The operas of Franz Schreker were extraordinarily popular in Germany during the Weimar Republic, and he is said to have been at one time the most-performed living German opera composer except for Richard Strauss. The rise of fascism put the brakes on his career (he was half-Jewish), and he died a broken man in 1934. Die Gezeichneten (The Stigmatized) was completed in 1918. The libretto, written by Schreker himself in full Expressionist-Decadent mode, lies somewhere between The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Stanley Kubrick's ...
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The operas of Franz Schreker were extraordinarily popular in Germany during the Weimar Republic, and he is said to have been at one time the most-performed living German opera composer except for Richard Strauss. The rise of fascism put the brakes on his career (he was half-Jewish), and he died a broken man in 1934. Die Gezeichneten (The Stigmatized) was completed in 1918. The libretto, written by Schreker himself in full Expressionist-Decadent mode, lies somewhere between The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, including as a plot element a grotto on a mysterious island where orgies are performed. Although the opera was frequently performed in Germany, this sort of thing was anathema in uptight America, and the 2010 Los Angeles Opera performance from which this album is drawn was the first of any Schreker opera in North America. Will it lead to a Schreker revival? Maybe. The opera's language is perhaps a step beyond Strauss, with bitonal passages and other almost-atonal...
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