Download a pdf of the UE newsletter. - Universal Edition

30
SCHREKER
At last, Irrelohe
It is thanks to Vienna Volksoper director
Rudolf Berger that first
Austrian production of Franz
Schreker's opera Irrelohe (premièred
in Cologne in 1924) has been
playing in Vienna since 16 October
2004 (dir.: Olivier Tambosi, c.: Dietfried
Bernet). Schreker was among
the most performed composers of
his day. Banned by the Nazis, his
music is now in the process of
being rediscovered.
And to rave reviews: One could listen
to these sounds until dizzy:
opalescent, running into one another,
seductive (Süddeutsche Zeitung,
Gerhard Persché); Illuminated
sound-theatre … the music is of
complex, abundantly dissonant and
daring harmony, possessed of its
own "grammar" between expressionism
and the modern. (Salzburger
reviews
Nachrichten, Heinz Rögl). At last,
Schreker! At
last, "Irrelohe" … a wildly glowing
elegy to expressionism which simultaneously
throws the doors wide
open to new territory (Wiener Zeitung,
Edwin Baumgartner).
From 15 Dec 2004 to 24 Apr 2005,
the Vienna Jewish Museum presents
the exhibition Franz Schreker:
Crossing Borders, Crossing Musical
Frontiers, which offers a look at musical
and operatic history at the
crossroads between Art Nouveau
and New Objectivity, between romanticism
and modernism.
On 25 Jan 2005, a concert at the RadioKulturhaus
will retrace Schreker's
life with a selection of his
works: the Vienna RSO, c. Peter Ruzicka
will play the Suite from "Der
Geburtstag der Infantin", Vom ewigen
Leben, Vorspiel zu einem
Drama et al.