The Alcestiad Die Alkestiade | |
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Opera by Louise Talma | |
Librettist | Thornton Wilder |
Language |
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Based on | Wilder's play |
Premiere |
The Alcestiad is an opera in three acts by Louise Talma to a libretto that Thornton Wilder wrote based on his 1955 play of the same name. It premiered in German as Die Alkestiade at the Oper Frankfurt on 1 March 1962. It was the first full-length opera by an American woman staged at a major European opera house. [1]
The American composer Louise Talma collaborated with Thornton Wilder, who created the libretto based on his 1955 play The Alcestiad: Or, a Life in the Sun (1955) which was in turn based on Alcestis by Euripides. [2] It was Wilder's idea to set the plot to music and approach Talma. She delivered sketches already in 1955, which Wilder approved. [2] Talma composed the work in three acts and used serial composition techniques. [1] [3]
Wilder managed to interest Harry Buckwitz of the Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt in the world premiere. Wilder, who was awarded the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels (peace prize of the German book trade) in 1957, was well received in Germany. The opera premiered on 1 March 1962 at the Oper Frankfurt, in a German version Die Alkestiade by Herberth Herlischka. It was directed by Harry Buckwitz, and conducted by Wolfgang Rennert. [1] [2] [4] It was the first full-length opera by an American woman staged at a major European opera house. [1] [5] The first performance was not critically acclaimed, [2] but nevertheless covered by the international press, [1] including The New York Times and the Salzburger Nachrichten . [3] Critics from the FAZ and the Los Angeles Times wrote that, while the music was skillfully crafted, the libretto was "too strong" for music. [3] The music was described as influenced by Schoenberg, Honegger and Stravinsky, with "harsh brass dissonances and shattering percussion effects". [3]
The opera remained Talma's only composition for the stage. [3] : 155
Role | Voice type [1] | Premiere cast, 1 March 1962 [1] |
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Alkestis | soprano | Inge Borkh |
Aglaia (her servant) | mezzo-soprano | Rosl Zapf |
Admettos (her husband) | baritone | Ernst Gutstein |
Epimenes (their son) | baritone | Hans Wilbrink |
Tiresias | tenor | Max Lorenz |
Herkules | baritone | Leonardo Wolovsky |
Agis | bass | Peter Lagger |
Apollo | tenor | Richard Holm |
Alcestis or Alceste, was a princess in Greek mythology, known for her love of her husband. Her life story was told by pseudo-Apollodorus in his Bibliotheca, and a version of her death and return from the dead was also popularized in Euripides's tragedy Alcestis.
Louise Juliette Talma was an American composer, academic, and pianist. After studies in New York and in France, piano with Isidor Philipp and composition with Nadia Boulanger, she focused on composition from 1935. She taught at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, and at Hunter College. Her opera The Alcestiad was the first full-scale opera by an American woman staged in Europe. She was the first woman in the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the first woman awarded the Sibelius Medal for Composition.
Harry Alfred Robert Kupfer was a German opera director and academic. A long-time director at the Komische Oper Berlin, he worked at major opera houses and at festivals internationally. Trained by Walter Felsenstein, he worked in the tradition of realistic directing. At the Bayreuth Festival, he staged Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer in 1978 and Der Ring des Nibelungen in 1988. At the Salzburg Festival, he directed the premiere of Penderecki's Die schwarze Maske in 1986 and Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss in 2014.
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Udo Zimmermann was a German composer, musicologist, opera director, and conductor. He worked as a professor of composition, founded a centre for contemporary music in Dresden, and was director of the Leipzig Opera and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He directed a contemporary music series for the Bayerischer Rundfunk and a European centre of the arts in Hellerau. His operas, especially Weiße Rose, on a topic he set to music twice, have been performed internationally, and recorded.
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Wolfgang Rennert was a German conductor. He focused on opera, at the Oper Frankfurt, Staatsoper Berlin, Mannheim National Theatre and the Semperoper, among others. He premiered operas, such as Louise Talma's Die Alkestiade in Frankfurt, and Rainer Kunad's Sabellicus in East Berlin. Regarded as a specialist in Mozart, Wagner and Strauss, he was a guest conductor at international opera houses including the Royal Opera House in London, the San Francisco Opera and the Dallas Opera.
Bohumil Herlischka was a Czech opera director. After years at the National Theatre, he worked from 1957 predominantly in German opera houses, introducing a style later known as Regietheater. He directed several productions at the Oper Frankfurt and developed a close connection to the Deutsche Oper am Rhein where he staged operas by Leoš Janáček, presenting a cycle of six operas in the 1977–78 season. He staged Schoenberg's Moses und Aaron at the Hamburg State Opera, including a tour to Israel. He focused on rarely played works such as Meyerbeer's Le prophète at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and on contemporary opera such as Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and the world premiere of Alexander Goehr's Behold the Sun.
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Harry Buckwitz was a German actor, theatre director and theatre manager. He was general manager of the Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt from 1951 and 1967, where he was responsible for opera and plays, and initiated a new house for them after the formerly separate theatres had been destroyed in World War II. He is known for Brecht productions, in Frankfurt and at the Schauspielhaus Zürich from 1970 to 1977.
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