September 2005 News Archive
Page last updated December 1 2005
Erwin Schulhoff’s opera Flammen (Plameny) to be staged in Vienna: conductor Bertrand de Billy (August 2006)
Erwin Schulhoff’s opera Flammen (Plameny) is to be staged in August 2006 in Vienna, at the Theater an der Wien, in a new production as part of the 2006 Vienna KlangBogen Festival.
The conductor will be Bertrand de Billy, with the Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien and the Arnold Schoenberg Choir (director: Erwin Ortner). Keith Warner will be the director, with scenery and costumes by Es Devlin. Lighting, which is an especially important part of the composer’s vision of the opera, will be in the hands of Wolfgang Göbbel. The role of Don Juan will be taken by the Dutch tenor Frank van Aken and La Morte by German mezzo Iris Vermillion (who sang the part in the Decca recording in the Entartete Musik series). The casting of the soprano role of Donna Anna is to be announced.
The date of the première is Monday 7th August 2006, at 8:00pm. Three other performances follow on 10th, 14th & 17th August. Telephone and on-line booking is possible. For details, please see the theatre web site www.theater-wien.at/. Bertrand de Billy’s web site is www.bertranddebilly.
com.
Can you help with details of previous performances?
Although Prague born Schulhoff’s first language was German, the libretto was by the Czech writer Karel Josef Beneš. The world première of Flammen was given under its Czech name Plameny, at the Zemské divadlo in Brno on 27th January 1932 under the baton of Zdeněk Chalabala. The late Vilém Tauský (former Vice-President of the Dvořák Society) was musical assistant: see this link. Naturally, on this occasion the opera was sung in Czech. There were no further performances during Schulhoff’s lifetime. Although writer and composer Max Brod had translated the libretto into German, the rise of the Nazis put an end to plans for a production in Berlin which would have been conducted by Erich Kleiber.
In recent years, the revival of interest in Schulhoff’s music has resulted in concert performances in Berlin (1994—linked with the Decca recording, which was a co-production with two other partners, Deutschlands Radio and Rundfunk Orchester und Chöre GmbH Berlin) and Amsterdam (2005 under Edo de Waart). Although a search through the index of the magazine Opera through the last 20 years and an internet search both suggested that the production in Vienna next year would be the first staging since the 1932 Brno performances, the Dvořák Society’s webmaster has now learned that this will not in fact be the case. Mr Michael Haas and Dr Albrecht Dümling have sent e-mails about a production at the Leipzig Opera in March 1995: and the webmaster has located written information to the effect that this production was revived in 1996 (January & February).
Mr Haas did not attend any performances of the 1975 Leipzig production. However, he understands that the composer Udo Zimmerman, who was at that time Intendant of the Leipzig Opera, either re-orchestrated Schulhoff’s opera or considerably reduced the size of the orchestra.
Both Mr Haas and Dr Dümling speak with some authority on this matter. Mr Haas www.coralfox.com produced the Decca “Entartete Musik” recording series. Dr Dümling is President of the society “musica reanimata” www.musica-reanimata.de, which has the purpose of integrating the works of composers persecuted by the Nazi regime into present-day musical culture.
The Dvořák Society’s webmaster would be very grateful to hear from anyone with further information about any other performances of Flammen (Plameny), whether staged or in concert. www.dvorak-society.org