L.A. Opera begins multi-year program of works Nazis termed 'degenerate'
For his first season as music director of Los Angeles Opera, James Conlon...put together [on Wednesday night] a special introduction to what he plans as the company's multi-year look at operas by composers the Nazis considered "degenerate" artists and wanted silenced. That project is called "Recovered Voices," and it is a passion for Conlon...
On a human-interest level, the semi-staged program couldn't help but fascinate. It included excerpts from works by Viktor Ullmann and Erwin Schulhoff, both of whom died in concentration camps. Erich Korngold, who was represented by two arias from "The Dead City," came to Hollywood and became the father of the symphonic soundtrack in the 1930s.
Ernst Krenek, composer of the jazz opera "Johnny Tunes Up," ended up in Palm Springs, a respected if neglected experimental electronic and 12-tone composer. Alexander Zemlinsky, whose hourlong one-act "A Florentine Tragedy" concluded the evening, didn't long survive his escape from occupied Vienna and died in New York in 1942.
History has in recent years warmed to Wednesday's persecuted composers...
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On a human-interest level, the semi-staged program couldn't help but fascinate. It included excerpts from works by Viktor Ullmann and Erwin Schulhoff, both of whom died in concentration camps. Erich Korngold, who was represented by two arias from "The Dead City," came to Hollywood and became the father of the symphonic soundtrack in the 1930s.
Ernst Krenek, composer of the jazz opera "Johnny Tunes Up," ended up in Palm Springs, a respected if neglected experimental electronic and 12-tone composer. Alexander Zemlinsky, whose hourlong one-act "A Florentine Tragedy" concluded the evening, didn't long survive his escape from occupied Vienna and died in New York in 1942.
History has in recent years warmed to Wednesday's persecuted composers...