HANS WERNER HENZE - Schott Music

T
he setting is near Fehrbellin and Berlin in the
year 1675. The young Prince of Homburg experiences
one of his periodical somnambulistic
states in which he sees himself as the victor of the approaching
battle. Whilst still caught up in his dreams,
he misinterprets a joke made by the Elector and imagines
that the latter has brought him together with the
Elector’s niece Natalie with whom he is passionately
enamoured. In a state of bewilderment following his
rejection by Natalie, he omits to hear the Field Marshall’s
order not to intervene in the battle until the
Elector gives a specific command.
The Prince observes the progress of the battle and issues
an independent order to attack to his regiment.
The battle concludes with a glorious victory; the Elector
is however believed to have been killed in action.
While the Prince is assuring Natalie and the Electress
of his support, the Elector appears unexpectedly; his
horse had been shot under him in battle. He has the
Prince arrested on charges of insubordination.
The court martial sentences the Prince to death. There
are plans for Natalie to be given in marriage to the
King of Sweden as a security for peace. The Prince
pleads for mercy from the Electress and Natalie appeals
to the Elector for clemency. The Elector agrees
on one condition: if the Prince declares the judgement
to be unjust, he will be pardoned.
The Prince rejects this suggestion: he is prepared to
suffer for his error. The Elector asks the officers if they
still retain their respect for the Prince and the officers
give their unconditional affirmation. The Elector tears
up the death sentence document.
Disassociated from reality by his somnambulism, the
Prince awaits his death. He does not notice the Elector
and his court approaching, accompanied by Natalie
who crowns the Prince with a laurel wreath: his
dream has become reality.
Henze was inspired to compose the opera Der Prinz
von Homburg by Luchino Visconti with whom he had
collaborated on the ballet Maratona di Danza in 1957.
Particularly in the dream sequences, he is ingenious in
his utilisation of shimmering complex tonal textures
to create a highly impressive musical illustration of the
somnambulistic character of the Prince.
“
The Prince of Homburg, our cousin, the
Hamlet of the Mark Brandenburg, is the hero
of my new opera. […] It is quite plausible to abstract
the world which Kleist has created in his work beyond
the confines of its Prussian background. […]
The “Prince of Homburg” focuses on the glorification
of a dreamer, the destruction of the traditional
concept of a classical hero: the essence is the blind
and unimaginative application of laws and the glorification
of human benevolence whose comprehension
also strays into more profound and complex
areas than would be “normal” and permits a man to
find his place in the world despite being a dreamer
and sentimentalist, or maybe precisely because of
this. The concluding rallying cry “In Staub mit allen
Feinden Brandenburgs!” [Down with the foes of
Brandenburg!] in favour of this ideal nation in which
(according to Kleist) love, understanding, forgiveness
and mercy play such a substantial role, is also
a tilt at the rigidity and indolence of the “reason of
state” and forms a terrible dissonance to the cabinet
order issued by the prominent ruler of this promised
land of Brandenburg. [Henze is referring here to the
cabinet order issued on 1 August 1828 banning all
performances of the “Prinz von Homburg” in Brandenburg,
Editor’s note]. The caustic double meaning
hardly needs to be underlined: it continues to
manifest itself with all its menace even in our own
times.
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