Reigen (Boesmans)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Opera dates
Title: Round dance
Shape: Opera in 10 dialogues
Original language: German
Music: Philippe Boesmans
Libretto : Luc Bondy
Literary source: Arthur Schnitzler : Round dance
Premiere: March 4th 1993
Place of premiere: Théâtre de la Monnaie Brussels
Playing time: approx. 2 ¾ hours
Place and time of the action: Vienna around 1900
people
  • The Whore, Leocadia ( Soprano )
  • The soldier, Franz ( tenor )
  • The maid, Mizzi ( mezzo-soprano )
  • The young gentleman, Alfred (tenor)
  • The young woman, Emma (soprano)
  • The husband, Gottfried ( baritone )
  • The sweet girl (mezzo-soprano)
  • The poet, Robert (tenor)
  • The singer (soprano)
  • The Count (baritone)

Reigen is an opera in 10 dialogues (original name: "opéra en dix dialogues") by Philippe Boesmans (music) with a libretto by Luc Bondy based on Arthur Schnitzler 's drama of the same name . The world premiere took place in 1993 at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels. In 2004 Fabrizio Cassol re- orchestrated the opera for a chamber ensemble with twenty players.

action

The opera consists of a series of ten short meetings of ten people that lead to sexual union. The partners are passed on like a dance. First the prostitute meets with the soldier, then the latter with the maid, the parlor with the young man, and so on, until the count finally meets the prostitute again.

Scene 1. The prostitute and the soldier

On the banks of the Danube, the prostitute Leocadia speaks to the soldier Franz. Since he has no money with him, she serves him free of charge. "Then" she berates him because he doesn't even want to give her money for the caretaker. Franz walks away laughing.

Scene 2. The soldier and the maid

Franz met the housemaid Mizzi while dancing in the Prater. He leads them into a dark alley. There you can hear another couple. “Afterwards” Franz refuses to bring Mizzi home because he wants to dance again.

Scene 3. The maid and the young man

In the kitchen of the young man's family, the maid Mizzi writes a letter to her lover Franz. She dreams of living with him in her own castle. The young Mr. Alfred reads Stendhal's notes On Love . The buzzing of a mosquito annoys him. Bored, he calls Mizzi over and seduces her. “After that” the doorbell rings, and Alfred says goodbye to go to the coffee house.

Scene 4. The young gentleman and the young woman

The young man meets in a hotel with the young woman Emma, ​​whom he had met a few days earlier at a director's banquet of her husband. For fear of being seen, she appears deeply veiled and declares that she only wants to stay five minutes. Alfred is insecure and fails the first time. To distract, he tells her about Stendhal's book and with a little effort can persuade her to stay. His second attempt succeeds. After that, Emma is in a hurry to get away.

Scene 5. The young woman and the husband

Emma reads at home in the Stendhal marriage bed. Her husband Gottfried joins them and they talk about love and morals. He affirms that despite all his previous love affairs, he only loved her. “Afterwards” they both remember their honeymoon in Venice five years ago. When they are wishing each other a good night, Emma accidentally calls her husband by the name Alfred.

Scene 6. The husband and the cute girl

Gottfried meets with the sweet girl in a " Chambre separée ". It's their first date. She tells him about her family and her former lover, who was also named Gottfried and who had left her. She gets drunk. “After that” Gottfried has a guilty conscience and claims to live in another city.

Scene 7. The sweet girl and the poet

This time the sweet girl meets the poet Robert in the chambre separée, who tells her about his work. She pretends to be unsuspecting, but does not deny his tenderness. “Afterwards” Robert enthusiastically calls his alleged stage name “Biebitz”, which she doesn't know what to do with. He invites her to the theater for one of his plays and thinks she has fallen in love with him. He wants to live alone with her in the solitude of nature for a few weeks. However, she does not understand him.

Scene 8. The poet and the singer

Robert has traveled to an inn in the country with the singer he admires. She pretends to be praying, but then claims that she prayed to him. Both pretend that they are actually not interested in each other. She raves about her ex. Then she calls him to bed with her. Even “afterwards” their behavior remains contradictory. She emphasizes that so far she has only loved one, the “man-loving composer” Fritz, while Robert is just a whim, a “cricket”. But then she claims to die for love for him.

Scene 9. The singer and the count

The singer, who has just got up, calls her “cricket” Robert, who is now traveling with Laura, on the phone while she is practicing. Her lover, the Count, visits her. He tells her about his problems and longings in love, which he does not believe in the fulfillment. The singer asks him to at least take off his coat and kiss her. He gives himself to her. "Then" he loses interest in her and talks his way out of another date.

Scene 10. The count and the prostitute

The count finds himself confused in the whore Leocadia's room. He got drunk and can barely remember the night before. She tells him that he liked her better that night, but that he fell asleep "after". She asks him to leave money for the cleaning lady on leaving. He wishes her a good morning and leaves.

layout

The individual scenes are also linked musically with the help of personal motifs. The dialogues are consistently composed close to the language. The actual acts of love are each represented by orchestral interludes played in the dark , in which Boesmans uses different techniques such as ostinato figures, an “onomatopoeic caressing saxophone” or “lyrical whispering in the background”.

Instrumentation

The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:

The chamber version from 2004 by Fabrizio Cassol requires a total of twenty players:

Work history

The opera was commissioned by the General Director of the Théâtre de la Monnaie Brussels, Bernard Foccroulle . It is a literary opera. Luc Bondy's libretto is based on Arthur Schnitzler's drama Reigen . Bondy and Boesmans retained the cyclical structure of Schnitzler's original. The figure of the actress was, however, replaced by a singer and the Viennese "touch of Prater and Kärntnerstraße" was dispensed with.

At the premiere in Brussels on March 4, 1993, Deborah Raymond (Die Dirne), Mark Curtis (The Soldier), Elzbieta Ardam (The Chambermaid), Roberto Saccà (The Young Man), Solveig Kringelborn (The Young Woman), Franz-Ferdinand sang Nentwig (The Husband), Randi Stene (The Sweet Girl), Ronald Hamilton (The Poet), Françoise Pollet (The Singer), Dale Duesing (The Count). Sylvain Cambreling was the musical director . The librettist of the opera Luc Bondy directed .

Boesmans' round dance is the first Belgian opera of the 20th century to find its way into the repertoire in neighboring countries. There were performances in 1994 in the Théâtre du Châtelet Paris, 1995 in the Alte Oper Frankfurt, 1997 in the Opera Nantes and in the hall of the Museumsquartier Wien, 1998 in Braunschweig (German premiere), 1994 in Amsterdam and Utrecht, 2004 as a production of the Opéra national du Rhin in Colmar, Mulhouse and Strasbourg (world premiere of the chamber version by Fabrizio Cassol ) as well as in the Opéra de Lausanne , 2007 in a production of the Opera Studio Nederland in several Dutch cities, 2009 in the Paris Opera and in the New York City Opera , 2013 at the Paris Conservatory , 2016 at the Stuttgart Opera and 2019 in Bern. A recording of the Stuttgart performance was made available as an internet stream on the Opera Platform.

Recordings

  • 1994 (live from Brussels): Sylvain Cambreling (conductor), Orchestra of the Théâtre de la Monnaie. Deborah Raymond (The Whore), Mark Curtis (The Soldier), Elzbieta Ardam (The Chambermaid), Roberto Saccà (The Young Lord), Solveig Kringelborn (The Young Woman), Franz-Ferdinand Nentwig (The Husband), Randi Stene (The sweet girls), Ronald Hamilton (The Poet), Françoise Pollet (The Singer), Dale Duesing (The Count). Ricercar 133122/123
  • unknown (video, live from Brussels): Patrick Davin (conductor), Luc Bondy (staging), Orchester des Théâtre de la Monnaie. Deborah Raymond (The Whore), Herbert Lippert (The Soldier), Elzbieta Ardam (The Chambermaid), Roberto Saccà (The Young Man), Solveig Kringelborn (The Young Woman), Franz-Ferdinand Nentwig (The Husband), Rannveig Braga (The sweet girls), Ronald Hamilton (The Poet), Sonia Theodoridou (The Singer), Dale Duesing (The Count).
  • 2016 (video, live from the Staatstheater Stuttgart ): Sylvain Cambreling (conductor), Nicola Hümpel (production), Oliver Proske (stage design, equipment), Teresa Vergho (costumes). Lauryna Bendziunaite (The Whore), Daniel Kluge (The Soldier), Stine Marie Fischer (The Chambermaid), Sebastian Kohlhepp (The Young Lord), Rebecca von Lipinski (The Young Woman), Shigeo Ishino (The Husband), Kora Pavelić (The sweet girls), Matthias Klink (The Poet), Melanie Diener (The Singer), André Morsch (The Count). The Opera Platform.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reigen in the Casa Ricordi catalog , accessed on June 12, 2016.
  2. ↑ a b c 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 , p. 365 f.
  3. ↑ a b c Boesman's Reigen at Universal Music Publishing Classical , accessed June 11, 2016.
  4. ↑ Reigen in the Forum des compositeurs ( Memento from June 12, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on June 12, 2016.
  5. ^ Biography of the composer Philippe Boesmans from Casa Ricordi , accessed on June 11, 2016.
  6. ↑ Udo Bermbach (Ed.): Opera in the 20th century. Development tendencies and composers. Metzler, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-476-01733-8 , p. 301.
  7. ^ Kurt Pahlen : The new opera lexicon. Seehamer, Weyarn 2000, ISBN 3-934058-58-2 , pp. 952 f.
  8. ↑ March 4, 1993: "Reigen". In: L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia ., Accessed on June 11, 2016.
  9. ↑ Peter Heuberger: Review of the performance in Bern 2019. In: Der Opernfreund , April 5, 2019, accessed on July 27, 2020.
  10. ↑ a b Boesmans - Reigen on the Opera Platform ( Memento from August 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ).
  11. ^ A b Philippe Boesmans. In: Andreas Ommer: Directory of all opera complete recordings. Zeno.org , volume 20.