The Los Angeles Opera's Music Director James Conlon is reviving operas banned by the Nazi regime via Recovered Voices: A Lost Generation's Long-Forgotten Masterpieces.
Tune to WRTI on Saturday, August 9 from 1:30 to 5 pm to hear two one-act operas: The Broken Jug, by Viktor Ullmann (at right), and The Dwarf, by Alexander Zemlinksy.
"We must now mitigate a great injustice by working to revive the music of those whose only 'fault' was that they were Jewish, or that they were opposed to or deemed offensive by an authoritarian regime."
-- James Conlon, LA Opera music director
The first fully-staged production of Recovered Voices will air on WRTI with two exceptional one-act operas. Alexander Zemlinsky based The Dwarf (Der Zwerg) on Oscar Wilde's tragic The Birthday of the Infanta. Viktor Ullmann's The Broken Jug (Der zerbrochene Krug) is taken from a farcical play by the Romantic German poet Heinrich von Kleist. Soon after Ullmann composed the opera he was sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp; he later died in Auschwitz. (Ullmann is pictured at right.)
Vivid imagery, supercharged emotions, and rich late-Romantic orchestral textures characterize these operas. You'll hear beguiling echoes of Mahler, Strauss and Wagner, but the overall effect is one of exciting musical discovery. James Conlon conducts.
"I believe that the spirit of this 'lost generation' now needs to be heard. The creativity of the first half of the 20th century is far richer than we think. Alongside Stravinsky, Strauss and other major and more fortunate figures, the varied voices of composers from Berlin, Vienna, Prague and Budapest, whether Jewish, dissident or immigrant, reveal much about the musical ferment of their time."--James Conlon, LA Opera Music Director
Saturday, August 9
1:30 to 3:50 pm
Los Angeles Opera
Viktor Ullmann: The Broken Jug
Alexander Zemlinsky: The Dwarf
James Conlon, conductor
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