Flammen - Schedule, Program & Tickets
Flammen
Approximate duration: 2 hours 25 minutes, 1 break 20 minutes
Language: In Czech, subtitles in English, German
State Opera Choir
Orchestra of the State Opera
Dancers of the National Theater Opera Ballet conducted by Jiří Hejna
In the first decades of the 20th century, Prague was a truly multicultural city, where Czech and German artists inspired each other. German-language writer and translator Max Brod suggested to composer Erwin Schulhoff, also from Prague, that a new piece by Czech writer Karel Josef Beneš could form a good basis for the libretto of his new opera. Also because Beneš achieved international recognition with his psychological novels Uloupený život (Stolen Life) and Kouzelný dům (The Magic House), which were filmed at home and abroad, Schulhoff was fascinated by his unconventional retelling of the Don Juan legend . At that time he was influenced by late Impressionism and Expressionism, but like many other composers he was also fascinated by jazz and eager to experiment. All these inclinations are duly reflected in his only opera Flammen, which combines elements of opera, pantomime and tone poetry. After its premiere in Czech on January 27, 1932 in Brno, it was forgotten for decades. Interest in the piece only revived in the 1990s, when it was performed in Berlin as Flammen in concert on 16 April 1994, using Max Brod's German translation. In the same year the opera with the German text was published by Schott. The State Opera will stage the work with the original Czech libretto by K.J. Beneš.
Working on Flames, the creators could not have guessed that similar fates would befall them. Because of his involvement in the resistance movement against the Nazis, Beneš was sentenced to death, but the sentence was changed to imprisonment (1941–1945). Schulhoff did not live to see the end of the Second World War. Labeled as a “degenerate” (Jewish) artist, he was imprisoned in the Bavarian prison camp of Wülzburg, where he died of tuberculosis on August 18, 1942.
Subject to change.
Language: In Czech, subtitles in English, German
State Opera Choir
Orchestra of the State Opera
Dancers of the National Theater Opera Ballet conducted by Jiří Hejna
In the first decades of the 20th century, Prague was a truly multicultural city, where Czech and German artists inspired each other. German-language writer and translator Max Brod suggested to composer Erwin Schulhoff, also from Prague, that a new piece by Czech writer Karel Josef Beneš could form a good basis for the libretto of his new opera. Also because Beneš achieved international recognition with his psychological novels Uloupený život (Stolen Life) and Kouzelný dům (The Magic House), which were filmed at home and abroad, Schulhoff was fascinated by his unconventional retelling of the Don Juan legend . At that time he was influenced by late Impressionism and Expressionism, but like many other composers he was also fascinated by jazz and eager to experiment. All these inclinations are duly reflected in his only opera Flammen, which combines elements of opera, pantomime and tone poetry. After its premiere in Czech on January 27, 1932 in Brno, it was forgotten for decades. Interest in the piece only revived in the 1990s, when it was performed in Berlin as Flammen in concert on 16 April 1994, using Max Brod's German translation. In the same year the opera with the German text was published by Schott. The State Opera will stage the work with the original Czech libretto by K.J. Beneš.
Working on Flames, the creators could not have guessed that similar fates would befall them. Because of his involvement in the resistance movement against the Nazis, Beneš was sentenced to death, but the sentence was changed to imprisonment (1941–1945). Schulhoff did not live to see the end of the Second World War. Labeled as a “degenerate” (Jewish) artist, he was imprisoned in the Bavarian prison camp of Wülzburg, where he died of tuberculosis on August 18, 1942.
Subject to change.
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