after a play by August Strindberg –
translated from Swedish and arranged by the composer and Uwe Schendel
in German
Next Performances:
February 16, 18, 20, 23, 25, 27*
* sold out
at: 7.30 p.m.
up to: 9.00 p.m.
TicketsConductor: Daniel Hoyem-Cavazza
Director: Peter Pawlik
Set & Costume design: Cordelia Matthes
Lighting: Christian Weißkircher
Director Jakob Hummel, the old man: Hans Gröning
Arkenholz, a student: Alexander Mayr
A colonel: Brian Galliford
Amalie - called „The Mummy“, wife of the colonel: Karin Goltz
Miss Adele, her daughter: Cornelia Horak
Johansson, servant of Mr. Hummel: Ted Schmitz
Bengtsson, servant of the colonel: Andreas Jankowitsch
The dark lady, daughter of the death consul: Annette Schönmüller
A (female) cook, working for the colonel: Elisabeth Wolfbauer
The milk-girl, a vision: Fiona Hammerl, Ylva-Maj Rohsmann (alternierend)
The wife of the doorkeeper: Renate Schawitz
The death consul, murdered by Mr. Hummel: Gerhard Dominek
Baron Skanskorg, lover of Amalie: Ottwald John
Miss Holsteinkrona, has been engaged with Mr. Hummel: Susanne Cycha
Orchestra of Wiener Kammeroper
Aribert Reimann, born in Berlin in 1936, is one of leading contemporary composers (of operas). He is a staunch advocate of literary adaptations and rose to fame by setting to music numerous classics of world literature, such as Shakespeare’s “King Lear” or Kafka’s “The Castle”. Works by the Scandinavian author August Strindberg even served as a basis for two of his operas: “A Dream Play” (1965) and “The Ghost Sonata” (1984). In Reimann’s “Ghost Sonata”, where bourgeois lives are fatefully entwined in a universe apart, scarce means are wrought into an impressive texture of sound.
Modern operas are in a class by themselves: Whilst most modern libretti are a little more intelligent than those of the popular box-office favourites playing everywhere all the time, like, say, "Il Trovatore", the music, oh well… One thing we can definitely say in favour of "Il Trovatore" is that the music is pleasing to the ear. And this will hardly come to anyone's mind in the context of modern opera.
Intelligent libretto, difficult music. Not so incorrect if you have only four words to describe Aribert Reimann's opera "The Ghost Sonata", based on the eponymous drama by August Strindberg. The melodies, the phrases Reimann demands from the singers, do not please the ear. Full stop. They don't want to please the ear, and what is more: they don't have to.
Throughout his life and times as an opera composer, Reimann was always interested in those who were dangerously close to, or on the brink of, being committed to an institution for mentally deranged criminals, he loved the weirdoes, relished absurd situations. "King Lear" and "The Castle" are cases in point, "The Ghost Sonata" is another.
One can hardly imagine one of his characters singing something like "Di quella pira" or "Il balen del suo sorriso" (sorry for mentioning you again, poor "Trovatore"). Music seeking to do justice to those tormented souls can never be conventionally melodious or smooth. That it is almost magnetically attractive and spellbinding regardless, this is what we owe to Reimann's artistic genius – he invariably manages to express all facets of humankind, the good and not-so-good, in a touching way.
Peter Pawlik
Translation: Elizabeth Frank-Großebner