ZEMLINKSY: Der Traumgörge – Soloists / Opernchor der Hochscule für Musik Köln / Gürzenich-Orchester Kölner Philharmoniker / James Conlon – EMI (2 CDs)

by | May 18, 2010 | Classical CD Reviews | 0 comments

ZEMLINKSY: Der Traumgörge – David Kuebler, tenor / Patricia Racette, soprano /  Susan Anthony, soprano / Iride Martinez, soprano  / Andreas Schmidt, bass-baritone / Opernchor der Hochscule für Musik Köln / Gürzenich-Orchester Kölner Philharmoniker / James Conlon – EMI 5099968767921 (2 discs), 72:55; 74:32 ****:

Like the composer himself, Alexander Zemlinsky’s Der Traumgörge  (“Görge the Dreamer”) had a run of bad luck in its lifetime. But unlike the composer – who died in relative obscurity in New York – the opera’s life has turned out happily, having been rescued from oblivion in 1980 and given a very successful premiere in Nuremburg that year. Then there is the present recording, taken from a live performance in Cologne in 1999. It proves the opera has legs even if, like many operas with admirable music, it is scuttled by its libretto.

Der Traumgörge  is Zemlinsky’s third opera, composed between 1904 and 1906 at the behest of Gustav Mahler, who was slated to premiere it at the Vienna Court Opera during 1907-1908 season. When Mahler resigned from the Opera in fall of 1907, his successor, Felix Weingartner, refused to perform Der Traumgörge. Zemlinsky, devastated by the rejection and believing the opera was not entirely stageworthy anyway, abandoned it. The score lay in the Vienna Opera library until it was discovered and performed 38 years after Zemlinsky’s death.

Any reworking of the opera should have started with the libretto of Leo Feld. Based on at least three different literary sources, it is less than a model of cohesion or coherence. These three sources are Heinrich Heine’s poem cycle Der arme Peter (“Poor Peter”), notably set to music by Schumann; the folktale Vom unsichtbaren Königreich (“From the Invisible Kingdom”); and the fin-de-siècle novel Der Katzensteg (“The Catwalk”) by Hermann Sudermann. Without access to the libretto and with only a synopsis to go on, I find the debts to Heine’s poem and the folktale to be the most obvious. Arme Peter supplies the potentially tragic beginning of the opera and some of the dramatis personae, while Vom unsichtbaren Königreich suggests the opera’s happy ending. The folktale even supplies the name of the opera and the character of its protagonist, since the hero of Vom unsichtbaren Königreich is a daydreamer known as Traumgörge.

Like others of Zemlinsky’s works, the opera has a large element of the autobiographical as well. Behind the story of Görge is Zemlinsky’s failed love affair with Alma Schindler, who was to become Alma Mahler. Like Görge, Zemlinksy was thought by Alma’s family to be an unworthy beau for Alma. The world-renowned Gustav Mahler was obviously a far better catch.

Like Heine’s Poor Peter, Görge is betrothed to a girl named Grete, who was in love with a lad named Hans. Hans has just returned from military service, and the townspeople, who tend to scoff at Görge, find Hans a much more suitable partner for Grete. Like the folktale’s Traumgörge, the conflicted Görge takes to conjuring up his own dream princess, who is real enough in Görge’s imagination to inspire him to forsake the village and his betrothed in search of his dream.

Three years later, Görge, disillusioned and given to drink, enters a distant village, where he falls for Gertraud, the daughter of a baron who’s been driven out because of alleged dabbling in witchcraft. Görge comforts Gertraud, who is on the verge of suicide, and pledges his love to her. Meanwhile, the incensed villagers set fire to Gertraud’s cottage. Defiantly, Görge leads his lover away to safety.

In an epilogue, the two return to Görge’s native village to claim his inheritance. The villagers now admire Görge and welcome the pair. At evening, Görge and his beloved go down to the brook where he used to do his daydreaming. (Shades of Jung’s collective unconscious.) In the twilight, Gertraud is transformed into the vision of Görge’s dream princess. The couple profess their love for each other, and the opera ends, according to the notes to this recording, “in a state of unbridled ecstasy.”

Maybe that’s true for note writer Erik Levi. If I want to experience an ecstatic fairytale ending, I’ll turn to the final pages of Rimsky’s The Snow Maiden (not to mention Tristan und Isolde!). In fact, this epilogue is the most unfortunate bit in the whole opera, and again, I think the reason is that Zemlinsky’s librettist let him down. After the folk atmosphere and fantasy of Görge’s dream world that the composer effectively conjures in the first act and the high drama of the second act, where the villagers descend on Gertraud’s cottage, this ending is flat and thoroughly uninvolving—plus it seems twice as long as it need be. (Other commentators, including Zemlinsky biographer Antony Beaumont, would probably take issue with me, but here stand I.) Perhaps magical staging would save the day. In the absence of further evidence, I doubt it.  However, as I say, the opera is certainly not without merit, and if Zemlinsky had revisited it, he might have crafted a work of repertory quality. The raw materials are clearly there.

As to the music, it reminds me in the early going of Humperdinck, with perhaps a touch of Richard Strauss in his fairytale vein (Der Rosenkavalier rather than Elektra) and more than a touch of the Schoenberg of Gurrelieder. The strongest music, in the final numbers of the second act, sounds more personal, less derivative. Interestingly, the brief orchestral prelude, whether consciously as a tribute to the presumptive first conductor or unconsciously, sounds like Mahler.

The flaws in the opera notwithstanding, we can thank James Conlon, a Zemlinsky specialist of long standing, and his dedicated principals for breathing life into the work. Special praise to David Kuebler and Patricia Racette, who invest the roles of Görge and Gertraud with tender emotion. The other chief roles are well sung and characterized too. The lesser roles are competently handled, but the gravelly-voiced Miller of Zelotes Edmund Tolliver is pretty hard to take. Unfortunately, he again turns up in Act Two as the rebellious villager Mathes.

This is apparently a live recording of a concert performance of the opera, so there are no stage noises or audience noises, for that matter, yet the sound is nicely atmospheric. If opera at the turn of the century interests you at all, try Der Traumgörge. I can’t say you’ll be disappointed.

– Lee Passarella

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