Opera News

February 9, 2007

MUNICH — Reinhard Keiser’s Baroque opera “Fredegunda” had its premiere in Hamburg in 1715 and was the most performed opera at the “Oper am Gänsemarkt” for more than 20 years. But the opera has seldom seen the stage in modern times. Now, nearly 300 years after its premiere, the Theater Academy August Everding in Munich has put on a new production of the work. It is the first time Keiser’s opera is being performed in Munich.

Conductor Christoph Hammer and his Neue Hofkapelle München provide the music on period instruments. Director Tilman Knabes hopes that his new production will be the beginning of revived interest in the operas of this German composer who is best remembered today for his church music.

The complex baroque plot unfolds through five acts and has its basis in the various love relationships of the major characters. The complexity of the relationships creates the dramatic tension of the opera.

King Chilperich, the sixth century king of West France, loves Fredegunda, who has a secret relationship with Langerich. Chilperich is to marry Princess Gasuinde for reasons of state. But he is in love with his ambitious mistress Fredegunda who wants to become his queen. Fredgunda, brilliantly sung by Czech soprano Dora Pavlikova, also has a full battery of magical powers, which she employs to achieve her goal.

The opera “Fredegunda” is based on an earlier Italian work by librettist Francesco Silvani and composer Francesco Gasparini. It explores the politically instable relationships at the French court in the sixth century. Johann Ulrich von König wrote the German libretto, taking one single aria in Italian from his predecessor. For the young singers the score presents a challenge. In the case of soprano Dora Pavlikova from Prague, it was also a chance to explore her talent for – vocal techniques needed to sing baroque repertoire.

Pavlikova, like all of the singers in this production as well as some members of the production team are final-year students of Munich’s prestigious Theater Academy. But musical director Christoph Hammer, founder of the baroque ensemble, New Hofkapelle Munich, was closely involved in working with the singers to achieve what he believes is the correct baroque sound.

Reinhard Keiser, who lived from 1679 to 1739 was a popular German composer who wrote more than 100 operas – most of which have been lost or survive only in fragments. He was a contemporary of both George Frideric Handel and Georg Philipp Telemann both of whom he met in Hamburg. In fact, Handel was strongly influenced by Keiser’s work.

Around 1697 Keiser settled in Hamburg where he became the composer in residence of the highly renowned Oper am Gänsemarkt – the predecessor of the Hamburg State Opera. It was largely due to Keiser that the opera, originally intended for the nobility, became a public institution and a commercially successful endeavor. Because his operas were intended for the general public, they deviated from the accepted norm of many baroque operas, especially those performed in Italy. Keiser’s operas were in German and rarely used castrati – male sopranos whose high voices were preserved by castration. He and his audience preferred natural voices.

In the early 18th century Hamburg was one of the most highly renowned centers for opera in Germany. But for Keiser the creative opera period came to an end in the 1720s. Three operas survive from the period between 1722 and 1734 but the height of his career as an opera composer had come to an end. From 1728 until his death in 1739 Keiser devoted himself largely to writing church music. Perhaps now, through the efforts of Munich’s Theater Academy, his opera works will find their way back into the repertoire of Europe’s opera houses.

© Mariana Schroeder

Share This

This entry was posted on Friday, April 20th, 2007 at 6:39 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.