 
Heinrich Spängler
Helga Rabl-Stadler
Entführung
Masterpiece
Don Carlo
L'Upupa
The concerts
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Hans Werner Henze
L’UPUPA AND THE TRIUMPH OF FILIAL LOVE
In this work commissioned by the Salzburg Festival Hans Werner Henze, grand seigneur of contemporary composers, also tries his hand for the first time as librettist: the story is based on an ancient Arabian fairy tale.
Hans Werner Henze and Salzburg
Hans Werner Henze and Salzburg – this is an intensive
and exciting love affair and at the same time a fascinating chapter in
recent music history. In 1966, when Henze’s great one-act opera
The Bassarids, an original adaptation of The Bacchae by Euripides, was
given its world premiere in the Grosses Festspielhaus, Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt
wrote enthusiastically in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that Richard
Strauss had finally found a worthy successor! That was indeed no mean
compliment in view of the importance of the œuvre of Strauss –
one of the founders of the Festival – then as nowadays for Salzburg.
Rudolf Hradil, Venice,
Piazzetta, 2000
Where did Stuckenschmidt have his ears?
The fact that Henze did of course distance himself from this well-intended historical classification (“where did my friend Stuckenschmidt have his ears?”) made it clear on the other hand that the composer had absolutely no intention of simply allowing himself to be appropriated by the establishment and positioned in some kind of traditional line. Henze, the artistic and political non-conformist, was never predictable. As he avowed in his autobiography, published in 1996, he much preferred the views of an English critic who bluntly decried the music of his The Bassarids as “Strauss turned sour”…
Salzburg will experience a “new” Henze
In summer 2003 when Henze’s latest stage work L’Upupa oder
Der Triumph der Sohnesliebe (L’Upupa or the Triumph of Filial Love)
commissioned by the Festival is given its world premiere, the audience
will become acquainted with a “new” Henze – a composer,
who over almost forty years since the premiere of The Bassarids, has developed
in an astonishing way.
Henze, formerly a political activist and ideological front-line fighter,
who in 1968 with his Das Floss der Medusa caused an unprecedented scandal,
seems to have become milder, though certainly no less critical towards
current affairs.
An Arabian Fairy Tale
With his opera L’Upupa he is now continuing the series of stage works he began in 1990 with the alienated parable of Odysseus – Das verratene Meer transposed to Japan, and in 1995 embarked on a period of highly mature creativity with an opera again set in the mythological world of antiquity Venus und Adonis. One day this phase will possibly be described as Henze’s late style.
Henze’s first attempt at writing a libretto
Another remarkable feature about L’Upupa is that for his “German comedy in nine scenes” – this is the subtitle of the work – the 76-year-old composer has written the libretto, the first time he has ever done so. For his earlier works he was assisted by such renowned literati as Ingeborg Bachmann, Wystan Hugh Auden and Hans Magnus Enzensberger. Thus, like Wagner, he is consciously realising the unity in person of librettist and composer, something he had always aimed to achieve.
Sympathetically moulded
Henze had been preparing this step for a long time: already in 1999 he
had written his “Six Arabian Songs” for the tenor Ian Bostridge
which were also based on his own texts and free verse collages.
Henze’s commentary on these songs is also valid for the opera L’Upupa
which is closely related in subject matter and musical language.
“The terrain is west-eastern (in free adaptation of Goethe), but
the […] processes mentioned come from real life […] Creatures
from an alien world wanted to be staged and for this purpose they needed
the moulding hand of an artist with a sympathetic approach like me.”
Rudolf Hradil, Venice,
Schiffe vor San Marco, 2000
The sound of the Vienna Philharmonic
The world premiere in the Festival summer 2003 will bring things full circle: Christian Thielemann, for whom Henze has great admiration, will conduct the Vienna Philharmonic, the orchestra that played for the premiere of The Bassarids in 1966. Henze admitted that already at that time he had frequently had “their sound in my ears as I was composing”, and then when he really heard his music played by this superb orchestra, it meant for him “a joy such as I can never describe and also one I will never forget.” Now there is every reason to hope for a repetition of that experience.
Christian Wildhagen
Hans Werner Henze
L’Upupa and the Triumph of Filial Love
World premiere
Conductor Christian Thielemann
Stage director Dieter Dorn
Stage design and costumes Jürgen Rose
Lighting design Tobias Löffler
Chorus master Rupert Huber
Dramaturgy Hans-Joachim Ruckhäberle
Badi’at el-Hosn wal Dschamal Laura Aikin
The Demon Ian Bostridge
The Old Man Alfred Muff
Malik Hanna Schwarz
Dijab Günter Missenhardt
Al Kasim Matthias Goerne
Adschib Axel Köhler
Gharib Anton Scharinger
Vienna Philharmonic
Concert Association of the Vienna
State Opera Chorus
Kleines Festspielhaus
World premiere: 12 August 2003
Further performances
16 (3.00 p.m.), 20 and 26 August
(Performances begin at 8 p.m.
unless otherwise stated)
Tickets: € 45 / 65 / 90 / 135 / 195 / 270 / 315
Standing room tickets: € 15
Telephone: 0043 662 8045-500
Telefax: 0043 662 8045-555
E-mail: info@salzburgfestival.at