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German Premiere of Kurt Weill's The Firebrand of Florence at Staatsoperette Dresden

Oct. 02, 2013

German Premiere of Kurt Weill's <em>The Firebrand of Florence</em> at Staatsoperette Dresden

In a production opening on October 25, Kurt Weill’s 1945 Broadway operetta, The Firebrand of Florence, receives its German premiere and European stage premiere at the Staatsoperette Dresden. Directed by Holger Hauer and conducted by Andreas Schüller, Firebrand is performed in a new German translation by Roman Hinze, who previously translated Lady in the Dark for a highly successful production at Staatsoper Hannover in 2011.

Based on Edwin Justus Mayer's 1924 stage hit, The Firebrand, about the life of Benvenuto Cellini, Weill’s operetta reunited the composer with his lyricist for Lady in the Dark, Ira Gershwin. Despite a riveting opening scene, the original production was plagued by misguided casting and staging and ran little more than a month. Firebrand remained forgotten for many years, but a concert performance in 2000 by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sir Andrew Davis in London, followed by a BBC radio broadcast, led to the release of a complete CD recording of the score on the Capriccio label. Since the London performance, Firebrand has been heard in universally acclaimed concerts in Vienna, in Dessau at the Kurt Weill Fest, and in New York with the Collegiate Chorale and soloists Nathan Gunn, Anna Christy, and Victoria Clark.

A critical edition of the full score, edited by Joel Galand, is published by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music and European American Music Corporation as part of the Kurt Weill Edition.

For more information on the premiere, visit www.staatsoperette-dresden.de

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