White Rose (Zimmermann, 1967/68)

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Opera dates
Title: White Rose
Shape: Opera in eight pictures
Original language: German
Music: Udo Zimmermann
Libretto : Ingo Zimmermann
Premiere: Version 1: June 17, 1967
Version 2: October 6, 1968
Place of premiere: 1. Version: Opera studio of the Dresden University of Music (Small House of the Dresden State Theaters )
2. Version: Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater Schwerin
Playing time: approx. 1 ¾ hours
Place and time of the action: Munich-Stadelheim prison , February 22, 1943;
Flashbacks 1942–1943
people

White Rose is an opera with eight pictures by Udo Zimmermann (music) with a libretto by Ingo Zimmermann . The first version, entitled The White Rose , was premiered on June 17, 1967 in the opera studio of the Dresden University of Music . It was called “A piece for music theater” and consisted of six images. Zimmermann revised and expanded the opera for a performance on October 6 of the following year in Schwerin.

In 1986 Zimmermann wrote a chamber opera of the same name on the same theme (→ White Rose (Zimmermann, 1986) ).

action

The following table of contents is based on the descriptions in the opera guides by Sigrid Neef , Peter Czerny , Reclam and Heinz Wagner.

The Supreme Court sentenced the siblings Sophie and Hans Scholl to death for their leaflet campaign against fascist rule. They did not reveal the names of the other members of their resistance group. On February 22, 1943, both await the execution of the sentence in the Munich-Stadelheim prison.

1st picture. After an instrumental prelude, Sophie and Hans reflect on their lives and the beginnings of their resistance: "Everything is so free in me, [...] my heart beats against the unfeeling equilibrium of time."

Flashback. In May 1942, Hans received Sophie in Munich before starting her studies. You celebrate your birthday with other fellow students. Hans wants to protect his sister - but Professor Huber informs them that the students have been called up for military service on the Eastern Front. He hands Sophie a white rose: “This rose […] blooms in a very dark time. So we have to survive the time! ”Sophie is determined to continue the resistance:“ The shadows fall silently in the twilight of the approaching night ”.

2nd picture. On death row, Hans Scholl remembers his experiences on the Eastern Front: "For that day I was not forgotten."

Flashback. In the summer of 1942, Hans and his friend Schmorell observed at a Polish train station how starving people were being transported away with stars of David. Hans tries to feed a girl. But this insults him: “You are all murderers, murderers!” An SS guard shot him. The two students feel complicit.

3rd picture. Sophie also remembers: "I have to atone for this offense."

Flashback. Sophie works as an auxiliary nurse in the Munich University Clinic. There, mentally and physically disabled children are singled out for murder in the extermination camp. The senior physician admits that he did not correctly assess the fascist danger: "What I missed, I will atone for it". He joins the children. Sophie, who also feels guilty, decides to resist.

4th picture. In their cells, Sophie and Hans hold an imaginary conversation: "Daring to live for life."

Flashback. In November 1942, Hans and Schmorell were able to continue their studies in Munich. Schmorell draws his girlfriend Anett, but cannot concentrate properly. Scholl and Christoph Probst knock on the door with the agreed identification mark of their resistance group " White Rose ". After Anett, who knows nothing about the action, has withdrawn, the others begin to produce propaganda materials on a small matrix machine. Sophie appears with a leaflet that she had received in the classroom. She had recognized from the choice of words that it must have come from her brother. After Hans let her in on the action, Sophie asks to join the group: "We want to set an example!"

5th picture. In his cell, Hans worries about the future of the country: "Germany - live for you, shape your image, coming fatherland: a land of peace [...] and free!"

Flashback. At the beginning of February 1943, Dr. Falk Harnack , the younger brother of the communist resistance fighter Arvid Harnack , who was executed in December 1942, had a controversy with Huber about the future form of government. Huber prefers to ally with the old armed forces. Harnack, on the other hand, advocates communism. Hans notifies the two of the destruction of the German army near Stalingrad. He mourns the victims in a lament and urges them to overthrow the regime as soon as possible. Huber speaks out against violent measures.

6th picture. In a dream, Sophie sees herself ascending to a church with a child. Suddenly a crack opens up in the earth, but the child does not fall into it. The dream gives her hope that her death will not be in vain and that life will ultimately triumph over the tyrannical regime (vocalise with flute and string quartet accompaniment behind the scene).

Flashback. On February 18, 1943, the resistance group met at Hans. Huber criticizes the new leaflet. The other members reject his "appeal to strengthen the armed forces" because no progress is possible on the basis of militarism. Anett warns of the Gestapo, which has already surrounded the university buildings. Nevertheless, Hans, Sophie and Probst set out to hand out leaflets.

7th picture. Sophie and Hans are filled with pride that, despite their fears, as "witnesses of the truth" they have taken up the resistance against barbarism together.

Flashback A clergyman tells Hans in prison that more leaflets have been distributed. Han's joy about this is dampened when the clergyman tries to persuade him to denounce the other members of the resistance group in order to save Sophie's life. Hans refuses. He knows that Sophie would never commit such betrayal either.

8th picture. Immediately before the execution of the death sentence, Hans and Sophie hope: “Our rights will grow in the coming day. Where we end today will be a beginning tomorrow, a beginning for many. "

A few months after the siblings and Probst, Willi Graf , Schmorell and Huber are also executed.

layout

Each of the eight pictures is provided with a textual and musical "heading".

The short prelude, reminiscent of a funeral march, anticipates the musical material from the final scene.

The music of the Jewish girl in the second scene is reminiscent of that of the fish woman in Paul Dessau's opera The Condemnation of Lucullus. Both parts are composed for the same pitch (alto). In this picture as well as in the following one (Sophie's experience in the clinic), vocalises in an alto voice accompany the event. Later the resistance took up this "secret" song of the Jewish girl. In this way, “in an impressive, touching and opera-specific way, the concrete human motivation becomes comprehensible, why these German students dare their lives and resist”.

The fourth picture, in which Sophie joins the group, forms the center of the opera. It has the densest structure and connects different musical motifs as an "axis".

Although it also contains fictional elements, the opera is kept in the documentary style of the 1960s.

The opera's musical language dispenses with tonal elements. The music is polyphonic and characterized by “rhythmic diversity and an economical use of musical means”. In the Ariosi Zimmermann occasionally dispenses with an instrumental accompaniment.

Instrumentation

The opera requires a medium-sized orchestra with the following instruments:

Work history

The white rose from 1966/67 is Udo Zimmermann's first stage work. He wrote it at the age of 22, roughly the same age at which his protagonists, the siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, were executed. It was a commission from the Carl Maria von Weber Academy of Music in Dresden . The libretto came from his brother Ingo Zimmermann . You originally referred to the work as "A piece for musical theater". It was divided into six scenes with built-in reflective interludes. The work was performed for the first time on June 17, 1967 in the opera studio of the Dresden University of Music as a student production.

The authors soon found their solution no longer convincing. Therefore, they took up an offer from Reinhard Schaus , the opera director of the Mecklenburg State Theater in Schwerin , to revise and expand the work. They added two more pictures and now referred to the work as "Opera in eight pictures" with the title White Rose without the preceding specific article. The basic structure of the work remained unchanged: the actual action continues to take place in the flashbacks. The world premiere took place on October 6, 1968 in Schwerin. There were further performances in Greifswald, Halberstadt, Frankfurt / Oder, Stralsund, Görlitz and the Hochschule für Musik Weimar .

Another version was later made for the radio, which was also played on some stages.

In 1968 Zimmermann also used motif material from the opera in his music for strings.

Despite the undeniable musical qualities of the new version in particular, the texts and plot of the opera appear flat, constructed and instructive in retrospect. The composer himself remembered his first stage play as follows:

“It was a real early work, and it resulted in a kind of natural style; but when I look at it from a distance today, I find that many things seem more uniform than in the pieces I later wrote for the theater. The dramatic musical gesture is based on a clear series structure, which I persistently carried out. 'White Rose' is certainly not the best of my pieces, but somehow all of a piece. […] The piece cannot be grasped in terms of the laws of opera, but rather approaches the cantata or the oratorio. There were many productions, eight or nine in the GDR; one - in Frankfurt an der Oder - was held in a church without a stage set or decorations. This was most beneficial to the piece. Anyone who wants to turn it into a proper opera must fail because the piece cannot and does not want to be. "

- Udo Zimmermann, 1988

In 1986 Zimmermann made a third attempt to do justice to the subject. This chamber opera bears the same title, but has nothing in common in libretto and music with his first opera (→ Weisse Rose (Zimmermann, 1986) ).

Recordings

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k White Rose. In: Sigrid Neef : German Opera in the 20th Century - GDR 1949–1989. Lang, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-86032-011-4 , pp. 534-538.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f White Rose. In: Peter Czerny: Opera book. Henschelverlag Art and Society, Berlin 1981, pp. 492–494.
  3. ↑ White Rose. In: Reclam's Opernlexikon. Philipp Reclam jun., 2001. Digital Library, Volume 52, p. 2699.
  4. ↑ The white rose. In: Heinz Wagner: The great manual of the opera. 4th edition. Nikol, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-937872-38-4 , p. 1417.
  5. ↑ a b Ulrich Schreiber : Opera guide for advanced learners. 20th Century II. German and Italian Opera after 1945, France, Great Britain. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2005, ISBN 3-7618-1437-2 , pp. 172-175.
  6. ↑ Quoted from Sigrid Neef: Deutsche Oper im 20. Jahrhundert - DDR 1949–1989. P. 537.
  7. ↑ Wulf Konold : The white rose. In: Rudolf Kloiber , Wulf Konold, Robert Maschka: Handbuch der Oper. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag / Bärenreiter, 9th, expanded, revised edition 2002, ISBN 3-423-32526-7 , pp. 890–891.