Colonel Chabert
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Fri | 26.03.10 | 19.30 h Premiere Tragic opera, adapted from La Comtesse à deux maris by Honoré de Balzac.
Libretto by Hermann Wolfgang von Waltershausen First performed 18th January 1912 in Frankfurt am Main Concert-version premiere at the Deutsche Oper Berlin 26th March 2010 Deutsche Oper Berlin
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 Ticket: 26-84 €
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Conductor: Jacques Lacombe
Scenic plan: Bernd Damovsky
Dramaturge: Andreas K. W. Meyer
Count Chabert: Bo Skovhus
Count Ferraud: Raymond Very
Rosine: Manuela Uhl
Derville: Simon Pauly
Godeschal: Stephen Bronk
Boucard: Paul Kaufmann
Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin
“Von Waltershausen’s opera COLONEL CHABERT was performed this evening for the first time in England at Covent Garden. All went smoothly, and it was received warmly, if not enthusiastically, by a very numerous audience. The critics have welcomed the opera as sincere and accomplished, with moments of strong feeling...” This account appeared on 25 April 1913 in the New York Times, only one day after the premiere, which had been so successful, of Hermann Wolfgang von Waltershausen’s opera COLONEL CHABERT at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden.
After its first performance on 18 January 1912 this tragic opera commenced a triumph seldom experienced by a German composer of this period, apart from Richard Strauss. Within a very short time the opera could be seen in Munich, Labach, Strasbourg, Stockholm, Vienna, Basel, Brünn, Budapest, London, Prague and Riga − and in Berlin, too, people had an opportunity to see the opera in 1912, the year of its first performance, at the Kurfürstenoper in [today’s] Budapester Strasse.
La Transaction, Le Comte Chabert, La Comtesse à deux maris, Le Colonel Chabert: Honoré de Balzac’s highly emotional and deeply disturbing novel, about the Napoleonic Colonel Chabert who has supposedly come back from the dead and wants to take up his life again after having been missing for many years, appeared under three different titles. Waltershausen, as accomplished as a composer as he was as a writer, recognised the dramatic qualities of this material and wrote his own libretto, one of the most important contributions to musical realism in Germany.
His music immediately reached his public; Waltershausen was a popular composer over night − though, as a result of his many-sided talents, he has left only a comparatively small oevre behind him. His books, which include his four-volume Theory of Musical Style in Individual Examples (Musikalische Stillehre in Einzeldarstellungen) or his handbook The Education of a Conductor (Dirigentenerziehung), together with a volume of poems, bear witness to his talents, which also included enormous pianistic ability and a special talent for teaching.
Though of a clearly conservative mind, and often definitely close to the political right in his opinions, in 1933 Hermann von Waltershausen was driven from his post as Director of the Munich Academy of Music, after which he managed to survive as head of his own privately founded Practical College for Music Students, to which he added a College for Private Music Teachers. From the mid-1930s Waltershausen composed nothing more, though he still had nearly twenty years to live, nor did he try to promote any performances of his own works.
1933 was none other than the year in which COLONEL CHABERT was last performed at the opera house in the Bismarckstrasse. On 4 March, three days after the new Intendant, Max von Schilling, had taken office, this once so successful opera by an unreconciled non-adapter saw its last premiere at a major opera house. Though not persecuted for “racial” or political reasons, nor prohibited from exercising his profession, the career of Hermann Wolfgang von Waltershausen and his great home-coming opera finally ended when the National Socialists seized power.
“Good day, Colonel Chabert”, said Derville. “Not Chabert! Not Chabert! My name is Hyazinth. I am no longer a person; I am Number eight hundred and sixty four, Room Seven”, he added, looking at Derville timidly and with the fear of an old man in his second childhood. “I suppose you want to see the condemned man?” he asked after a moment of silence. “He is not married. He is happy!” “The poor chap”, said Godeschal. “Do you want some money to buy tobacco?” With all the naivety of a Parisian rascal, the colonel held both hands out greedily to each of the strangers. They gave him a twenty Franc piece; he thanked them with a dull look and said: “You’re fine boys.” Then he snapped into position, as if putting a rifle to his shoulder, aimed, and shouted, laughing: “Fire from both guns! Long live Napoleon!”And he described with his stick a fantastic arabesque in the air. [Honoré de Balzac]
After its first performance on 18 January 1912 this tragic opera commenced a triumph seldom experienced by a German composer of this period, apart from Richard Strauss. Within a very short time the opera could be seen in Munich, Labach, Strasbourg, Stockholm, Vienna, Basel, Brünn, Budapest, London, Prague and Riga − and in Berlin, too, people had an opportunity to see the opera in 1912, the year of its first performance, at the Kurfürstenoper in [today’s] Budapester Strasse.
La Transaction, Le Comte Chabert, La Comtesse à deux maris, Le Colonel Chabert: Honoré de Balzac’s highly emotional and deeply disturbing novel, about the Napoleonic Colonel Chabert who has supposedly come back from the dead and wants to take up his life again after having been missing for many years, appeared under three different titles. Waltershausen, as accomplished as a composer as he was as a writer, recognised the dramatic qualities of this material and wrote his own libretto, one of the most important contributions to musical realism in Germany.
His music immediately reached his public; Waltershausen was a popular composer over night − though, as a result of his many-sided talents, he has left only a comparatively small oevre behind him. His books, which include his four-volume Theory of Musical Style in Individual Examples (Musikalische Stillehre in Einzeldarstellungen) or his handbook The Education of a Conductor (Dirigentenerziehung), together with a volume of poems, bear witness to his talents, which also included enormous pianistic ability and a special talent for teaching.
Though of a clearly conservative mind, and often definitely close to the political right in his opinions, in 1933 Hermann von Waltershausen was driven from his post as Director of the Munich Academy of Music, after which he managed to survive as head of his own privately founded Practical College for Music Students, to which he added a College for Private Music Teachers. From the mid-1930s Waltershausen composed nothing more, though he still had nearly twenty years to live, nor did he try to promote any performances of his own works.
1933 was none other than the year in which COLONEL CHABERT was last performed at the opera house in the Bismarckstrasse. On 4 March, three days after the new Intendant, Max von Schilling, had taken office, this once so successful opera by an unreconciled non-adapter saw its last premiere at a major opera house. Though not persecuted for “racial” or political reasons, nor prohibited from exercising his profession, the career of Hermann Wolfgang von Waltershausen and his great home-coming opera finally ended when the National Socialists seized power.
“Good day, Colonel Chabert”, said Derville. “Not Chabert! Not Chabert! My name is Hyazinth. I am no longer a person; I am Number eight hundred and sixty four, Room Seven”, he added, looking at Derville timidly and with the fear of an old man in his second childhood. “I suppose you want to see the condemned man?” he asked after a moment of silence. “He is not married. He is happy!” “The poor chap”, said Godeschal. “Do you want some money to buy tobacco?” With all the naivety of a Parisian rascal, the colonel held both hands out greedily to each of the strangers. They gave him a twenty Franc piece; he thanked them with a dull look and said: “You’re fine boys.” Then he snapped into position, as if putting a rifle to his shoulder, aimed, and shouted, laughing: “Fire from both guns! Long live Napoleon!”And he described with his stick a fantastic arabesque in the air. [Honoré de Balzac]
