
  • Thomas Rösch: The music in the Greek tragedies by Carl Orff , Hans Schneider, Tutzing 2003, ISBN 3-7952-0976-5 .
  • Thomas Rösch (Hrsg.): Text, music, scene - The music theater by Carl Orff. Symposium Orff Center Munich 2007 , Schott, Mainz 2015, ISBN 978-3-7957-0672-2 .
  • Werner Thomas (Ed.): Carl Orff and his work. Documentation , Volume 8: Theatrum Mundi , Schneider, Tutzing 1983, ISBN 3-7952-0373-2 .
  • Werner Thomas: Carl Orff's "Prometheus". Three mishaps: The musicalization of ancient Greek tragedy language - Instrumental semantics - On the idea of ​​the tragic in Aeschylus and Orff , in: Werner Thomas: Das Rad der Fortuna , Schott, Mainz 1990, pp. 244–255, ISBN 3-7957-0209-7 .
  • András Varsány, Carl Orff and the musical instruments of other cultures , in: Thomas Rösch (Ed.): Text, Music, Scene - Das Musiktheater von Carl Orff , Schott, Mainz 2015, pp. 175–196, ISBN 978-3-7957- 0672-2 .
  • Franz Willnauer (Ed.): Prometheus - Myth, Drama and Music , Tübingen, Rainer Wunderlich Verlag Hermann Leins, 1968.
  • Frieder Zaminer : Rhythmic counter-post in Aeschylus. About orchestral-musical language composition , in: The musical work of art. History - aesthetics - theory. Festschrift Carl Dahlhaus on the occasion of his 60th birthday , edited by Hermann Danuser, Helga de la Motte-Haber, Silke Leopold and Norbert Miller, Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 1988, pp. 185–196.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hellmut Flashar : Orff's stage work in the mirror of the correspondence between Carl Orff and Wolfgang Schadewaldt , in: Thomas Rösch (Ed.): Text, Music, Scene - Das Musiktheater von Carl Orff , Schott, Mainz 2015, pp. 103–111.
  2. ^ Gunther Möller: The percussion with Carl Orff: performance practice of stage, orchestral and choral works. Schott Verlag, Mainz 1995.
  3. ↑ Karl Peinkofer, "Yes, you're still learning it!" , In: Horst Leuchtmann (Ed.), Carl Orff. A memorial book , Hans Schneider, Tutzing 1985, pp. 115–119.
  4. ^ Pietro Massa: Carl Orff's Antikendramen and the reception of Hölderlin in post-war Germany. Peter Lang, Bern / Frankfurt / New York 2006.
  5. ↑ Hellmut Flashar : Orff's stage work in the mirror of the correspondence between Carl Orff and Wolfgang Schadewaldt , in: Thomas Rösch (Ed.): Text, Music, Scene - Das Musiktheater von Carl Orff , Schott, Mainz 2015, pp. 103–111.
  6. ↑ Jürgen Maehder : The dramaturgy of the instruments in the ancient operas by Carl Orff. In: Thomas Rösch (Hrsg.): Text, music, scene - The music theater by Carl Orff. Schott, Mainz 2015, pp. 197–229.
  7. ↑ András Varsány, Carl Orff and the musical instruments of other cultures , in: Thomas Rosch (ed.): Text, music, scene - The musical theater by Carl Orff , Schott, Mainz 2015, S. 175-196.
  8. ^ Jürgen Maehder : Non-Western Instruments in Western 20th-Century Music: Musical Exoticism or Globalization of Timbres? , in: Paolo Amalfitano / Loretta Innocenti (eds.), L'Oriente. Storia di una figura nelle arti occidentali (1700-2000) , Bulzoni, Roma 2007, vol. 2, pp. 441-462.

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