Alexander von Zemlinsky - Eine Florentinische Tragodie

Alexander von Zemlinsky

Análise muito completa:
radix.net
(synopsis, Zemlinsky, Wilde)

Excertos:
small talk...
Oscar Wilde began to draft A Florentine Tragedy in 1893. He worked on the play during a visit to Italy the following spring, but soon after his arrest in April 1895 the manuscript vanished from his study. A copy was found amongst his posthumous papers, but it lacked the love-scene for Guido and Bianca with which the drama was evidently intended to open. At the world première, on 12 January 1906 in Berlin, Max Reinhardt prefaced the play with a serenade sung by Guido, while the first London performance, on 10 June 1906, opened with a stustitute scene written by Thomas Sturge Moore. Behind the polished neo-Shakespearean surface of Wilde's blank verse the reader catches an occasional blimpse of the author's own precarious situation. The young prince, extravagant, hedonist, egocentric, is clearly a portrayal of Wilde's lover, Alfred Lord Douglas; a slur on Guido's family (not inlcuded in the opera - "you are the gracious pillar of his house; the flower of a garden full of weeds" - almost certainly refers to the Marquess of Queensberry, against whom Wilde instigated the libel proceedings which were to prove his downfall."

Europa, início do século...
"European painters, writers, and dramatists of the early twentieth century drew frequent inspiration from Renaissance Italy. The cultural splendor and violent intrigue of its city-states suggested a Freudian mirror-image of the modern bourgeois metropolis: fifteenth- and sixteenth-centuiry Florence or Venice offered the historical costume-setting beloved of popular theater, while permitting the treatment of art and psychology as much as of battles and the lessons of political power. The first World War period saw the permieres, in successive years, of four significant operas that mark the climax of popular interest in such material: Schillings' Mona Lisa (1915), Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Violanta (1916), Zemlinsky's Eine florentinische Tragödie (1917) and, most extravagant of all, Schreker's Die Gezeichneten (1918)."

Wilde e Zemlinsky...
"Oscar Wilde's A Florentine Tragedy no doubt attracted Zemlinsky for a number of reasons. First, there was the example of Salome, which he had first conducted on 23 December 1910. This may have suggested the one-act form and the idea of dispensing with the kind of post-Wagnerian libretto that had marred Der Traumgörge. The opera certainly owes something to the claustrophobic chiaroscuro of Elektra and Salome, though its more immediate models may have been Schreker's Die Gezeichneten, Korngold's Violanta and Schilling's Mona Lisa, one of the principal motifs of which is a precursor of Zemlinsky's "death" motif. Eine florentinische Tragödie also has a personal dimension, for the plot mirrors the tragic events surrounding Mathilde Schoenberg's love affair with the painter Richard Gerstl, who committed suicide in 1908 after she had been persuaded to return to her husband. Zemlinsky composed most of the work in the bohemian spa of Königswart in the summer of 1915, completing the orchestration in June 1916. The first perfomance was conducted by Max von Schillings, the parts being created by Rudolf Ritter (Guido), Felix Fleischer (Simone) and Helene Wildbrunn (Bianca)."

---

gmn.com (biografia)
iclassics.com (biografia e discografia)
karadar.com (vida e obra)
www.biblio-net.com (em Italiano)
www.artis-quartett.at (em Alemão)

Eine Florentinische Tragodie (A Florentine Tragedy)
Opera in one act. 1916.

Libretto by the composer, after the work of the same name by Oscar Wilde, translated by M. Meyerfeld.
First performance at the Hoftheater, Stuttgart, on 30th January 1917.

The Florentine merchant Simone is suspicious of the young Prince Guido, who he suspects has cuckolded him. He offers Guido all he has in his house, after selling him a formal robe, and Guido demands Simone's wife, Bianca. Her husband sets her spinning and when he has left the room she expresses her hatred of him, wishing him dead, sentiments that he overhears, returning to speak of death and adultery. Simone again leaves Guido and Bianca together and they express their love for each other. As Guido is about to leave, Simone gives him his sword and seizing his own, fights against the thief who has stolen from him, eventually overpowering and strangling Guido. Bianca, now understanding the strength of her husband, is reconciled to him.

Teacher and perhaps once the lover of Alma Mahler, teacher also of Schoenberg, his friend and later his brother-in-law, Zemlinsky was an important figure in the musical world of Vienna, particularly in the earlier years of the 20th century. Symphonic in structure, Eine florentinische Tragödie (A Florentine Tragedy) starts with an orchestral overture and makes use of Wagnerian leit-motif techniques.


Expresso 27.03.2004 - Literatura na Ópera
Artigo para utilizadores registados.
...Nenhum dos textos foi escrito para ser representado - muito menos cantado. O Cavaleiro é uma das «Pequenas Tragédias» (1830) de Puchkin; a Tragédia é um fragmento duma peça de Wilde, perdida (ou roubada) quando este se encontrava preso. Talvez por isso as duas óperas sejam literalmente fiéis às tragédias que as inspiraram. Cada uma dura cerca de uma hora, mas são ambas horas suculentas, graças ao rico tratamento orquestral. (Como seria de esperar dum russo discípulo de Taneev e peregrino de Bayreuth, e dum austríaco a compor na esteira de Mahler e Strauss.) A reunião é oportuna, já que os dois são exactos contemporâneos: Rachmaninov (1873-1943) e Zemlinsky (1872-1942)...

Expresso 17.04.2004 - Contador de histórias
Artigo para utilizadores registados.
Paul Curran explica as suas opções no Teatro S. Carlos.

---

Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Março/Abril de 2004

Eine florentinische Tragödie
Alexander Zemlinsky
Ópera em um acto, com libreto do compositor, segundo A Florentine Tragedy de Oscar Wilde.

Intérpretes

Bianca
Fredrika Brillembourg

Guido
Jon Ketilsson

Simone
Johann-Verner Prein

Direcção musical
Jonathan Webb

Encenação
Paul Curran

Cenografia e figurinos
Kevin Knight

Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa

A estreia em Portugal de O Cavaleiro Avarento e Eine florentinische Tragödie oferece ao ouvinte dois compositores que, apesar de diferenças evidentes, não aderiram às correntes da vanguarda do início do século XX, nem são nomes muito conhecidos nas temporadas dos teatros de ópera.

Eine florentinische Tragödie, com música e libreto de Zemlinsky, é baseada na obra homónima de Oscar Wilde.
A acção começa com o príncipe de Florença em casa de Bianca. Quando Simone, mercador e marido de Bianca, entra no seu lar e se apercebe da estranha presença do Príncipe, toma-o como um cliente. Na verdade, Bianca nutre por Guido um amor forte e intenso, desprezando de certo modo os sentimentos de Simone por ela.
Após várias pistas e situações, Simone entende finalmente qual o motivo da presença do Príncipe e desafia-o para um duelo do qual sai vencedor, reconquistando assim a sua amada que reconhece a bravura do esposo.
A apresentação das duas óperas, de Rakhmaninov e Zemlinsky, representa acima de tudo uma oportunidade para ouvir, em estilos e linguagens diferentes, o fabuloso tratamento e unidade entre as partes instrumentais e vocais, traduzidas em momentos de inigualável beleza.