Eugen Engel: Grete Minde - a late romantic opera of the 1920s on Deutschlandfunk Kultur Saturday night.
Opernbühne (Starts at 1805/1:05PM): Theater Magdeburg
Aufzeichnung vom 13.02.2022
Eugen Engel ,,Grete Minde" – Oper in drei Akten
Libretto von Hans Bodenstedt nach Theodor Fontanes gleichnamiger Novelle Uraufführung
Gerdt Minde – Marko Pantelić, Bariton
Trud Minde – Kristi Anna Isene, Sopran
Grete Minde – Raffaela Lintl, Sopran
Emerentz Zernitz – Jadwiga Postrożna, Mezzosopran
Valtin – Jonathan Winell, Tenor
Der alte Gigas – Paul Sketris, Bass
Peter Guntz – Johannes Stermann, Bass
Der Puppenspieler – Johannes Wollrab, Bariton
Der Hanswurst – Benjamin Lee, Tenor
Zenobia – Na'ama Shulman, Sopran
Die Domina – Karina Repova, Mezzosopran
Ein Wirt – Frank Heinrich, Bariton
Opernchor des Theaters Magdeburg
Magdeburgische Philharmonie
Leitung: Anna Skryleva (2 hrs., 55 min.)
Sounds interesting:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/14/holocaust-victims-opera-stored-for-years-in-trunk-gets-premiere-at-last
There's been some publicity about this opera on national radio too. It'll be interesting to find out exactly what the idiom is. The composer, who was a German Jew, was murdered at Sobibor Concentration Camp - hency the publicity.
https://www.jweekly.com/2022/02/07/rediscovered-in-a-basement-jewish-composers-prewar-opera-will-now-be-staged-in-germany/
Some songs by Engel certainly suggest an attractive idiom:
'Nach dem ersten Kuss' (=After the First Kiss): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in4B07sp-tc
'Herbstgefühl' (=Autumn Feeling): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzpsBMzOxtQ
'Geh!' (=Go!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbS1fkzMfDY
It would appear to be that rare thing, a full opera by a self-taught amateur composer – I have my doubts but I may well want to give it a listen.
'Self-taught' may not mean amateurish, of course. We'll see...
"that rare thing, a full opera by a self-taught amateur composer "
Like Joplin's Treemonisha, you mean ?
:D
Actually, I was referring to the discussion of whether there can be such a person as an amateur composer in connection with Albert Hurwit's Symphony about a month ago.
I'm no Joplin expert but I do know that he had music lessons from one Julius Weiss and that later, in 1897, he enrolled at George R. Smith College in Sedalia which offered a Bachelor of Arts in music. Apparently he studied piano and theory there.
Until we actually hear the opera we won't know. The songs are beautiful, though.
By the way, what formal musical education did Elgar have? Wasn't he largely self-taught? I can imagine someone born with genius being an auto-didact...
Raff was entirely self-taught, yet he ended up as Director of a prestigious conservatory and teaching the composition class - hardly an amateur. But we digress...
I agree that there's not much point in discussing the opera without having heard it in full. I'll be out tonight but I hope I'll be able to listen later. The songs
are beautiful, I agree. Interesting about Elgar.
I was simply reminded of Alan's statement in the Hurwit discussion:
Quotesurely it takes professional training to learn how to write music? Even those who are self-taught have to train themselves to do so.
That's where genius comes in.
QuoteEven those who are self-taught have to train themselves to do so.
That's exactly what self-taught geniuses do.
Hurwitt isn't that.
No, he's not. Now let's hear what Milde turns out to be.
Did anyone record this? Colin? PLEASE!
It's available to listen to on the Deutschlandfunk Kultur website (https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/oper19-febr-22-eugen-engel-grete-minde-theater-magdeburg-dlf-kultur-875a7ce8-100.html) and there's a download button as well: "Audio herunterladen", but I don't know if this works in every country.
Yes it does!
It does indeed. Pity about the singing - sounds sub-par to me, which is a huge shame. Provincial German opera houses almost always have excellent orchestras, but their problem is casting.
Theater Magdeburg also offers a video of young singers performing some of Engel's Lieder:
https://www.theater-magdeburg.de/spielplan/online/onlineformate/wo-die-liebe-endet-fangen-lieder-an/
Not quite the same thing as singing opera, especially heavily orchestrated late-romantic stuff. It's a widespread problem, of course - even the top opera houses have trouble casting good singers in this repertoire. Very frustrating.
Strangely, no comments about the opera itself.
Personally, I loved it!
It's a personal thing. I find it hard to listen to poorly sung opera - so, for example, I just won't collect obscure Donizetti operas if they're done by provincial Italian opera houses with sub-standard singers. For me, it takes away all the enjoyment in the same way as a poor soloist in a concerto would. And, as I've said, it's particularly difficult these days to cast the German repertoire properly, i.e. Wagner and his successors.
It's a chicken and egg situation. You don't judge the quality of the egg by the character of the chicken that produced it.
Thus, many operatic masterpieces failed at their first performances because of the inadequacy of the production e.g. La Traviata; Barber of Seville et al.
No, but the enjoyment of opera has to do with the quality of singing. I'm with critic Ralph Moore over at MusicWeb: his first consideration when judging opera recordings is the singers involved. So, for me, to listen even to an interesting unfamilar opera such as Grete Minde while having to suffer frayed tone, wobbles, screeches, etc. is a put-off from the word go.
I'm not judging the work itself - just expecting decent singing. It's no different from expecting decent orchestral playing in a symphony or a decent soloist in a concerto.
How do other members react to this opera?
I was pleasantly surprised. I didn't expect a masterpiece but had to concede that Engel managed to handle the big forces quite assuredly. They told us Engel began work around 1914 and finished the opera in 1932. I wouldn't claim that he developed a distinct voice of his own but he definitely wrote in the language of his time. Wagner laid the foundations. The score is largely throughcomposed and Engel uses the vocal lines in an expressive manner. Harmonically he remains grounded in late romantic tonality but sometimes stresses the boundaries in a Straussian expressionistic way. But I also hear more folk-like, popular elements and simpler melodic lines, esp. in the last act. Perhaps more Humperdinck than Strauss here.
These are my first subjective impressions so dont judge me too harshly. ;)
Sounds about right to me - thanks.
Just as a follow-up to this thread, I see that the July issue of Gramophone reviews the recent Orfeo 2-CD recording of the February 2022 performance. Interestingly in view of the comments above, it says that
This is likely to remain the work's only recording, and happily the Magdeburg forces, persuasively conducted by Anna Skryleva, do it proud. It's a fine achievement from an ensemble cast, with Raffaela Lintl's Grete a vivid, believable creation, and Zoltán Nyári an attractively sung Valtin. Kristi Anna Isene and Marko Pantelic´ are suitably unflinching as Trud and her husband, Gerdt. Among the other singers, Karina Repova stands out for her powerful and affecting Mother Superior.
The Orfeo album is now on Youtube, just like so many albums from the major recording companies.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nHQsR10gad4QIR091hMZwiKf5avThoA6w