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Seine Nixe kehrt zurück - Deutsche Oper Berlin

Questions for ... Detlev Glanert

His mermaid returns

The composer Detlev Glanert wrote his opera OCEANE for the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Now it is revived.

The world premiere of OCEANE in 2019 was a great success. How do you view the work now, across a distance of three years?
Actually, OCEANE is still very much alive in my mind – presumably because corona has so far prevented the new productions scheduled elsewhere from happening, and the revival at the Deutsche Oper was also postponed. I feel much more estranged from older pieces: when I saw a production of my opera LEYLA UND MEDJNUN, written in 1988, in Vienna a while ago, I was astonished at how frightfully bad I was at the time – but also how frightfully good.

Do you occasionally have an impulse to change your compositions after the fact?
The truth is that I incorporate the experiences of the rehearsal period after every world premiere. Every singer is different, so I find it important to offer alternatives, making it easier for the performers to own their roles. These changes, however, are completed in the year following the premiere. 

Do your works written since the beginning of corona bear any trace of the experiences of this time?
First and foremost, corona made me enormously sad. At times, this frustration with the situation and the feeling of having been silenced meant that I was hardly able to work. The compositions themselves, however, were hardly affected. Works such as the opera I am currently writing for Dresden had been conceived far before corona. Yet there is one exception: the Concertgebouw Orkest in Amsterdam asked me whether I would write an orchestral song for them. That was a nice bit of consolation for me during the lockdown. I set the poem “Der Einsiedler” by Eichendorff, which reflected my mood and outlook. One might say that was my musical contribution to the coronavirus era.

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04
DEC

Adventskalender im Foyer: Das 4. Fensterchen

Today in the Rang-Foyer on the right: ‘Liederkreis op.39 by Robert Schumann’
with Kieran Barrel (tenor) and Pauli Jämsä (piano),
5 p.m. / Rang-Foyer on the right
Duration: approx. 25 minutes / Free

This afternoon, as part of the Advent calendar, our ensemble member Kieran Carrel (tenor) and pianist Pauli Jämsä will enchant us with one of Robert Schumann's most important song cycles, the ‘Liederkreis op.39’. This cycle by Schumann consists of twelve settings of poems by Joseph von Eichendorff. It was written in 1840, which also went down in Robert Schumann's biography as his ‘song year’. During that year, he composed about half of his entire song oeuvre. The twelve poems tell a story that ranges from loneliness and melancholy to sweeping descriptions of nature – as in the popular song ‘Mondnacht’ (Moonlit Night) – and on to romantic declarations of love. Schumann also referred to the work as his ‘probably most romantic’ and, with a strong autobiographical motivation, reflects the difficulties that he and his future wife Clara Wieck had to endure in their fight for marriage. However, against the will of his future father-in-law and after a long legal process, there was a positive turn of events, which is reflected not least in the abruptly joyful conclusion in the ‘Frühlingsnacht' (Spring Night) of the ‘Liederkreis Op.39’ with the jubilant words ‘She is yours!’

Robert Schumann [1810 – 1856]
Liederkreis after Joseph Freiherrn von Eichendorff op. 39
1. In der Fremde – 2. Intermezzo – 3. Waldesgespräch – 4. Die Stille – 5. Mondnacht – 6. Schöne Fremde – 7. Auf einer Burg – 8. In der Fremde – 9. Wehmuth – 10. Zwielicht – 11. Im Walde – 12. Frühlingsnacht

The German-British tenor Kieran Carrel is an ensemble member at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where this season he can be heard as Tamino / MAGIC FLUTE, Don Ottavio / DON GIOVANNI, Count Almaviva / BARBER OF SEVILLE, Narraboth / SALOME and Erik / FLYING DUTCHMAN, among other roles. Concert engagements in the current season include performances with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under Vladimir Jurowski at the Berlin Philharmonie, with Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations at the Philharmonie Paris and at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam with Mendelssohn's ‘Lobgesang’ and the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest under Diego Fasolis. As a sought-after song recitalist, he is a regular guest at concert halls such as the Wigmore Hall, the Pierre Boulez Saal, the Heidelberger Frühling and the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg with pianists such as Sir András Schiff, Graham Johnson, Malcolm Martineau, Kristian Bezuidenhout and Hartmut Höll. Kieran Carrel studied with Christoph Prégardien and at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Pauli Jämsä, a pianist from Finland, is the director of studies at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and has won several international piano and chamber music competitions. His diverse concert activities have taken him as a soloist, chamber musician and song accompanist to stages throughout Europe, Japan, Taiwan, Argentina, Palestine, Israel and the USA. He has performed at the Wiener Musikverein, the Gulbenkian Center (Lisbon), the Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires) and the Izumi Hall (Osaka), among others. He has performed at festivals in Cully, Prades, Florence, Tainan, Helsinki and Gaming, among others. His passion for opera has led him to work with many renowned singers and conductors. Before being appointed as director of studies at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, he worked as a director of studies at the Bonn Opera and as a solo repetiteur at the Graz Opera.