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Hans Werner Henze's The Bassarids Returns to the Salzburg Festival

Jul. 11, 2018

Hans Werner Henze's <em>The Bassarids</em> Returns to the Salzburg Festival

Hans Werner Henze's The Bassarids returns to the Salzburg Festival from July 20-August 30. The work received its world premiere in Salzburg in 1966. This new production is conducted by Kent Nagano and directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski. 

Of the work, Henze noted:

"The Bassarids which today I understand to a far greater degree and hold much dearer than when I was composing the work – a hectic and extraordinarily brief period of less than a year, in a form of protest lacking sufficient theoretical basis and in a state of utter loneliness – today I consider this to be my most important music theatre work…It is interesting and modern and still relevant for us and specifically addresses questions associated with the years around 1968: what is freedom and what is bondage? What is repression, what is revolt and what is revolution? This is all in fact displayed, insinuated and suggested by Euripides. The multiplicity and richness of relationships, the tangible sensual relationships between the ancient civilization of this Archaic period and our time is created in Auden’s text; Euripides is transposed into our time in a manner which could not have been better achieved with the best possible stage production of the original Greek play: through the constant manifestation of the distance to a different civilization from a time long past."


Listen to "The Stranger's Aria" from Henze's The Bassarids here:


("The Stranger's Aria" from The Bassarids/Hans Werner Henze/BBC Symphony Orchestra/
Alexander Young, tenor/Edward Downes, conductor)

To learn more about Hans Werner Henze, please visit schott-music.com.

Hans Werner Henze
The Bassarids (1964/1965, rev. 1992)
opera in one act 
libretto (En, Ger) by Wystan Hugh Auden and Chester Kallman
based on the play The Bacchae by Euripides
for coloratura soprano, mezzo soprano, alto, 2 tenors, 2 baritones, bass, chorus and actors 
4(2.bfl,3.pic,4.afl,pic).2.2ca.4(3,4.asax,4.Ebcl).bcl(asax,tsax).4(4.cbsn)-6.4(4.btpt).3.2-timp.8perc-2hp.cel.2pno-str
on stage: 4hn.2gtr.2mand.3kuhgl.
120’

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