Wallenstein (Weinberger)

Last updated April 22, 2019

Valdštejn is a Czech-language opera in six scenes by Jaromir Weinberger to a libretto by Miloš Kareš after Friedrich Schiller's Wallensteins Lager . The libretto was translated back into German by Max Brod for 1937 performance in Vienna. [1] The opera was performed in Vienna at the new Modernes Theater on the Schwarzenbergplatz, a year before the Anschluss and the composer's escape to America. [2]

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, physician, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with the already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. They frequently discussed issues concerning aesthetics, and Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works he left as sketches. This relationship and these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe challenge opponents of their philosophical vision.

Max Brod was a German-speaking Jewish Czech, later Israeli, author, composer, and journalist. Although he was a prolific writer in his own right, he is most famous as the friend and biographer of writer Franz Kafka. Kafka, who had named Brod as his literary executor, instructed him to burn his unpublished work upon the former's death, but he refused and had them published instead.

Schwarzenbergplatz is a square in Vienna, Austria. It is actually more like a small, open street than a square, and it runs between the Kärntner Ring section of the Ringstraße and Lothringerstraße. Travelling south, the street, Schwarzenbergstraße, becomes Schwarzenbergplatz after passing Kärntner Ring.

Recordings

Wallenstein Roman Trekel, Dagmar Schellenberger, Martina Welschenbach, Ralf Lukas, Daniel Kirch, ORF Symphonie Orchester, Cornelius Meister 2012 CPO 2017

Roman Trekel is a German operatic baritone and Lied-singer. He was awarded the title of Kammersänger in 2000.

Dagmar Schellenberger is a German operatic soprano with a large repertoire ranging from Bach to Wagner. She sings Blanche on the critically acclaimed DVD of the La Scala production of Francis Poulenc's opera Dialogues des Carmélites.

Cornelius Meister is a German conductor and pianist. His father, Konrad Meister, was a pianist and professor of piano at the Musikhochschule Hannover. His mother is also a piano teacher. His half-brother, Rudolf Meister, is also a pianist and is Rector of the Musikhochschule Mannheim.

Related Research Articles

Egon Joseph Wellesz was an Austrian, later British composer, teacher and musicologist, notable particularly in the field of Byzantine music.

The Deutsche Oper Berlin is an opera company located in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany. The resident building is the country's second largest opera house and also home to the Berlin State Ballet.

Emil von Reznicek Austrian late Romantic composer

Emil Nikolaus Joseph, Freiherr von Reznicek (4 May 1860, in Vienna – 2 August 1945, in Berlin) was an Austrian composer of Romanian-Czech ancestry..

Emanuel Schikaneder German actor and singer

Emanuel Schikaneder, born Johann Joseph Schickeneder, was a German impresario, dramatist, actor, singer, and composer. He wrote the libretto of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Magic Flute and was the builder of the Theater an der Wien. Peter Branscombe called him "one of the most talented theatre men of his era".

Jaromír Weinberger was a Czech born, naturalized American composer.

Schwanda the Bagpiper, written in 1926, is an opera in two acts, with music by Jaromír Weinberger to a Czech libretto by Miloš Kareš, based on the drama Strakonický dudák aneb Hody divých žen by Josef Kajetán Tyl. Its first performance was in Prague at the Czech National Opera on 27 April 1927; and the first German production followed, at Breslau on 16 December 1928. After that success, German-language productions proliferated around the world, with over 2000 performances taking place during the next decade. Aside from those in Germany and Austria, these included:

Paul Dessau was a German composer and conductor. He collaborated with Bertold Brecht and composed incidental music for his plays, and several operas based on them.

Manfred Gurlitt was a German opera composer and conductor. He studied composition with Engelbert Humperdinck and conducting with Karl Muck. He spent most of his career in Japan.

Paul Abraham was a Jewish-Hungarian composer of operettas, who scored major successes in the German-speaking world. His specialty - and own innovation - was the insertion of jazz interludes into operettas.

Fritz Löhner-Beda Austrian writer, librettist

Fritz Löhner-Beda, born Bedřich Löwy, was an Austrian librettist, lyricist and writer. Murdered in Auschwitz III Monowitz concentration camp and nearly forgotten, many of his songs and tunes remain popular up to today.

Albrecht von Wallenstein (1583–1634) was a Bohemian military leader and politician.

Wallenstein is the popular designation for a trilogy of dramas by German author Friedrich Schiller. It consists of the plays Wallenstein's Camp, a lengthy prologue, The Piccolomini, and Wallenstein's Death. Schiller himself also structured the trilogy into two parts, with Wallenstein I including Wallenstein's Camp and The Piccolomini, and Wallenstein II consisting of Wallenstein's Death. He completed the trilogy in 1799.

The Bride of Messina is a tragic opera in three acts, op. 18, by composer Zdeněk Fibich. The Czech language libretto by Otakar Hostinský is based on Friedrich Schiller's play Die Braut von Messina. Fibich’s most Wagnerian opera, he composed the work between 1882–1883 for the purposes of submitting it in an opera competition sponsored by the National Theatre in Prague. The opera won first prize in the 1883 competition and it premiered at the National Theatre on 28 March 1884. At its first presentation music critics responded with high praise to the work and it is now considered to be Fibich's masterpiece. However, the opera's morose story, melancholy scoring and astringent style have hindered it from gaining wide popularity.

The Schiller Theater is a theatre building in Berlin, Germany. It is located in the central Charlottenburg district at Bismarckstraße No. 110 near Ernst-Reuter-Platz.

Joseph Gregor was an Austrian writer, theatre historian and librettist.

Hermann Reutter was a German composer and pianist. He was born in Stuttgart. The compositions of Hermann Reutter are not well known, though his musical career was one of great excellence and long duration. Reutter was, at one time or another, a teacher, administrator, composer, recitalist and accompanist. His song output demonstrates a remarkable sensitivity to poetry and awesome musical originality. It also encompassed an amazing breadth of poetic sources; a variety of Russian poets, Rilke, Rückert, Lorca, Icelandic poems, Hölderlin, ancient Egyptian poems, Goethe, Sappho and Langston Hughes, amongst many others. Reutter was a member of the Nazi Party. He died in Heidenheim an der Brenz.

Carl Wilhelm August Blum was a German singer, librettist, stage actor, director, guitarist and opera and song composer. Philip J. Bone wrote that Blum was "a universal genius, uniting in one person the poet, the dramatist, composer, singer and performer." He was composer to the Court of the King of Prussia.

Prague German was the dialect of German spoken in Prague in what is now the Czech Republic. The written form of this dialect from the Luxembourg rule played an important role in the history of the German language for its balancing function between the written upper Austrian and southern German dialects and eastern Central dialects of central Germany, which later developed the spelling of Modern German writing (Hochdeutsch).

Richard Fall was an Austrian composer and conductor of Jewish descent. One of his most famous compositions is the popular Was machst du mit dem Knie lieber Hans.

References

↑ Solo Vocal Works on Jewish Themes: A Bibliography of Jewish Composers 0810861356 Kenneth Jaffe - 2011 - OPERA (Valdstein [Wallenstein], lib by Milos Kares—based on Friedrich Schiller's story, “Wallensteins Lager,” Germ trnsl by Max Brod — it is an allegory to Nazi resistance, 1936, publ Universal Ed 1937, ..
↑ Anti-Nazi publications: Die Pause - Page 76 1935 - Auf dem Schwarzenbergplatz (Lothringerstraße) ist eine neue Bühne entstanden, sie nennt sich „Modernes Theater“ und stellt ein umfangreiches Programm in Aussicht. Die Räume des ehemaligen Kunstladens Wawra sind dafür hergerichtet worden und Berzeviczy hat den Vorraum mit seinen zarten, farbigen Phantasien belegt. Nach dem begeisternden Mahler-Abend durch Scherchen ist der „Wallenstein“ von Jaromir Weinberger das zweite musikalische Ereignis dieser Saison.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Solo Vocal Works on Jewish Themes: A Bibliography of Jewish Composers 0810861356 Kenneth Jaffe - 2011 - OPERA (Valdstein [Wallenstein], lib by Milos Kares—based on Friedrich Schiller's story, “Wallensteins Lager,” Germ trnsl by Max Brod — it is an allegory to Nazi resistance, 1936, publ Universal Ed 1937, ..

[2] Anti-Nazi publications: Die Pause - Page 76 1935 - Auf dem Schwarzenbergplatz (Lothringerstraße) ist eine neue Bühne entstanden, sie nennt sich „Modernes Theater“ und stellt ein umfangreiches Programm in Aussicht. Die Räume des ehemaligen Kunstladens Wawra sind dafür hergerichtet worden und Berzeviczy hat den Vorraum mit seinen zarten, farbigen Phantasien belegt. Nach dem begeisternden Mahler-Abend durch Scherchen ist der „Wallenstein“ von Jaromir Weinberger das zweite musikalische Ereignis dieser Saison.