South Pole (Opera)
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| Original title: | South Pole |
| Shape: | Double opera in two parts |
| Original language: | English |
| Music: | Miroslav Srnka |
| Libretto : | Tom Holloway |
| Premiere: | January 31, 2016 |
| Place of premiere: | Bavarian State Opera Munich |
| Playing time: | about 2 hours |
| Place and time of the action: | At the South Pole, 1910–1912 |
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South Pole (German: Südpol ) is an opera (original name: "Double Opera ") in two parts by Miroslav Srnka (music), which he composed as a commissioned work for the Bavarian State Opera . The libretto is by Tom Holloway. The world premiere took place on January 31, 2016 in Munich. The work deals with the race to reach the South Pole for the first time between Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen from 1910 to 1912.
action
The plot of the opera follows the historical course of the two South Pole expeditions. The two trips are sometimes shown overlapping in parallel and sometimes out of phase one behind the other.
First part
Scene A "First Cable". Amundsen sends Scott a telegram informing him of his changed travel destination. Up until that point, Scott assumed that his rival was planning to reach the North Pole. Now it is a race.
Scene B "Arrival". Both teams unload their ships and prepare their winter storage. Scott has loaded ponies and snowmobiles. Amundsen, on the other hand, opted for sled dogs and skis.
Scene C "Winter". Winter is coming. Both teams have gramophones for entertainment. Scott plays the "flower aria" from Carmen sung by Enrico Caruso . One of his people uses it to make a “Carusophon”, which will serve as an alarm clock replacement for the winter camp crew. The actual alarm clock broke during a “dance”, and in the long polar night the men fear that their sleep-wake rhythm will get out of hand. In Amundsen's camp, on the other hand, you can hear “Solvejg's Song” from Peer Gynt , sung by Borghild Bryhn Langaard. In a vision, Scott appears his wife Kathleen.
Scene D “Starting line”. A dispute breaks out in Amundsen's camp. Johansen accuses Amundsen of putting the team in danger. Wisting calls him a drunkard. Scott and Amundsen are plagued by their respective rivals in their dreams. Both teams are getting ready to leave. Scott's snowmobile fails. His ponies are not quite in their strength either.
Scene E "Race". Amundsen's team, on the other hand, has problems with crevasses. Amundsen hallucinates from a former friend, the "Landlady", who killed herself because of him.
Scene F "Killing". Both teams have to slaughter their animals.
Scene G “Home”. Scott and Amundsen reappear their wives.
Second part
Scene H “Letters”. Johansen and a member of Scott's team keep a diary. Amundsen therefore confronts Johansen and urges them to hurry.
Scene I “Pole 1”. Amundsen's team is the first to reach the pole and erect the Norwegian flag.
Scene J "Ladies". The two imaginary women come into contact with each other.
Scene K “Pole 2”. Scott's team reaches the pole. You are very disappointed when you see the Norwegian flag.
Scene L "Birds". Texts from Scott's diary are faded in during an instrumental interlude. While Scott is haunted by his wife, Johansen complains of the exertion and loneliness. His comrades make fun of him. Evans, one of Scott's people, complains of an unwilling hand injury that he had kept secret for a long time.
Scene M "Collapse". Evans dies. Amundsen's group hunt seals. Your return journey is making good progress. Scott's supplies at base camp, on the other hand, prove to be unusable. The next member of Scott's expedition, Oates, dies after a foot injury.
Scene N “Goodbyes”. Amundsen's expedition has successfully returned home. Amundsen explains to Johansen that he has deleted it from the travel report and should therefore not share in the fame. Meanwhile, the rest of Scott's people are dying. His wife appears to him again before his death. Amundsen is also haunted by the "Landlady".
Scene O "Final Cable". The woodwinds imitate the Morse code of Amundsen's success telegram, while Scott shivers with cold, lost in the icy desert.
layout
The opera requires a large orchestra that is roughly comparable in size to a Strauss orchestra. There are also cowbells, marimbas, a vibraphone, a carillon and egg slicer.
The score provides for the following instruments:
- Woodwinds : four flutes (2nd and 3rd also piccolo , 4th also bass flute), three oboes , six clarinets in Bb (5th and 6th also bass clarinet ), three bassoons (2nd and 3rd also contrabassoon )
- Brass : six horns in F, four trumpets in C, three trombones , bass tuba
- accordion
- Piano for four hands
- Drums (four players)
- Strings : fourteen violins 1, twelve violins 2, ten violas , eight cellos , six double basses
history
Miroslav Srnka worked on the composition for five years, which he completed in October 2015. At the world premiere on January 31, 2016 at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the team "Scott" sang: Rolando Villazón (Robert Falcon Scott), Tara Erraught (Kathleen Scott), Dean Power (Lawrence Oates), Kevin Conners (Edward "Uncle Bill") Wilson), Matthew Grills (Edgar Evans), and Joshua Owen Mills (Henry "Birdie" Bowers). The “Amundsen” team sang: Thomas Hampson (Roald Amundsen), Mojca Erdmann (Landlady), Tim Kuypers (Hjalmar Johansen), John Carpenter (Oscar Wisting), Christian Rieger (Helmer Hanssen) and Sean Michael Plumb (Olav Bjaaland). The musical director of the Bavarian State Orchestra had Kirill Petrenko . The production was done by Hans Neuenfels , the stage design by Katrin Connan and Hans Neuenfels, the costumes by Andrea Schmidt-Futterer and the lighting design by Stefan Bolliger . A recording of the recording was broadcast on ARTE Concert as an internet stream.
A second production of the opera premiered on May 27, 2017 at the Staatstheater Darmstadt . The conductor was Johannes Harneit . Karsten Wiegand was responsible for the production. Bärbl Hohmann and Karsten Wiegand were responsible for the stage and costumes.
Web links
- Südpol blog of the Bavarian State Opera
- Work information and score on the Bärenreiter-Verlag website
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Dorothea Hußlein: Antarctic opera "South Pole": dramatic race as an opera. Preliminary report from January 29, 2016 on BR-Klassik
- ↑ Joachim Lange: South Pole. Performance review, January 31, 2016 , accessed February 8, 2016.
- ^ South Pole on ARTE Concert, video available until March 1, 2016
- ^ Gerhard R. Koch: two-man race. in: Opernwelt from July 2017, p. 37 f.