Bard SummerScape 2007: Zemlinsky’s Two One-Act Operas A Florentine Tragedy and The Dwarf

Alexander von Zemlinsky: Two One-Act Operas
Sung in German with English supertitles
A FLORENTINE TRAGEDY
(Eine Florentinische Tragödie) Libretto by the composer, after the work of the same name by Oscar Wilde, translated by M. Meverfeld
THE DWARF
(Der Zwerg)
Libretto by Georg Klaren, after Oscar Wilde’s story The Birthday of the Infanta
American Symphony Orchestra,
     conducted by Leon Botstein, music director
Directed by Olivier Tambosi
McDermott & McGough, set and costume designers
Robert Wierzel, lighting designer
Warren Adams, choreographer

Diminutive and rather notoriously ugly, Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871–1942) exists as a double footnote to the mainstream history of music: he was Schoenberg’s teacher (and later brother-in-law), and his pupil and lover Alma Schindler left him to marry the more successful Gustav Mahler. Nevertheless, as a composer and conductor Zemlinsky was an important figure in fin-de-siècle Vienna.
Of his eight operas, two were based on works by Oscar Wilde, and Zemlinsky seemed drawn to both as expressions of grief over his anguished love life. Eine Florentinische Tragödie (1914–16) is a story of a merchant who comes home to find his wife in the arms of a prince, whom he strangles; Der Zwerg (1919–1921) tells of a princess who makes a dwarf dance at her birthday party and then cruelly spurns his naïve advances. These one-act operas, which have never before been staged together in North America, merge the sardonic wit of Wilde with an opulent orchestration à la Richard Strauss. Directed by Olivier Tambosi, famed for his work with Neue Oper Wien, and featuring sets and costumes by McDermott & McGough, a team that incarnates a 19th-century aesthetic, these productions will demonstrate the dramatic qualities of one of the last great Romantics.

SOSNOFF THEATER
July 27, August 2 and 4 at 8 pm
July 29, August 5 at 3 pm
Tickets: $35, 55, 85
Thursday Performance: $25, 45, 75
OPERA TALK
With Leon Botstein
SOSNOFF THEATER
July 29 at 1:30 pm
Free and open to the public
Opera Talks are presented in memory of Sylvia Redlick Green.