Resurrection (opera)
| Opera dates | |
|---|---|
| Title: | resurrection |
| Original title: | Resurrection |
Albrecht Dürer: The four apocalyptic horsemen |
|
| Shape: | Opera in a prologue and an act |
| Original language: | English |
| Music: | Peter Maxwell Davies |
| Libretto : | Peter Maxwell Davies |
| Premiere: | September 18, 1987 |
| Place of premiere: | Darmstadt State Theater |
| Playing time: | approx. 1 ½ hours |
| people | |
Singer
four dancers (two women, two men)
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Resurrection (op. 129; German: Auferstehung ) is an opera in a prologue and an act by the English composer Peter Maxwell Davies , who also wrote the libretto. Davies conceived the work back in 1963 while studying at Princeton University . However, he did not complete the opera until twenty years later. The work had its premiere on September 18, 1987 at the Staatstheater Darmstadt .
action
With his opera Resurrection, Peter Maxwell Davies turns against any form of fanaticism. He himself explained it as follows: “The central figure is a doll, victim of social brainwashing. She is subjected to a grotesque surgical manipulation, as a result of which she is resurrected, becomes gigantic, as a bogus rules the world ... "
In the prologue you see this doll as a child who is supposed to be forced to conform by his environment. In the main act, as an adult, he is subjected to various “operations” to correct his insubordination. Surgeons remove his brain, heart, and genitals one by one. Finally the Antichrist appears . The patient experiences his resurrection and turns against the surgeons and the audience with his phallus transformed into a machine gun.
prolog
The main character of the opera is the larger-than-life, silent figure of a boy, the "hero". His parents, siblings and various authorities (school principal, pastor and doctor) complain about the boy who, in their opinion, has failed and on whom they want to impose their own values. Her appearances are interrupted by seven television spots projected on a large screen, promoting household products with references to their effect on the resurrection. The texts of these spots are performed by an electronic vocal quartet and danced at the same time. A cat (rock singer and dancer) comments on the individual scenes, gradually wearing more and more terrifying masks until it appears entirely as a dragon. At the end she holds a dragon mask in front of the hero. His head explodes, splattering those present with blood.
The act
The hero was admitted to the hospital and is now lying on the operating table. Here, too, the action is repeatedly interrupted by TV spots, which are gradually integrated into the main plot.
In the 8th commercial, four doctors and nurses with angel wings (the vocal quartet) each present a dark green poison bottle as a remedy for a specific disease. Four surgeons dressed in the style of the 1920s want to expose the hero's “public blasphemy and confused philosophies” and heal him. They transform themselves into different people of respect: a white abbot in a Dominican robe, a black pastor in a Protestant robe, Sir Croesus Reich in a businessman's pinstripe suit and Comrade Serbsky with the long gray coat of a party member and a revolver. At their respective appearances, they boast of the ease with which they can make the common people submissive. The white abbot calls for the “revelation of Jesus through her mediation”, ie confession, as a prerequisite for recovery. He stabs the patient's eye with the crucifix, and it bursts like a goose egg. The pastor declares his right to interpret the Bible as he sees fit and smashes the hero's face with the book. The religion of Sir Croesus Reich (Croesus Wright) is the free economy, which only ensures the prosperity of the rich. He puts out his cigar in the patient's other eye. Finally, Comrade Serbsky makes the masses believe that they will prevail, securing his power by hunting down counter-revolutionaries. He shoots the patient in the temple. While the surgeons take off their disguise, the 9th TV commercial advertises travel and luxury swimming pools.
Phoebus Apollo drives in in a chariot with a sun wheel, in front of which an old three-headed nag (wolf, lion, dog) is harnessed. Apollo only wears a gold belt, a bow, a quiver with arrows and a gold crown made of laurel. A crowd of cardboard heads follows him. He announced that because of the large amount of solar energy now available, it was no longer necessary to make a profit. Pluto , the god of the underworld, appears with the woman Cerberus , who is walking on all fours, on the chain, listens to Apollo for a while and then shoots him with his rifle. Pluto declares that Apollo was under the influence of a foreign power and proclaims the "final solution" to eliminate all troublemakers (Jews, Arabs, blacks, communists, socialists, dissidents). Meanwhile, Zeus appears unnoticed by him (Davies later replaced by Hera with Margaret Thatcher's features ) as a huge inflated doll with a gramophone and a horn that suffocates Pluto with its huge buttocks. Then he propagates a “straight line between conservative socialism and socialist conservatism” - an “effective protective wall… samar protective wall… amar Schu… on the ass” with a gramophone-like alienated countertenor voice to projections of explosions shown parallel across the stage. The gramophone record slows down and his figure shrinks. While the participants in the political rally are leaving, the 10th commercial advertises a war game set for children as an ideal Christmas present. There are only projections on the upper part of the stage. The destruction shown in it turns out to be a game between two children on a table: “Let fire, blood and hail rain. And everything at home by the cozy fireplace. "
The four surgeons cut open the patient's skull with a giant knife and pull out all sorts of things (streamers, gears, firecrackers, etc.) that make them "pop with joy". In the 11th TV commercial, a rabbi dances around like an "injured vulture" with a stomach pump in hand. His chops have not been shown to be kosher. "Vulkan" stomach pills help against this.
The surgeons next want to examine their victim's heart. A traveling preacher ("hot gospeller") appears with a large black Bible. He is accompanied by four dancing crusaders and a marching band and the action is recorded by a television team. The preacher urges his listeners to repent: "Every trace of joy, love, beauty" must be destroyed. In between, the commercials 12 to 15 are shown: There is grasshopper powder against the apocalyptic locust plague, pallbearers with matching costumes can be rented in the “House of the Dead to the 'Four Angels”, and frostbite powder with “instant redemption” offers relief against aching feet and skin -Couture maternity dresses insure against miscarriages "for all who want to be crowned". The preacher rejoices that the "Savior" is about to arrive. While the 16th commercial advertises a "cloud of righteousness" as a perfume, a young man fires a revolver at his adoring girlfriend - a bouquet of flowers comes out.
The Antichrist is walking down a rainbow. He “has a milk face, looks graceful”. A horse's foot can be seen under his long white dress. He also has two goat horns on his curly gold wig. He is playing with a large puppet - the patient who is completely submissive to him. He explains that he will kindle his "repressions" and "manners" and project his mistakes "onto those whom I despise". Then he puts a pig mask over the doll's face and lets her kiss his horse's foot. Halos explode around the mask. The crusaders cheer for this rescue of the patient and welcome him to the brotherhood.
The surgeons tear out the patient's heart. It turns out to be a big hat box full of sweets. In their place, they clip a replacement heart made of artificial diamonds onto his chest. In the 17th commercial, pig hearts and dog leashes made of diamonds are advertised accordingly. The surgeons are singing a lullaby. The 18th commercial features a box of matches with the trademark of the Antichrist. A match flashes up explosively, whereupon many small Christmas tree lights rain down and illuminate the stage.
Two children puppets are playing doctor. They are caught and beaten by their mother. On the girl's bottom, she discovers an exaggeratedly large bite mark that she cannot explain and sends the children to bed under threat of further punitive measures. The 19th commercial advertises whips and chains for chastening children.
A fanfare is followed by a dream jazz sequence. The patient - now the age of the son from the prologue - lies in a bed. In the dream he sees four dancers in dirty raincoats, which bare provocatively. At the end of the dance, they jump under the covers to the patient.
The 20th spot advertises “Babylon condoms” that even “work on a red beast with seven heads”.
Another fanfare heralds a tap dance in the style of the 1930s. Two couples dance alternately. The girl of the second couple identifies herself as a boy. The first couple dresses up as judges and policemen and interrupts the dance of the other couple, who drop their clothes and turn out to be a pair of hermaphrodites. The judge and the police arrest them.
The 21st commercial shows images of the ruthless demolition of buildings that kills people. The events are made ridiculous by comic-like comments. Millstones from Babylon are supposed to ensure the complete demolition of “Sodom, Gomorrah, Darmstadt” (the name of the city of the performance is to be used here). The first surgeon appears in episcopal clothing and offers Christian teaching. The second surgeon, as a policeman, explains that prisoners continue to enjoy their civil rights, but that certain limits should not be exceeded. The third surgeon, a judge, is appalled by the revelations that disgust him. The fourth surgeon as the union leader does not feel responsible: there are no such types among the comrades.
The next fanfare is followed by a silent film-style sequence with “persecution music”. The roles of the bishop, policeman, judge and union leader are now represented by the dancers. The judge is wearing a dress. The stage shows two public toilets - "men" and "women". The policeman looks in through a skylight. The patient, now 25 years old, peers lustfully through a peephole into the ladies' room, from which the judge steps out. The policeman takes notes. The union leader goes to the patient in the men's room. Both disappear into the individual cabins. The policeman also jumps down into the individual toilet. The bishop appears, looks around, and goes into the men's room. Six hands reach out of the single cabin and pull him inside.
In the 22nd TV commercial, a Scottish bagpiper with horns and hooves praises the whiskey brand "True and Faithful".
The four surgeons lament the defamation of the dignitaries by the patient, which requires "extreme measures". They cut open his abdomen and remove his testicles - two large balloons full of sausages. The 23rd spot shows the chained cat-dragon of the prologue, and the vocal quartet presents the necessary locks and the “seven-seal chastity belt”. The surgeons are satisfied with their work “in the name of humanity”.
The resurrection of the patient begins after the 24th commercial, in which high-security bungalows in New Joe Cannonstadt, the “perfect New Jerusalem”, are advertised on a black and white projection of dilapidated apartment buildings, slums and factories. He rises, grows to gigantic sizes, and displays his surgeon-made wounds. The surgeons shout "Hallelujah". The pop group appears in strikingly demonic costumes for a disco light show. The pop singer calls on everyone to bow to the “glory of my glorious resurrection”, to love the new order and to hate all who “do not conform to the mild law of my consumer state”. Although he no longer has any testicles, the patient gets an erection - “a huge machine gun aimed at the audience.” The cat-kite's giant head explodes at the muzzle of the rifle. The patient proclaims: Anyone who does not want to join him, the association of Attila , Herod , Genghis Khan , Pol Pots , Hitler and Stalin , can no longer have any hope. He gradually withdraws into the wings of the stage. The traveling preacher dressed as an archangel and the crusaders in the form of angels appear with a tomb on the lower stage. Like the stage musicians, they wear halos made of neon light and stand around the tomb from which a Savior bursts out in radiant light - the Antichrist, now without horns and horseshoe. He comes forward to convey his message to the world: "I'm just an advertisement". Its head gradually turns into a skull with laser beams emanating from its eyes. The stage is bathed in "apocalyptic light".
layout
In his comments on maxopus.com, David Nice pointed out the “violent diversity of their musical and verbal styles”. One can only enjoy the opera if one is “overwhelmed and dazzled by it”. The music critic Ulrich Schreiber called Resurrection "an almost violent morality of deliberately cutting bad taste: shrill protest against the prevailing bad taste of the present".
The opera repeatedly contains allusions to the biblical revelation of John in the depiction of Albrecht Dürer in his 16 woodcuts from 1498, which Davies himself pointed out in his foreword. He also admitted - possibly unconscious - influences from The Seven Deadly Sins by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, in which the family mother is represented by a bass - here it is a countertenor.
Davies only gave the music of the pop group as a sketch, so that the respective performers can do the actual design as they wish.
In their first disguise scene at the beginning of the main act, the four surgeons are each accompanied by different groups of instruments. For the white abbot it is a banjo and a trumpet, for the pastor low strings and harmonium, for the businessman a bass flute and strings playing with passionate vibrato, and for Comrade Serbsky a military drum and brass.
The marching band at the appearance of the itinerant preacher parodies the music of the Victorian church musician John Stainer . In addition, the work is pervaded by four Gregorian chants, which appear repeatedly in strategic places. These are Laetentur Caeli , the Christmas hymn Puer Natus , Herodes iratus occidit (Herod's child murder) and the resurrection hymn Victimae Paschali .
Instrumentation
In addition to the seven solo singers and four dancers, the opera is cast as follows:
Rock group
- Singer (male or female)
- Melody instrument
- two electronic keyboards
- Knockers
- drums
- Electric bass guitar
Marching band
- two cornets
- two trumpets
- tuba
- Bombardino
- Tambourine
- Cymbals (also bass drum )
Orchestra in the ditch
- Flute (also piccolo and alto flute)
- oboe
- Clarinet in A (also clarinet in Bb and bass clarinet )
- Alto saxophone
- Bassoon (also contrabassoon)
- horn
- Trumpet
- trombone
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Percussion (two players)
- I: three suspended cymbals (small, medium, large), small choke pool, hi-hat basin, high domed Chinese pool, clash cymbals , side drum , small side drum, tenor drum , bass drum, tom-tom , plastic soap dish for fanfare, bell tree, referee whistle , Tambourine , small altar bell , small block of wood , two very small blocks of wood, three very high blocks of wood, four temple blocks , very small high temple block, two pieces of wood wrapped in sandpaper, thunder plate , slapstick , timpani , piston flute , heavy chains, nine-tailed cat , jazz kit , Balloon, tickers (real or plastic bones, like castanets played with one hand)
- II. Crotales , vibraphone , glockenspiel , marimba , timpani, tubular bells
- Guitar (also banjo and electric bass guitar)
- Piano (also detuned upright piano, celesta, and Hammond organ )
- Strings
Incidental music
- Electronic vocal quartet: soprano, high tenor, alto, bass (with sound mixer).
Work history
Davies conceived the work as a continuation of his opera Taverner during his studies at Princeton University in 1963 - which, however, was not yet completed at that time. The starting point was his preoccupation with "commercialism". However, he did not complete the opera until twenty years later. In the next few years he apparently made several attempts to complete the work. The final impetus came in the 1980s when he observed the negative effects of “ Thatcherism ” on British society and culture. Despite the long period and the change in style in the meantime, he retained the essential ideas of his original concept. This is an extension of the philosophical and theological ideas of his tavern, but no longer in the context of the English Reformation, but rather contemporary issues.
The work had its premiere on September 18, 1987 at the Staatstheater Darmstadt under the baton of Hans Drewanz . Directed by Peter Brenner , the set was by Waltraud Engelbert.
The work was performed in concert in 1994 in Manchester. In 1997 there was also a production by the Muziektheater Transparent Antwerp and the Vienna Pocket Opera, which was also performed as a guest performance in Glasgow. In 2001 it was presented at the Budapest Pop Festival.
Recordings
- September 8, 1994 (live): Peter Maxwell Davies (conductor), BBC Philharmonic . Christopher Robson (Countertenor: Mother, Zeus, or Hera), Martyn Hill (Tenor 1: Principal, Surgeon 1, White Abbot, Bishop), Henry Herford (Baritone 1: Father, Surgeon 2, The Rev. Minister, Police Officer), Neil Jenkins (Tenor 2: pastor, itinerant preacher, Pluto), Gerald Finley (baritone II: younger brother, surgeon 3, Sir Croesus Reich / Croesus Wright, judge), Jonathan Best (bass: doctor, surgeon 4, comrade Serbsky, union leader), Della Jones (mezzo-soprano: older sister, Phoebus Apollo, Antichrist), Mary Carewe (rock singer: cat), Robin Blaze (rock band) and John Bowley, Deborah Miles-Johnson, Lesley Jane Rogers and Mark Rowlinson (electronic vocal quartet). Product Code: Collins 7034-2 (2 CD).
literature
- Steve Sweeney-Turner: Resurrecting the Antichrist: Maxwell Davies and Parody - Dialectics or Deconstruction? In: Tempo - New Series. No. 191, December 1994, pp. 14-20 ( JSTOR 945592 at JSTOR).
- John Warnaby: Maxwell Davies's “Resurrection”: Origins, Themes, Symbolism. In: Tempo 191, December 1994, pp. 6-13, doi : 10.1017 / S0040298200003855
- Majel Connery: Peter Maxwell Davies' Worst Nightmare: staging the unsacred in the operas Taverner and Resurrection (PDF)
Web links
- Work data for Resurrection based on the MGG with discography at Operone
- Work information on maxopus.com
- Work information and “Composers Note” on musicsalesclassical.com
- View score part 1 and part 2 at ISSUU
- K. Robert Schwarz: Recordings View; A Portrait of the Antichrist As a Young Composer? CD review in the New York Times on January 14, 1996 (English)
- Joshua Rosenblum: Maxwell Davies: Resurrection. CD review in Opera News Magazine , May 2015
Individual evidence
- ↑ Quoted from Kurt Pahlen : Das neue Opern-Lexikon. Seehamer, Weyarn 2000, ISBN 3-934058-58-2 , p. 152.
- ↑ a b c d e David Nice: German notes on maxopus.com, accessed on February 16, 2017.
- ↑ a b Ulrich Schreiber : Opera guide for advanced learners. 20th Century II. German and Italian Opera after 1945, France, Great Britain. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2005, ISBN 3-7618-1437-2 , pp. 582-583.
- ↑ Peter Maxwell Davies: Composers Note on musicsalesclassical.com, accessed February 16, 2017.
- ↑ a b c work information on maxopus.com, accessed on February 16, 2017.
- ↑ John Warnaby: Maxwell Davies's 'Resurrection': Origins, Themes, Symbolism. Summary ( online at cambridge.org ).
- ↑ Peter Maxwell Davies. In: Andreas Ommer: Directory of all opera complete recordings. Zeno.org , Volume 20, p. 3270.