Opera in times of war | Comedy on the Bridge

Friday 24 November 2023, 7.30 pm
Theater in der Bibrastraße, Würzburg, Germany

Bohuslav MARTINŮ: Comedy on the Bridge, H 247
Viktor ULLMANN: The Emperor of Atlantis

Students of the University of Music in Würzburg
University Symphony Orchestra
Musical direction: Andreas Hotz
Stage design: Katharina Thoma & Andreas Herold
Costumes: Irina Bartels
Overall management & direction: Katharina Thoma

Two chamber operas with unfortunately current war themes are on the opera school's program in the winter semester. The Comedy on the Bridge (1935) by Bohuslav Martinů treats the subject more as a farce: in the confusion of battlefields and guards, 5 people end up on a bridge and can't get away. Their everyday quarrels, reconciliations and eccentricities become trifling and void under artillery fire. After the danger of war has been overcome, there is a (questionable) happy ending.

In The Emperor of Atlantis by Viktor Ullmann, the topic of war is viewed from a much more philosophical perspective. After Emperor Overall has declared war of all against all, Death goes on strike. People can no longer die and therefore can no longer be saved from the most serious injuries, illness and old age. Only when the emperor is ready to sacrifice himself will humanity be redeemed. Ullmann wrote this work in the Theresienstadt ghetto in 1943, but its performance there was prohibited. Before his deportation to the Auschwitz concentration camp in October 1944, the composer was able to entrust the sheet music to fellow prisoners, and so this outstanding work and contemporary document was saved for posterity.

Both pieces move in an expanded major-minor tonality and work with ironic quotations: Martinů has parodies of military marches. Ullmann quotes alienated German songs and evokes the musical modernity of the interwar period (similar to Weil and Eisler). The colorful instrumentation is particularly attractive in both works.

Performances:
24 November 2023
25 November 2023
27 November 2023
28 November 2023
30 November 2023
01 December 2023

More information: https://hfm-wuerzburg.de/kalender/event/2023-11-24_1930/oper-in-zeiten-des-krieges
https://www.facebook.com/events/1421675788563628/1421679185229955/