Quartet (opera)

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Opera dates
Title: quartet
Shape: Opera in thirteen scenes
Original language: English
Music: Luca Francesconi
Libretto : Luca Francesconi
Literary source: Heiner Müller : Quartet ,
Pierre-Ambroise-François Choderlos de Laclos : Dangerous love affairs
Premiere: April 26, 2011
Place of premiere: Teatro alla Scala Milan
Playing time: about 80 minutes
Place and time of the action: Salon before the French Revolution / bunker after World War III
people

Quartet is an opera in thirteen scenes by Luca Francesconi (music) with its own libretto based on Heiner Müller's play Quartet from 1980, which in turn is based on Pierre-Ambroise-François Choderlos de Laclos ' epistolary novel Dangerous Liaisons ( Les liaisons dangereuses ) from 1782. The opera premiered on April 26, 2011 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

action

Like Heiner Müller's play, the opera plays simultaneously in a salon before the French Revolution and in a bunker after the Third World War. There are only two people involved: the Marquise de Merteuil and the Viscount de Valmont. Both once had a violent sexual relationship, which has since subsided and given way to a mutual test of strength. In three role-playing games, the two also represent other people, so that there are a total of four characters.

Scene 1. Merteuil is surprised that, despite the end of her former passion, Valmont seems to be interested in her again. She imagines how she explains to him that her feelings for him have completely died and that she has never really loved him (Arioso: “My skin, indifferent”).

Scene 2. Valmont tells the Marquise about his latest love affair, Madame de Tourvel. Merteuil detests her as a rival because the president preferred her to her and married her. When Valmont asks Merteuil about the current object of her desire, she replies that it is an attractive man - a dream compared to Valmont. Her former love, on the other hand, belongs in the museum. She imagines her memories in the form of four clones (dream 1, aria: "Dead dreams, organized").

Scene 3. Merteuil suggests that Valmont turn his interest to her young niece, Volange, instead of the pious and married Tourvel. However, Valmont prefers to choose his hunting objects himself. He is ready to become Merteuil's means of revenge on the President's wife. However, Volange would be too easy a sacrifice and would not arouse the desire to hunt (duet: "Your best tricks will make a fool of you").

Scene 4. The two decide to rehearse Valmont's seduction of women in the form of role-playing games. Valmont experiences a dream scene about the mirror image of the marquise (dream 2: "What does your mirror say"). Merteuil remarks disparagingly that Valmont has mastered nothing but sex (aria: "What else have you learned").

Scene 5. Merteuil declares that she despises virtue and her noble origins. In her family's hometown, a “mud hole” four days from Paris, there is still a smelly creature - half human, half cattle (dream 3: “My mirrors!”).

Scene 6. In the first game, Merteuil takes on the role of the seducer Valmont himself, while the latter portrays Madame de Tourvel. Merteuil / Valmont aggressively tries to convince Valmont / Tourvel into a relationship.

Scene 7. Valmont / Tourvel feels offended by the advances and firmly rejects them.

Scene 8. Merteuil / Valmont tells Valmont / Tourvel that he is being harassed by the intrusive Volange and can hardly resist her charms (dream 4: “She pursues me”). He begs them to arm him against these attacks. With that he is successful: Valmont / Tourvel gives in (Duet 1: "Tears of joy, I know" - Duet 2 "grazioso": "Cover yourself, my love").

Scene 9. Valmont and Merteuil want to start another game.

Scene 10. Merteuil now plays her niece Volange, while Valmont remains himself (Dream 5: "But this happiness"). Merteuil / Volange quickly succumbs to his urge (duet: “What's that fatherly hand looking for” - dream 6: “You're very observant, my Lord” - duet: “Love is as strong as death”). Valmont murders Volange to prevent the age-related deterioration of her magnificent body (dream 7: "I want to be the midwife of death"). Merteuil sums up: "The annihilation of the nice" - "The annihilation of the niece".

Scene 11. Back in the bunker, Valmont expects Merteuil to punish him for this bad taste. She announces a "Damenopfer" ("The sacrifice of the woman").

Scene 12. The two take over the roles of the first game again. Valmont / Tourvel accuses Merteuil / Valmont of ruining their lives. He is her "murderer". Merteuil / Valmont pretends to be honored and hands him a glass of wine. Valmont / Tourvel explains that now that he is obviously a monster, as previously announced, she must die. It will haunt him "green with poison" in his sleep. In fact, Merteuil had poisoned the wine. Valmont dies in agony before her eyes (duet: "You don't need to tell me"). With his last words, he expresses the hope that his last performance did not bore her.

Scene 13 (epilogue). Merteuil acts in silence on the stage, following the words of Ophelia in Heiner Müller's Hamlet machine : It destroys the furnishings of the house (“I rip apart the instruments of my imprisonment”).

layout

orchestra

The original version of the opera is intended for an invisible large orchestra with a choir as well as for a chamber orchestra in the orchestra pit and electronics. In the second version, the pre-recorded sound of the large orchestra and choir is played in a surround system. Chamber orchestra and electronics are still live.

Big orchestra

Small orchestra (in the pit)

music

The music has hardly any traditional melodies or harmonies. The orchestral sounds are more like a kind of “texture” derived from the musical material of the vocal parts. Sometimes the music is noisy or just consists of an indefinable “atmospheric field” with no recognizable rhythmic structures. For example, at the beginning of the introduction to the scene, “flat, spherical sounds” from the invisible orchestra and isolated words are heard. In other places the rhythm is more tangible. In addition, in the duets, for example, there are passages that are reminiscent of more traditional ways of composing through harmony and rhythm. Each instrument is connected separately to the live electronics, which means that the diverse, also experimental playing styles can be heard. The electronics also enable a spatial sound that envelops the entire auditorium and the audience.

The sound of the choir, which has also been played in, has a flat effect. Like the choir of ancient Greece, it serves to intensify the moods of the characters. The vocal demands on the two main actors are enormous. You need an extreme tonal range. Occasionally the singer has to switch to the falsetto register.

Work history

Luca Francesconi composed his opera Quartet in 1980. The libretto, which he himself compiled in English, is based on the 1980 play Quartet by Heiner Müller , which in turn is a freely adapted excerpt from Pierre's letter novel Dangerous Liaisons ( Les liaisons dangereuses ) published in 1782 -Ambroise-François Choderlos de Laclos is. The composer himself described his work as “a challenge to the ideas of opera, of society, of the dominance of Western thinking”. It is "violent, sex, blasphemy, the absence of grace" ("This piece is violent, it's sex, it's blasphemy, it's the absence of mercy."). The very last statement of the piece is that “we can no longer hide our problems - and that we shouldn't” (“That's the real last message of this piece, that we can no longer hide our problems - and that we shouldn't . ").

Allison Cook (Marquise de Merteuil) and Robin Adams (Vicomte de Valmont) sang at the premiere on April 26, 2011 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan . Susanna Mälkki was the musical director . The production was done by Àlex Ollé from the Catalan theater group La Fura dels Baus . It was a co-production with the Wiener Festwochen and IRCAM Paris.

The opera was awarded the Premio Abbiati in the “Novità assoluta” category. In the following years there were several other productions and more than 60 performances in Barcelona, ​​Charleston, Lisbon, at the Royal Opera House London, in Malmö, Trient, Rouen, Paris, at the Holland Festival , in Porto, at the Strasbourg Music Festival and at the Opera de Lille .

The German premiere took place on April 18, 2019 in the Dortmund Opera House . The Dortmund Philharmonic played here under the direction of Philipp Armbruster. Directed by Ingo Kerkhof . As at the world premiere, Allison Cook sang the Marquise de Merteuil. Christian Bowers took on the role of Viscount de Valmont.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c information on the work on the composer's website, accessed on May 24, 2019.
  2. ↑ a b A consistently high energy level. Interview with the conductor Philipp Armbruster. In: Program of the Dortmund Opera , 2019, pp. 12–13.
  3. ↑ A music-theatrical mosaic. In: Program of the Dortmund Opera , 2019, pp. 6–7.
  4. ^ Tom Service: Interview with the composer Luca Francesconi. In: The Guardian , June 19, 2014, accessed May 25, 2019.
  5. ↑ XXXI Premio "Franco Abbiati". In: Il Corriere Musicale, April 17, 2012, accessed May 25, 2019.
  6. ^ Francesconi: Quartet - Premiere in Dortmund. Interview with the artistic director Heribert Germeshausen on ricordi.com, April 8, 2019, accessed on May 25, 2019.
  7. ↑ Luca Francesconi - A successful composer of the 21st century. In: Program of the Dortmund Opera , 2019, p. 9.
  8. ↑ Quartet. Program of the Dortmund Opera , 2019.