Contribution selected by Oper Leipzig

A single act opera / Monodrama

»Herzog Blaubarts Burg« (»Duke Bluebeard’s Castle«) blazes its way directly into the blackest depths of a deeply lone, lascivious, fascinating and destructive man. In »Erwartung« (»Expectation«) a woman suffers futile hopes, affectionate memories and bitter disappointments. Both one-act plays are unique masterpieces of our century’s musical theatre. Created completely independent from each other, they proved themselves, more than eight decades after their first performances, as a conclusive present-day expression of oppressive alienation.

Béla Bartók, the most distinguished composer in Hungary’s musical history, transformed the »Bluebeard« epic into symbolic, poetic and deeply psychologic creation. Are perhaps the doors behind which Judith would love to glimpse, the metaphors for man’s heart chambers? Bluebeard opens them to her with the greatest reluctance and himself suffers over his inability to reveal his innermost feelings to the woman.

In »Expectation« a woman searches for her lover who had left her. She finds him dead in the forest – or is that simply a figment of her imagination? Arnold Schönberg, Austrian by birth and whose grave stone stands in America, is one of the most important representatives of twelve-tone music.

Udo Zimmermann is one of the most important composer of our age. As an internationally bespoken conductor, he was called upon to direct, amongst others, the Wiener Symphoniker, the Berliner Philharmonische Orchester, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, and the orchestras in the operas of Vienna, Hamburg, München and Bonn. In 1990 he was appointed as director of the Oper Leipzig. As to Peter Konwitschny; much sought after, he is also one of Germany’s most controversial opera producers.

»Admittedly the double-feature performance was well-suited to attract positive attention to Leipzig’s opera and its daring concept … Konwitschny did … became serious about the idea of play-linking, in so far as that he at least suggested, a virtually continuous plot is possible … In its suspense and totality the evening was both gripping and encouraging« (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 09.09.1992).