Scirocco (opera)
| Work data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Scirocco |
| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Eugen d'Albert |
| Libretto : | Karl Michael von Levetzow and Leo Feld |
| Premiere: | May 16, 1921 |
| Place of premiere: | Darmstadt |
| Place and time of the action: | Sidi-bel-Abés in Algeria, in the present |
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Scirocco is an opera in three acts by Eugen d'Albert . The libretto was written by Karl Michael von Levetzow and Leo Feld . The opera premiered on May 16, 1921 at the Landestheater Darmstadt .
action
first act
Foyer and bar of a large variety theater
A thrown together group of legionnaires groans under the hot Scirocco and the legionnaire's life. Bar ladies, first and foremost the red-haired rouquine, provide the only variety. Then Princess Natascha Saratoff appears, who is looking for the missing cousin and bridegroom. It turns out that the legionnaire Dupont is really Sascha Saratoff and fled from Paris to the Foreign Legion before the dancer Poupoule - the former name of the Rouquine. Disgusted by the lascivious activity in the bar, she leaves the room again. Shortly afterwards, the Rouquine comes into the bar, wraps Dupont, whom she does not recognize, with lascivious words and calls him over that night. Dupont sings desperately about the Scirocco:
“The spiders of the Scirocco! Creep up to us with their grasping arms,
And catch and suck. Lower the sucking sting deep into the brain that
she clasps with her eight arms ... And the poor living
thing that she clasps just trembles, trembles in bloodless madness! "
Natascha steps back into the bar full of impatience and gradually recognizes her fiancé. She makes him promise to return home with her that night. At the end of the performance, however, Rouquine Dupont changes his mind, full of lust he lets himself be carried away and goes off with her.
Second act
An elegant hotel room
First Dupont and the Marquis, then a little later the rouquine comes into the hotel room, where two waiters have already prepared dinner. Then Petroff comes and confesses his love to Rouquine and begs her to take him with her. She sends him away again because she feels sorry for him and wants to spare him the bad dealings with her. Finally, Dupont and Rouquine are alone, and Dupont hears them out about their past. In doing so, she mocks his mother, who begged Rouquine on her knees to leave her son. In anger, he strangles Rouquine, and when the wake-up call rings, he leaves the room.
Third act
Free space in front of the city
In the morning hustle and bustle in front of the legionary barracks, the news rang out that Rouquine had been murdered. Dupont is suspected and has to report to the general. Natascha comes and tries to persuade him to flee. But the sergeant arrives and arrests Dupont. Suddenly Petroff rushes up and reports angrily that the Marquis first killed Rouquine and then himself with morphine. Dupont clears up Petroff and puts his fate in his hands. After a long silence he replies:
“Nobody is guilty and nobody is clean.
We all murdered: pointless
they in the hatred of their blood,
pointless you in the hatred of your revenge,
pointless I in the hatred of my pain ...
Pointless we all, and no one can judge.
We all need forgiveness walking in the dark;
no man can live without the grace of his brother.
Get up, my sister; get up, my brother;
and walk in joy, because light wants joy. "
Natascha, Sascha and Petroff set off on their journey home to Russia while the legionaries march out of the barracks gate.
literature
- Scirocco . Three acts for music by Leo Feld and Karl M. Levetzow. Music by Eugen d'Albert. Drei Masken-Verlag, Berlin-Munich 1919, DNB 571691579
- Charlotte Pangels: Eugen d'Albert: wonder pianist and composer. A biography. Atlantis, Zurich / Freiburg i. Br. 1981, ISBN 3-7611-0595-9 .