Ubu Rex
| Work data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Ubu Rex |
| Shape: | Opera buffa in two acts |
| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Krzysztof Penderecki |
| Libretto : | Jerzy Jarocki , Krzysztof Penderecki |
| Literary source: | Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry |
| Premiere: | July 6, 1991 |
| Place of premiere: | Munich , Bavarian State Opera |
| Playing time: | about 2 hours |
| Place and time of the action: | in Poland , sometime in the past |
| people | |
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Ubu Rex is a satirical opera by Krzysztof Penderecki based on a German-language libretto by the composer and Jerzy Jarocki (1929–2012) based on Alfred Jarry's 1896 piece Ubu Roi .
Ubu Rex is divided into two acts of five scenes each and, like Penderecki's previous operas, The Devils of Loudun , Paradise Lost and The Black Mask , is based on a literary model. Ubu Rex can therefore be assigned to the genre of " literary opera ".
The opera was premiered on July 8, 1991 by the Bavarian State Opera for the opening of the Munich Opera Festival under the direction of Michael Boder .
action
The opera is a largely faithful adaptation of Jarry's play Ubu Roi , which itself is a parody of the tragedies of William Shakespeare (especially Macbeth , Hamlet and King Lear ), which combine the theme of bloody power struggles with comedic and absurd elements.
The focus of the plot is the title character Ubu, a "stupid, cowardly, greedy and greedy" but ambitious captain of the Polish king Wenceslaus, who is deeply unpopular with the people due to a hapless war between Poland and Russia .
first act
Prologue : A sailing ship with father Ubu, mother Ubu, Bordure and the ruffians on board is approaching Poland.
First scene : Father and mother Ubu's large marriage bed. Father and mother Ubu lie in their large marriage bed and are plagued by nightmares. Ubu, dragoon captain , adjutant to King Wenceslas and ex-king of Aragon , who loves to yell “Shout!”, Wakes up moaning from his nightmare after his wife has woken him with a whistle. Mother Ubu incites the power-hungry and amoral Ubu to murder King Wenceslaus and put himself on the throne.
Second scene : The big meal. Ubu invites you to a big meal. He sets up a huge trough, into which the guests all climb out of sheer greed. He poisoned some of the guests and obliges the rest to participate in the conspiracy. He draws his colleague, Captain Bordure, to his side by promising him to make him Duke of Lithuania . A messenger appears and orders Ubu, who fears his conspiracy has been discovered, to be king.
Third scene : With the king. King Wenceslaus wants to thank his loyal subject Ubu, appoints him Count of Sandomir and invites him to tomorrow's parade. Queen Rosamunde, tormented by foreboding, distrusts Ubu and warns her husband against him. She urges her son, Prince Bougrelas, never to renounce his rights as heir to the throne.
Fourth scene : conspiracy. Father and mother Ubu, Bordure and the bully plan the conspiracy. At tomorrow's parade, Father Ubu is supposed to get on the king's feet and shout the slogan “Scream!”. Then everyone should kill the king together. The conspiracy is sealed by an oath in which everyone places their hands "on a certain part of the body" of mother Ubu, who acts as a priest.
Fifth scene : the great parade. Assassination of the Royal Family. The conspiracy succeeds. The king is slain by the conspirators. The queen and the king's son, Crown Prince Bougrelas, manage to escape to the Russian court of the tsars. Both swear vengeance on Ubu. Ubu snatches the royal crown from the dead king and, at the instigation of mother Ubu and Bordure, reluctantly has meat and gold distributed to the people in order to be accepted as king. (Direction: "Everyone dance and eat. Big folk festival").
Second act
First scene : courtyard. De-braining. King Ubu holds a great race for a box of gold to secure popular favor. Bordure, who is no longer useful to him after the seizure of power, is arrested and thrown into dungeon. Then he sets out to secure complete control of the state. He has the nobles, the judges and the financial administrators massacred and murdered in a "de-braining machine". The people cheer over the brain mud.
Second scene : with the tsar. Bordure, who managed to escape to Moscow , offers his service to the tsar. This agrees and appoints Bordure as a lieutenant in the 10th Cossack regiment .
Third scene : the farmhouse and the tax press. Ubus politics is now exhausted in amassing a vast fortune by beginning to impose excessive taxes on the common people in order to satisfy their need for wealth and power. In the meantime, Ubu learns from a letter from Bordure, the Tsar has, at the instigation of Bordure, agreed to use his army to bring Crown Prince Bougrelas back to power. Ubu decides to go to war against Russia despite his fear and cowardice.
Intermezzo. Fourth scene : the war. The enemy armies face each other in battle, but Ubu initially hesitates to attack. A messenger reports that Bougrelas has returned to Poland and instigated an uprising against the now deeply unpopular Ubu. Mother Ubu is on the run for the mountains. The battle begins. In a fight, Ubu meets his old companion Bordure and shoots him. Ultimately, Ubu and the Tsar meet face to face. The Tsar pursues Ubu, but falls into a ditch. The Polish army rushes on the tsar and wants to kill him. However, Russian dragoons make an advance and free the Tsar. In the meantime, Ubu and his remaining officers are fighting the Tsar's army. The remnants of the Polish army are eventually driven out by the Russians.
Fifth scene : the escape. Ubu is on the run with his last loyal followers. Father and mother Ubu find each other at night in a field in Lithuania. Mother Ubu was chased away by the Poles and was able to escape. But she managed to get part of the state treasure before she fled.
Epilogue : On the High Seas - Search for a New Land. Father Ubu, mother Ubu and the remaining bullies flee with a sailing ship across the Baltic Sea , past Helsingör Castle . They are sailing to a new, “extraordinary” country which, as they sing, is “worthy enough to receive us”.
background
The opera is based on the play Ubu Roi (1896) by the then 23-year-old author Alfred Jarry and is considered one of the first pieces of the " theater of the absurd ". The premiere of the play, which begins with the exclamation of the French fantasy word "Merdre" (based on the French "merde" = "shit"), triggered a theatrical scandal in Paris at the time .
Penderecki was long interested in an opera based on Alfred Jarry's surrealist play Ubu Roi ; but he realized that the subject of satire on power and corruption was not exactly welcome in the political environment in which he lived at the time. Penderecki first came into contact with the Ubu Rex fabric in the mid-1950s, when he himself took part in a student performance of the play. At the beginning of the sixties he wrote the music for a puppet theater in Stockholm for Ubu . For more than two decades, the premiere of Ubu Rex has been announced again and again, but has also been canceled again and again.
Penderecki wrote the libretto in German together with the Polish director Jerzy Jarocki, with whom he had a private friendship for many years. The first beginnings of the joint work also go back to the 1960s.
The libretto is a "condensed" version of the play that is true to the work, but contains some additions, for example with regard to the seven ruffians in the sense of Shakespeare. For Penderecki, an “important, characteristic connecting point” of the libretto was the fact that Jarry's eponymous hero is looking for a country in which he could make a revolution, and this at a time when Poland as a state did not exist at all. Penderecki were particularly fascinated by the title hero, “a character who always exists”, and the bizarre atmosphere of the piece.
Penderecki called his composition "Opera buffa". It is his first and only comic and satirical opera and uses, in an “eclectic” form, musical echoes and models from Jacques Offenbach , Gioachino Rossini , Dmitri Shostakovich and Alfred Schnittke . Penderecki, however, according to his own statements, did not want to write a “real parody ”, since one could not “poke fun at any of the living composers by quoting”. He therefore used “no quotations, only characteristic elements”, whereby “ Mozart and Rossini as role models were inevitable” for him, especially with regard to quick repetitions of words or ensemble sentences in the style of Rossini. In contrast to earlier times, when he might have turned the material into a political grotesque , he did not want to write a political opera, according to Penderecki . The opera also contains no allusions to contemporary Poland.
According to the music dramaturge and casting director Christian Carlstedt in the Bertelsmann Opernführer "the disarming harmlessness of the music from the spirit of Rossini points to the dangerous personal union of banality and malice".
Penderecki himself wrote: “In order to compose a comic opera, you really have to experience a lot and have a distance from it. You have to be able to laugh at yourself, which you can't do at the age of 30. "
Origin and composition
The opera was commissioned by the Bavarian State Opera. The commission for the composition was given by Günther Rennert during his artistic management at the end of the 1960s, 23 years before the premiere . The opera was originally planned as a world premiere for the Schwetzingen Festival . Penderecki began composing as early as 1972, but could not find a suitable tonal language because he did not feel "mature" enough for the composition of an opera buffa, and left the composition for almost twenty years.
Three years before the premiere, Wolfgang Sawallisch , the then GMD of the Bavarian State Opera, came back to the composition commission, whereupon Penderecki, who now felt ready to compose an opera buffa, again looked at a suitable tonal language for the Ubu Rex . The composition was finally composed in the years 1990/91, mainly in the last six months before the premiere, with Penderecki sometimes composing for up to twelve hours a day. Some of the sheet music did not arrive until the rehearsals, the last pages of the score about three weeks before the premiere, in the case of page-by-page delivery.
The opera was published by Schott .
In composing, Penderecki freed himself from the previously felt compulsion of constantly having to compose anew and radically. Everything is allowed, everything is up-to-date, one no longer has to “follow an orthodox direction, one can start making music again instead of new discoveries of sound gags,” said Penderecki.
Orchestral line-up
- Woodwinds : a piccolo , two flutes (the second also piccolo ), two oboes (the second also English horn ), clarinet in Eb, two clarinets , a bass clarinet , two bassoons (the second also contrabassoon )
- Brass : two horns , two trumpets , two trombones , one tuba
- Timpani , percussion ( triangle tree , a pair of pools , six hand-played pool, two tom-toms , military drum, tenor drum, tambourine, bass drum with cymbals, five tom-toms , five timbales , bells , Crotalenbank , Temple blocks , tubular bells , church bells , whip , guiro , Saw , Wind machine , glockenspiel , marimbaphone , xylophone ), celesta
- Strings : 12 first violins , 12 second violins, nine violas , six cellos , two double basses
- Stage music : two flutes (2nd also piccolo ), two clarinets, two trumpets, two flugelhorns , two horns, two trombones, a tenor horn , a baritone horn , a helicon (or sousaphone ), a lyre , drums: military drum , stirring drum , bass drum with cymbal, cymbal drum
- Hall: two trumpets
Performance history
premiere
The opera premiered on July 8, 1991 at the Bavarian State Opera to mark the opening of the annual Munich Opera Festival. The director was the director of the Bavarian State Opera, August Everding . The furnishings came from the French artist and writer Roland Topor . Michael Boder, who is considered a specialist in modern and avant-garde works, was the musical director.
The cast of the premiere: Robert Tear (father Ubu), Doris Soffel (mother Ubu), Hermann Becht (border), Anita Bader , Claes H. Ahnsjö , Gerhard Auer , Fritz Uhl , Jan Zinkler , Rüdiger Trebes , David Schuster, Ulrich Köberle , Markus Eberhard (nine ruffians), Kieth Engen (King Wenzel), Pamela Coburn (Queen Rosamunde), Agnes Hahn-Pautz, Hong Mei, Christian Baumgärtel (sons of the king), Kieth Engen / Guido Götzen (Tsar) u. v. a.
The opera was received controversially by the press and the public, and it was received rather cautiously or critically. At the premiere, the composer and director had to accept not only friendly applause but also violent boos. Carlstedt, on the other hand, describes the premiere in the Bertelsmann Opernführer as a "theater event" in which the "bizarre world of images by the French caricaturist Roland Topor, directed by August Everdings, exactly met the spirit of the original".
Press reviews
For the ZEIT reviewer Claus Spahn , Ubu Rex was just a “routine great opera, frothy, talkative”, in which Penderecki “fell further behind everything he had written so far”, formally and compositionally. Penderecki borrowed "from opera history without lending it parodic sharpness", for example from Wagner's Dutch chorus or from Mussorgsky , in order to flirt with Russian folklore. The opera contains "Ensembles in brilliant Rossini style, which, however, only acted like skillful typesetting finger exercises".
Imre Fabian in the opera world saw Ubu Rex “as a kind of homage to Rossini”. The musical structure and the colouristic pseudo-quotations clearly show the virtuosity with which Penderecki has mastered his craft, but the "musical substance is too thin to serve as a model for a contemporary comic opera". Nevertheless, the opera contains “powerful, powerful theatrical and musical moments”, such as the tsar scene with the allusion to Mussorgsky's Boris Godunow or the battle picture and Ubus farewell at the end of the opera.
Marcello Santi in the Orpheus music magazine stated in Penderecki's opera buffa Ubu Rex a “ farce trimmed for musicals , a virtuously intellectualized etude with swipes at the diction with which Rossini conveyed comedy”. Penderecki's "way too tongue-in-cheek compositional language is unable to conjure up the horror of the wicked Ubu story".
Ursula Ehrensberger remarked in her first performance review in the specialist magazine Opernglas that “the expectations that Penderecki had as one of the few well-known composers of the modern age were disappointed”. Penderecki used, she continued, “mainly the stylistic device of parody or ironic alienation” with allusions to Wagner (“Dutchman”), Bach and Mussorgsky, but above all Rossini. In particular, she missed the "esprit, the ingenious motor skills and the sparkling melodies". Penderecki's music “basically stands on the spot, experiences no climaxes and no climaxes; the promised comedy remains absent except for a few moments (for example in Mother Ubus's coloratura parody). ”In the second part“ Penderecki's inspiration runs dry even to the point of a thin trickle ”.
The ensemble of singers who performed “extraordinary”, and especially the two main actors, Robert Tear and the “brilliant” Doris Soffel, whose “sovereign, vocal commitment” was highlighted, received very good reviews. The fact that Doris Soffel was able to prove her Rossini experience several times in the role of mother Ubu was also positively highlighted. The conductor Michael Boder, who "played precisely" with the orchestra and "bravely" but not necessarily successfully dealt with the intricacies of the score, was certified overall as having "impressive security" and "demanding musical interpretation", but not in all areas with a strong profile.
Work history
The Polish premiere (in German), which was scheduled for Penderecki's 60th birthday, took place at the Łódź Opera House in November 1993 , at the express request of the composer, who was not present at the premiere himself. The production, which was “almost in record time given the more than tense situation in the Polish theaters”, was enthusiastically received by the Polish audience despite the language barrier. In its implementation, it followed Penderecki's intentions, was not an inflated political parable, but offered theater with “dictatorship and genocide as a puppet theater”. The staging was done by the Polish theater and film director Lech Majewski , who translated "the emphatically rhythmic aspect of the score into pantomime-dance". The musical direction was the Polish conductor Antoni Wicherek (1929–2015). The well-known Polish tenor Dariusz Stachura (* 1962) as Crown Prince Bougrelas , who was later engaged at the Nuremberg Opera House at times, also belonged to the consistently Polish cast .
In October 2003 Ubu Rex was shown at the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw in a “spectacular” production by Krzysztof Warlikowski ; Jacek Kaspszyk directed the theater's choir and orchestra. The performance was also presented at a guest performance in London and recorded on CD .
On the occasion of Penderecki's 80th birthday, the 2013/14 season saw a new production of the opera at the Gdansk Baltic Opera, Opera Bałtycka, directed by the star Polish director Janusz Wiśniewski . In June 2015, the Danzig production was also shown at the Saar Music Festival at the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern and at the Saarland State Theater in Saarbrücken . The opera has not yet been played in Germany.
literature
libretto
- Krzysztof Penderecki: Ubu Rex . Opera buffa. Libretto by Jerzy Jarocki and Krzysztof Penderecki based on the play “Ubu Roi” by Alfred Jarry . Text book. Schott Music . Mainz 1991. ISBN 3-7957-3652-8 .
Secondary literature
- Amanda Holden (Ed.): The Viking Opera Guide. Viking, London / New York 1993, ISBN 0-670-81292-7
- Kurt Pahlen : The new opera lexicon. Seehamer, Weyarn 2000, page 510. ISBN 3-934058-58-2
- Curt A. Roesler and Siegmar Hohl: Bertelsmann Opera Guide. Works and composers . Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag Gütersloh / Munich 1995. Page 397. ISBN 3-577-10522-4
- Heinz Wagner: The great manual of the opera. 4th edition. Nikol, Hamburg 2006, page 951. ISBN 978-3-937872-38-4
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Note : The information on the number and occupation of the ruffians vary. In the libretto published by Schott Music 7 bullies are listed. Deviating from this, Heinz Wagner's Das große Handbuch der Oper lists a total of 9 bullies. The premiere cast also lists 9 ruffians.
- ↑ a b c Ubu Rex . Details of the libretto with details of the scoring and orchestral scoring. Official website of Schott Music . Retrieved April 8, 2020.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Work of the Week - Krzysztof Penderecki: Ubu Rex . Schott Music . Article dated June 15, 2015. Retrieved April 8, 2020.
- ↑ Note : The plot follows the plot summaries in the opera lexica by Bertelsmann and Heinz Wagner and the presentation by Schott Music under the heading “Work of the Week”. In addition, some passages of the plot description of the English Wikipedia version have been translated into German and adopted.
- ^ A b Arnold Whittall: Penderecki Ubu rex . In: Gramophone (2005). Retrieved April 9, 2020.
- ↑ a b c d e f g A new language for the opera buffa . Kryzstof Penderecki in conversation with Berhard [sic!] Schulz at the world premiere of his “Ubu Rex” in Munich. In: Orpheus . Festival special edition October / November 1991. Pages 69–70. Note: The conversation dates the composition for the music for the puppet theater to 1952. However, this is likely to be a misprint. What is meant is probably 1962. This also agrees with the description in The Viking Opera Guide , which gives 1963 as the year.
- ↑ a b c Amanda Holden (Ed.): The Viking Opera Guide. Viking, London / New York 1993, page 762. ISBN 0-670-81292-7 .
- ^ A b c John Rockwell: Review / Opera; Long-Delayed Munich Premiere: 'Ubu Rex' From Penderecki . In: New York Times, July 8, 1991. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Wolf-Eberhard von Lewinski : On the difficulty of writing cheerful, modern music. Conversation with Krzysztof Penderecki on the occasion of the world premiere of his Opera buffa Ubu Rex in Munich . In: Opera world . September 1991 edition, pages 9-10.
- ^ A b c Christian Carlstedt: Ubu Rex . In: Curt A. Roesler and Siegmar Hohl: Bertelsmann Opernfüher. Works and composers . Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag Gütersloh / Munich 1995. Page 397. ISBN 3-577-10522-4 .
- ↑ a b Krzysztof Penderecki (1933-2020): Ubu Rex. General information about the opera . Klassika.com. Retrieved April 8, 2020.
- ↑ a b c d e f Marcello Santi: Munich Opera Festival: Klimbim des Horens . In: Orpheus . Festival special edition October / November 1991. page 69.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i U. Ehrensberger: MUNICH OPERA FESTIVAL: UBU REX . First performance review. In: Opera glasses . Edition September 1991. Pages 24/25.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Claus Spahn : Opera in Munich: Penderecki's "Ubu Rex" premiered: a little bit piggy . In: ZEIT of July 8, 1991. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
- ^ Ubu Rex (1990–1991): Opera buffa en deux actes . Details about the opera with details of the line-up and orchestral line-up (French). Official website IRCAM . Retrieved April 8, 2020.
- ↑ a b c d e Imre Fabian : School of fluency or a festival for Roland Topor . Krzysztof Penderecki's "Ubu Rex" was premiered in the Munich National Theater . In: Opera world . September 1991 edition, pages 18-19.
- ^ Kurt Pahlen : The new opera lexicon. Seehamer, Weyarn 2000, page 510. ISBN 3-934058-58-2 .
- ^ A b c d e Carl H. Hiller: Resounding success . Performance review. In: Opera world . Edition February 1994. page 52
- ↑ UBU REX . Occupation. Official website of Teatr Wielki (Łódź) . Retrieved April 8, 2020.
- ↑ Ubu Rex . Production details and contributors. Official website of Teatr Wielki . Retrieved April 8, 2020.
- ↑ a b c Karin Coper: Profound Grotesque . Performance review at Opernnetz.de. Retrieved April 8, 2020.