Tilman Riemenschneider (opera)
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| Title: | Tilman Riemenschneider |
| Shape: | thoroughly composed |
| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Casimir of Pászthory |
| Libretto : | Dora from Pászthory |
| Literary source: | Luise George Bachmann |
| Premiere: | 1957 |
| Place of premiere: | Basel |
| Place and time of the action: | in and around Würzburg , 1505–1525 |
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Tilman Riemenschneider is the title of an opera by Casimir von Pászthory . It is considered his most important work and portrays the life of the famous sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider .
action
While Tilman Riemenschneider is working with his journeymen Linhart and Peter on a work ordered by Münnerstadt , he is commissioned by Councilor Martin Krontal to carve Adam and Eve in stone for the city of Würzburg on the portal of the Marienkapelle . The artist decides to portray the two figures as God created them, in order to show Canon von Thüngen , who thinks nothing of German art, what a German can achieve . Hans and Maria, who loves the master, offer themselves to model themselves . Konrad von Thüngen learns from Hans, who is at his service, who was the model and wants to win Maria over for himself. The girl, however, does not want to know anything about him and rejects the obtrusive, although he threatens to thwart Riemenschneider's application for a councilor's position. The canon remains angry, tries to get to Maria through Hans and has rebellious peasants severely punished.
When Peter and Linhart get excited about naked Eva, Maria is met and asks Tilman for a vacation. The master would like to keep the ward he desires as a wife, but gives in to Mary's wish.
The Bishop von Scherenberg interrogates Riemenschneider, who can convince him that he has done nothing wrong. The bishop graciously dismisses the artist and recommends, dying, not to elect canon Thüngen but Lorenz von Bibra as his successor.
Ten years have passed and poor treatment has made the farmers more and more restless. Rebellants, preachers of indulgence and pilgrims roam the countries. Riemenschneider meets Maria again on a pilgrimage, this time the girl follows his advertisements and becomes his wife.
Another ten years have passed. Konrad von Thüngen has become bishop and duke, he still resents Tilman, who has since been elected mayor, for preventing his election for so long. Because the bishop believes the mayor is favoring the peasant uprising that has broken out for a few weeks , he wants to have him arrested, but Würzburg's citizens and Geyer's mercenaries and peasants who have penetrated the city free the prisoner and force Thüngen to flee. The peasant uprising has been put down, the bishop is taking bloody vengeance and harsh judgment. Riemenschneider is also tortured, although he is innocent. Mary asks in vain for mercy. The master is released because he cannot be proven guilty, and his broken hands fail. As a visionary, the deeply affected artist proclaims a better future for all people who are still enslaved today.
background
With his Riemenschneider opera, the score of which was completed in 1942, Pászthory wanted to present a fully developed masterpiece whose musical and dramatic impetus had incorporated the experiences of a long life as a composer. The circumstances of the time delayed an immediate performance of the work by a full ten years. It was not until 1952, during the Salzburg Festival , with prominent figures from the Vienna State Opera ( Paul Schöffler , Hilde Güden , Oskar Czerwenka , Szemere) that the piece was broadcast on the radio, and it was widely distributed acoustically, at least over the air. A staged performance did not take place until 1957 in the Basel City Theater with the prominent singers Montserrat Caballé and Matti Lehtinen in the supporting roles.
The objection has been repeatedly raised that Pászthory's Riemenschneider , in competition with the setting of a similar subject by Paul Hindemith in Mathis der Maler, had to fall behind for the sake of priority. It should be said that Pászthory certainly did not know Hindemith's opera when he was composing his own work. Furthermore, both pieces are very different in their intellectual and artistic foundation, not to mention the differences in the plot and the details of their libretti. What both stage works have in common at most is the music-dramatic examination of the form and problems of the German artist, which in turn both have in common with Pfitzner's Palestrina , which was completed a few decades earlier.
Casimir von Pászthory had based his Riemenschneider opera on the idea of pure humanity as a spiritual theme in order to exemplify it in two extreme episodes from the life of the artist Riemenschneider. The first shows the painter and sculptor's struggle at the turn of the Gothic and Renaissance periods for the representation of the naked human body; the second shows Riemenschneider as a citizen who takes care of the farmers in their struggle for freedom and human rights. The work ends tragically with a tortured Riemenschneider, whose hands are broken by the ordeal, but who nevertheless unshakably believes in the good in people:
- The world will be resurrected;
- freed from all wild and unruly
- in the service of pure humanity!
On the occasion of the 1,300th anniversary of the city of Würzburg , which had long been a place of activity for Riemenschneider, the opera was performed again in 2004.
literature
- Heinz Wagner: The great manual of the opera , ISBN 3-930656-14-0 , p. 540
- Hans G. Schürmann: Casimir von Pászthory - Life and Work , in Casimir von Pászthory (editor: Günter Brosche ), Vienna: Austrian National Library 1986
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mirko Weber: It wagons and pfitznert and ostriches . In Die Zeit on January 29, 2004. (About the Würzburg performance of the opera Tilman Riemenschneider )