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Ernst Krenek's Der Diktator with the American Symphony Orchestra

Oct. 04, 2016

Ernst Krenek's <em>Der Diktator</em> with the American Symphony Orchestra

Ernst Krenek's one-act opera Der Diktator receives performances by the American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, at Carnegie Hall on October 19. The performance takes place as part of a double bill program entitled "Troubled Days of Peace" alongside Richard Strauss’s Friedenstag. 

With a libretto written by the composer himself, the opera, which is set at the “Grand Palace Hotel and Sanatorium” in Switzerland, was written and premiered during the critical moment between the end of World War I and the eruption of World War II. While not explicitly stated, the work is loosely based on the life of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and depicts the rise of an unnamed fascist dictator. In his program notes, Botstein explains the deeper significance of the work and the ASO’s performance:

This concert takes place on the eve of a momentous presidential election in the United States. That election will occur at a troubled and unstable moment, marked by discontent, an exceptional frustration with democratic politics, economic anxiety, mistrust, and sharp divisions …One can easily find similarities between the European populist embrace of anti-liberal and anti-democratic politics [of the mid-1930s] and the discourse that has surrounded the American presidential election ... By placing the story [of Der Diktator] in neutral Switzerland, [Krenek] sought to probe exclusively into the psychological attraction that Mussolini, and later Hitler and Franco—all “strongmen” who cultivated the cult of personality and power—had on an astonishingly large segment of their nation’s populace.

Botstein discusses the program during a Conductor’s Notes Q&A session preceding the performance in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage.

For more information on Ernst Krenek, visit universaledition.com. 

Ernst Krenek
Der Diktator (1926)
a tragic opera in 1 act
for two sopranos, tenor, baritone and 4 silent roles
2.2.2.2-1.1.1.0-timp.perc-str
35’

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