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Franz
Schubert / Karl Aage Rasmussen
Sakontala
- opera in two acts
World premiere
Wednesday October 4 2006
Stadthalle Metzingen
Sakontala:
Simone Nold
Duschmanta: Donát Havár
Durwasas: Detlef Roth
Madhavia: Konrad Jarnot
Kanna: Martin Snell
Amusina: Caroline Melzer
Priamwada: Stefanie Iranyi
Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen
Kammerchor Stuttgart
Speaker: Julia Stemberger
Conductor: Frieder Bernius
Producer: David Molnár
Read
more about the world premiere at:
http://www.herbstliche-musiktage.de/programm/3,1,1,4.lasso
Instrumentation
Sakontala: lyric soprano
Duschmanta: dramatic-lyric tenor
Durwasas: dramatic bass
Kanna: bass (á la Sarastro in Zauberflöte)
Madhawia: barytono (“Spiel-baryton”)
Choir: SATB 4/4/4/4 (minimum)
These singers also sing the following roles:
Amusina and Priamwada
(and Gautami, "Gespielinnen"):
mezzo-sopranoes
Two Demons: basses
Sarngarawa: bas-barytone
The Fisherman: bass (alt. bas-barytone)
Two "Häscher" (policemen):
tenor og bass
Two girls: mezzo-sopranoes (or altoes)
Meneka: soprano
Orchestra:
2 flutes
2 oboes
2 clarinets
2 bassoons
2 french horns
1 trombone
timpani
Strings, minimum 4/4/4/3/2 - or larger. |
The story is based on a drama by “the
Homer of India”, the most famous classical Oriental
poet Kalidasa.
Act One
At a holy place (actually the
foothills of the Himalayas) the people are making
sacrifices to the gods. The High Priest Kanna leads
his foster-daughter Sakontala to the altar. We learn
that King Duschmanta had lost his way during a hunt,
had met Sakontala and immediately fallen in love
with her and given her a ring as proof that he
wished to marry her. Since then Duschmanta has
returned to his palace. In an aria Sakontala
expresses her feelings.
In a wild gorge nearby, the holy man
Durwasas lives. He is furious that Sakontala, in her
transports of love, has not shown him due attention.
He calls down a curse upon her which will make
Duschmanta unable to recognize her. The scene
develops into a quintet: Sakontala’s women friends
intercede for her, but two demons persuade the
offended Durwasas not to retract his curse. However,
he does mitigate the curse: Duschmanta will
recognize Sakontala when she shows him the wedding
ring. But Durwasas knows that the demons will make
sure she soon loses the ring.
With her foster-father and retinue,
Sakontala presents herself at the court of King
Duschmanta. But the King – who is under the
influence of the demons – does not recognize her and
banishes her from his presence. She cannot show the
ring, for she has lost it while bathing in the
river. In despair she tries to convince the King,
begging him only to let her stay near him. But in
vain. To thunder and lightning, the gods carry her
away (she is herself half goddess, half human). From
the heavens we hear an invisible boys’ choir sing
Lieblos verstossen ohne erbarmen (‘Cast off
without love, without mercy’).
Act Two
Two officers of the law have arrested
a fisherman whom they have caught trying to sell a
costly ring with the King’s name engraved on it. The
fisherman confesses that he found the ring in the
belly of a fish. When the King sees the ring his
memory comes back. He releases and rewards the
fisherman, who immediately invites the two officers
to celebrate his good fortune with him, dancing and
drinking at a hostelry...
In a quartet with two of her friends
and her mother, Sakontala regains hope of being
united with Duschmanta. The subsequent buffo
scene presents the court jester Madhavia, who has
heard that the King is again planning a hunt.
Madhavia hates the hunts, and ironically mocks the
strenuous and dangerous sport that the King calls “recreation”.
From Madhavia, Sakontala’s friends hear about the
recovered ring, and that the King is now dismayed at
her disappearance.
Kanna’s confidante brings the King a
large painting of Sakontala – she herself is hidden
behind the large canvas. The gods have determined
that she must not see her beloved again until she
can be sure that the King really loves her. With the
concealed Sakontala, Duschmanta now sings a love
duet. The King is tormented by guilt, the chorus
fears for his sanity, he asks Sakontala and the gods
for forgiveness and Sakontala feels his love.
Convinced of the sincerity of the two young people,
the High Priest Kanna steps forth. In an aria he
teaches them the all-conquering power of the gods,
and finally he allows Sakontala to show herself to
the King. In a great choral finale the young lovers
fall into each other’s arms. |
About
Franz Schubert's opera "Sakontala"
During the autumn of 1820, Schubert started working
on a large-scale romantic opera in three acts (and
with partly spoken dialogue) for soloists, choir and
orchestra. The text was based on the classical poet
Kalidasa’s drama "Sakontala", and a friend of
Schubert (professor of physics Johann Phillip
Neumann) wrote the libretto. For unknown reasons
Schubert never completed the opera. In the standard
literature on Schubert this fragment is usually
referred to as a minor, totally incomplete torso.
During the summer of 2001 the Finnish "cultural
entrepreneur" Antti Sairanen decided to investigate
the possibility of "rescuing" one of Schubert's
numerous unfinished works for the stage by
attempting to produce a performable version. Among
his choices, "Sakontala" (because of the quality of
the original Kalidasa text) became a preferred item.
In
the spring of 2002 he contacted me with this general
idea, and we decided to have a closer look at the
Sakontala fragment. Sairanen managed to obtain a
copy of the fragment from the international Schubert
society in Tübingen. One of the ideas discussed was
to attempt a "rendering" of Schubert’s unfinished
music combined with new music composed by me -
accepting the inevitable stylistic "clash" as a
virtue.
To my amazement, however, the "fragment" proved to
consist of more than 400 pages of unknown music by
Schubert in his own hand. The fragment consisted of
pages with 16 staves, organised as an orchestral
score. Schubert had fully written and composed the
vocal parts with text. But only very rarely and
sporadically did he write accompaniment, hint at
orchestration or give harmonisation etc. Clearly he
was writing a kind of "shorthand" and intended to
fill in all the remaining music later. A few notes
here and there would do to support his memory. Some
measures remain totally empty. Approximately midway
in the work, however, he suddenly stopped composing,
never to resume the work. Possibly he had doubts
about the dramatic potential of the libretto.
Hardly any other great composer left so much music
unfinished as Schubert. Many hours of music by him
still collect dust in archives and libraries, and an
unknown number of manuscripts were never registered
or are still considered lost. With a strange twist
of luck - and through the persistent interest of
Antti Sairanen - Dr. Aigner, the intendant of the
Musiksammlung der Wiener Stadt-und Landesbibliothek
suddenly discovered the full Neumann libretto in an
antiquarian bookseller's and transferred this to a
generally readable form.
Slowly discarding the idea of "stylistic clash", I
realised that the part of the libretto which
Schubert finished made a dramaturgically meaningful
whole. Schubert’s fragment ends, strangely, with a
movement that resembles a "finale". By moving
certain scenes from the finished first act to the
unfinished second act a dramatic unity could be
obtained, creating an opera which would last about
two hours in performance.
The work to reconstruct the score would obviously be
time-consuming and require a rather unusual
combination of historical, theoretical and
compositional ability and insight. The
interpretation of Schubert’s writing (notably his
text in "Gothic" handwriting), the interpretation
and decoding of harmonic structure and the full
orchestration of the score did appear to me to be
possible, however. The aim was never to "compose
like Schubert", but to use his fragment as the sole
background for all technical and artistic decisions.
This is comparable for instance to Deryck Cooke's
reconstruction of the Mahler's 10th, or Anthony
Payne's recent reconstruction of Elgar's 3rd
Symphony. As will be understood, the work
constitutes a combination of scholarship, analysis
and artistic endeavour, but certainly mainly
focussed on the latter. The value of the fact that
the public thus may have access to almost two hours
of unknown music by Schubert needs no underlining.
Kalidasa is often referred to as "the Homer of
India" and is the most famous classical oriental
poet; a poet of major importance for Goethe, among
others. The text to Sakontala with its origins in a
literary masterpiece makes it unique in Schubert’s
oeuvre; practically all of the other libretti
composed by Schubert are second rate. The play has
tragic as well as comic elements, and Schubert’s
opera now and again brings Weber's "Freischütz" to
mind - though Schubert had no way of knowing about
this work composed almost exactly at the same time.
Karl Aage Rasmussen
February 2004 |
