Sancta Susanna

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Opera dates
Original title: Sancta Susanna
Shape: Opera in one act
Original language: German
Music: Paul Hindemith
Libretto : August Stramm : A song of the May night
Premiere: March 26, 1922
Place of premiere: Frankfurt Opera House
Playing time: approx. 25 minutes
Place and time of the action: In a monastery church, May night
people
  • Susanna ( soprano )
  • Klementia ( old )
  • an old nun (old)
  • a maid (speaking role)
  • a servant (speaking role)
  • Nuns ( female choir )
  • [A spider, nightingales, moonlight, wind and flowers] (according to Stramm's text)

Sancta Susanna is an opera in one act by Paul Hindemith . As a text he used the scene Ein Gesang der Mayacht by August Stramm , published in 1913 . The premiere took place on March 26, 1922 in the Frankfurt Opera House .

action

The opera takes place on a May night in a monastery church. The moon is shining. The eternal light burns in front of the altar, in the front left in a wall niche in front of the larger than life crucifix a large candle. Susanna lies in religious devotion in front of the flower-adorned Mary's altar to the right of the crucifix altar, her forehead on the lowest step, her arms spread over the upper steps. Her fellow sister Klementia calls her to her senses. The tower clock strikes. The wind tears open a window so that the scent of a lilac bush flows in. Outside, the voice of a woman can be heard “choked with whimpering lust”. Susanna lets her, a maid, be brought in to talk her conscience. At first the maid seems disturbed, but then suddenly bursts out laughing. Shortly afterwards there is a knock on the choir door. A servant, the maid's lover, comes in to fetch his girl. Klementia leads them outside. While the door is closing, a gust of wind comes in and extinguishes the candle in front of the crucifix. The church is in the dark and Susanna cries out in horror: "Satanas!"

Klementia returns to relight the candle, but fails. Susanna walks slowly forward between the prayer chairs to fetch the light from the wax stick. The event reminds Klementia of another night that she tells Susanna about while two nightingales are singing outside: Thirty or forty years ago she was lying praying in front of the altar when the nun Beata entered the church completely naked, climbed up to the crucifix and saw the picture the Savior embraced and kissed. When Klementia spoke to her, she fell lifelessly down the stairs. The nuns then covered the loins of the portrait with a cloth, placed a large candle in front of the crucifix and walled Beata behind it. Since then the atonement candle has burned, and Klementia was still able to hear Beata's quiet complaint. Susanna is shocked that she has re-lit the candle, which has finally gone out. A fist-sized spider crawls out of the darkness behind the altar, runs over the altar and disappears on the other side. The two nuns look at her in horror. While Klementia realizes that Beata's plaintiffs have stopped, Susanna falls into ecstasy. She extinguishes the wax stick, places it on the altar and slowly descends the steps. Then she laughs briefly, takes off her clothes and announces: "Sister Klementia ... I am beautiful ...!" Klementia holds the cross out to her to bring her to her senses and reminds her of her vow: "Chastity ... poverty ... obedience" . But Susanna tears the loincloth from the crucifix and kneels in front of it. The spider falls from the arm of the cross into her hair. Susanna cries out and hits the altar with her forehead. The spider disappears behind it.

At this moment the Horenglocke announces the twelfth hour. Praying nuns enter and gather in a semicircle around Susanna. She jumps up and demands to be walled in like Beata once did. An old nun lifts the cross of her rosary over her head and tells her to go to confession. Klementia and the other nuns join in their call: "Confession!" The wind howls. Susanna calls out: “No !!!” The nuns shout “Satana !!!” While their echoes fade away, Susanna stands tall in “untouched highness”.

layout

The libretto by August Stramm can already be assigned to Expressionism , but according to Piper's Encyclopedia of Music Theater there are also "relics of symbolism and naturalism, of black romanticism and decadence, overlaid by Ralph Waldo Trine's worldview ". Formally, the work is strictly structured. The music is also strongly stylized, but occasionally reminds of Claude Debussy or Rudi Stephan . Traditional cadences and key relationships are rarely used. The composition is based on a single theme which, in a sequence of variations, depicts the dramatic conflict between sensuality and asceticism "in the blocky contrast of flowing, sensitive movement and musical rigidity". The whole thing is embedded in an overarching crescendo . The tonal language is "quasi anti-romantic". It does not depict what is happening, but accompanies it "coolly distanced" in the sense of " New Objectivity ". As with the other two one-act plays of his triptych, Hindemith endeavored to “develop a musical language on expressionist texts that overcomes expressionism [...]”. However, the music of the three works has no overarching similarities. Rather, they are linked to one another through their mutual contrasts

The opening scene is characterized by a long point on the organ on the G sharp, above which the singing voice swings with the alternating tones a and a sharp.

Instrumentation

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

Work history

Sancta Susanna is the third of Hindemith's three one-act operas from 1921. Murderer, Hope of Women and Das Nusch-Nuschi had already been performed.

August Stramm published his scene Ein Gesang der Mayacht 1914 in the magazine Der Sturm, published by Herwarth Walden . Hindemith used the print published in the second volume of the complete edition in 1921. He began composing on January 19, 1921 and completed it on February 5.

Hindemith originally planned to perform his three one-act plays as a triptych in Stuttgart. But the outrage over the text, which was perceived as blasphemous, prevented this. It was therefore not premiered until March 26, 1922 in the Frankfurt Opera House . Emma Holl (Susanna), Betty Mergler (Klementia) and Magda Spiegel (old nun) sang . Ludwig Rottenberg was the musical director, Ernst Lert directed , and Ludwig Sievert set the stage. The performance turned into a scandal. Even the conductor Fritz Busch , who had already directed the other two one-act plays, thought the opera was “obscene”. The Christian-conservative Bühnenvolksbund tried to get it removed from the program. The Catholic Women's Association held a three-day devotion to atonement, and the Interdenominational Association for the Improvement of Morality gave a series of lectures. The reviewer of the magazine for music wrote:

“The books of the three one-act plays ([…] Stramm's (sic), Sancta Susanna a perverse, truly immoral affair) should actually be perceived by everyone as absolutely worthless. Hindemith's music revolves around restless expressionism; without any melodic feeling [...] monstrous chords are piled up by the overloaded orchestra, then again there is a yawning emptiness. "

- Magazine for Music, July 1922

Hindemith himself, on the other hand, considered Sancta Susanna to be the most successful of his three one-act plays. The conductor Paul Bekker also referred to the work in his 1922 treatise Hindemith "Three One Acts" as the "main piece" and assessed it positively:

"It is a musical fantasy about a single theme of strangely lamenting, longing charm that draws ever larger circles of passion and desire up to thunderstorm discharge and liberation."

- Paul Bekker : Hindemith "Three One-Acts" , p. 114 f.

It was only when Alexander von Zemlinsky performed the work at the State Theater in Prague together with the other two one-act plays in 1923 that it was honored according to its rank. In 1925 it was played at the Hamburg City Theater under the direction of Egon Pollak together with Igor Stravinsky's Histoire du soldat . The director had Leopold axis . Although the performance was well received by the audience, churches and right-wing parties obtained an immediate dismissal. In 1934 Hindemith withdrew the plant with restrictions, and in 1958 completely. Even his heirs did not issue a performance permit until the mid-1970s. Then there were staged productions a. a. in Rome, Wuppertal and Amsterdam as well as several concert performances. A production by Günter Krämer in Cologne in 2001 attracted greater attention. In 2016, a video recording of the Lyon production from 2012 was broadcast on the Internet as part of the Opera Platform .

Recordings

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Annegrit Laubenthal: Sancta Susanna. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater. Volume 3: Works. Henze - Massine. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-492-02413-0 , pp. 63-64.
  2. ↑ a b c Sancta Susanna. In: Harenberg opera guide. 4th edition. Meyers Lexikonverlag, 2003, ISBN 3-411-76107-5 , p. 381.
  3. ^ Wulf Konold : Sancta Susanna. In: Rudolf Kloiber , Wulf Konold, Robert Maschka: Handbuch der Oper. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag / Bärenreiter, 9th, expanded, revised edition 2002, ISBN 3-423-32526-7 , p. 300.
  4. ↑ a b c d Hanns-Werner Heister : Late and post-expressionism. In: Silke Leopold (Ed.): Music theater in the 20th century (= history of the opera. Volume 4). Laaber, 2006, ISBN 3-89007-661-0 .
  5. ↑ March 26, 1922: “Sancta Susanna”. In: L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia ..
  6. ^ Sancta Susanna at Schott Music , accessed October 31, 2016.
  7. ↑ a b Hindemith - Sancta Susanna on The Opera Platform ( Memento from October 31, 2016 in the Internet Archive ).
  8. ↑ a b c d e Paul Hindemith. In: Andreas Ommer: Directory of all opera complete recordings. Zeno.org , volume 20.