© Luisa Greenfield 2010 (*1966) MING TSAO Die Geisterinsel Serenade Die Geisterinsel (2010 –2011) chamber opera Miranda: Tajana Raj mezzosporano based on works by William Shakespeare and Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg 50:18 Ensemble Gageego! Prospero: Claudio Otelli bass 1 Steine Fernando: Daniel Kluge tenor Cecilia Vallinder mezzosoprano 2 Blumen Caliban: Hans Kremer and speaking voices Kate McDermott clarinet Ragnar Arnberg 3 Tiefer ins Leben 14 Serenade (2012) 12:24 Stefan Merki bass clarinet Carolina Grinne oboe/English horn 4 Schrecken, die uns drohn for mezzosoprano and 12 musicians Per Ivarsson trumpet 5 In der Hülle dieses Sklaven Jens Kristian Søgaard trombone 6 15 Orpheus Vokalensemble Fremdling höre meinen Willen If ears were all that were needed... (2007) Mattias Johansson violin for guitar solo 2:26 Michael Alber choir director 7 Vor des nahen Sturmes Grimmen Johanna Persson viola 8 Traurige Korallen My Hellgren violoncello 9 „Where the Bee sucks“ Staatsoper Stuttgart Jonas Larsson percussion 10 Der Sturm TT: 65:26 Martin Ödlund percussion Andreas Noack flute 11 Geisterchoral Mårten Landström piano Michael Kiefer oboe/English horn 12 Ich heiße Caliban Seth Josel guitar Stefan Jank clarinet 13 Sandfall Gunter Pönisch clarinet/bass clarinet Rei Munakata conductor Andreas Spannbauer trumpet 1-13 Staatsoper Stuttgart · Orpheus Vokalensemble · Stefan Schreiber conductor Karen Schade horn mezzosoprano bass tenor Tajana Raj · Claudio Otelli · Daniel Kluge Bernard Leitz trombone If ears were all that were needed… Hans Kremer · Stefan Merki speaking voices Birgit Eckel piano 14 Ensemble Gageego! · Rei Munakata conductor · Cecilia Vallinder mezzosoprano William Girard celesta Seth Josel guitar Jürgen Spitschka percussion 15 Seth Josel guitar Philippe Ohl persussion Christian Kiss guitar 1 - 13 14 , 15 Recording: TRITONUS Musikproduktion; Element Studio Cristina Stanciu violin 1 - 13 Recording venues and dates: Mozartsaal Liederhalle Stuttgart, 18–20 February 2013; Martin Wissner violin 14 , 15 Element Studio Göteborg, 25 November 2012 Xaver Paul Thoma viola 1 - 13 14 , 15 1-13 Commissioned by: Staatsoper Stuttgart in 2011 Recording supervisors, engineers, mastering: Markus Heiland; Linus Andersson; John Campbell White violoncello 14 Commissioned by: Levande Musik Göteborg in 2012 Producers: Barbara Fränzen, Peter Oswald Michael Sistek double bass Graphic design: Gabi Hauser, based on artwork by Jakob Gasteiger 15 Commissioned by: Jürgen Ruck for Publisher: Edition Peters Stefan Schreiber conductor “Caprichos Goyescos” in 2006 2 3 Die Geisterinsel Stefan Schreiber Die Geisterinsel [The Ghost Island] by Ming Tsao, after and the part’s overall vocal range is situated approxi- the eponymous singspiel by Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg, mately a fifth lower than that of “Moses“, thus de- Kapellmeister at the Württemberg court and a con- manding far less breath support from the singer than temporary of Mozart, is a chamber opera for singers he would need to employ at higher pitches. And it is and actors. But unlike in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus precisely this comparison that makes clear just how dem Serail or Strauss’s prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos, far the two composers’ aesthetic ideas—despite all the purpose of this combination of forces is not to the commonalities exhibited by their respective con- set up a contrast. Here, the text spoken by the two cepts—depart from one another on account of their actors who play Caliban is of a fragmented character differing historical and cultural points of reference. and interlocks with the rhythmical and metric struc- Schönberg developed his concept of the speech-like ture—thus seeming to arise directly from the kaleido- vocal line from his examination of the melodrama, scope of sounds and noises in a more or less onoma- a genre that had experienced a resurgence in the topoetic way. And the singers, in the context of this Wilhelmine Empire—and the way in which he did work’s music, hardly ever manage an actual sung line, so reflected the formality typical of his era’s style of but instead respond to the complex world of sounds verbal expression, with its back-and-forth between around them with speech-like musical lines that are idealization and exaggeration. He enriches his world quite peculiarly shaped indeed. of sound with the finely shaded in-betweens peculiar These spoken lines are notated in the score much like to this art of recitation, encapsulating its pathos in the the Sprechgesang developed by Schönberg, and one law of the respective individual musical forms. Ming Edition Peters Edition can, in fact, make out echoes of Schönberg’s works in Tsao’s formal stringency in his composition of the spo- © the singers’ parts: in Miranda’s lines—which are of- ken lines for the singers in Die Geisterinsel, however, ten just stage-whispered and contain only the initial is oriented on a spoken-word aesthetic which runs bits of individual sung notes, with numerous breaks counter to that of the melodrama. at those fleeting moments between exhalation and In one of our first looks at the score together, I thought inhalation—individual phrases from The Book of the that I perceived an inner relationship with the verbal Hanging Gardens appear as distant memories, and art of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet. I asked some of the sentences uttered by Prospero take after Ming whether he knew their films—and he confirmed (bars Detail) 273-275, the intonation of Schönberg’s “Moses“ (from Moses to me that he indeed does view this artist-couple’s und Aron). But Schönberg’s earnest pathos has disap- oeuvre as an important point of artistic orientation. peared from Prospero’s language—gone are the leaps Ming Tsao’s musical language exhibits parallels to as- over large intervals so characteristic of Sprechgesang, pects of their filmic aesthetic such as the contrasting Die Geisterinsel 4 5 of expressive musical gestures and noises, as well as Die Geisterinsel (2010–2011) the breaking of sonic surfaces against the flow of the Tracing the lyrical line from Shakespeare to J. H. Prynne musical structure. Ming Tsao Straub and Huillet frequently shaped the spoken texts of their plays and films according to musical catego- In 1609, William Strachey was aboard the Sea Ven- ries, and their working notes also employed musical ture when she wrecked on the coast of Bermuda. terminology. On the basis of an overall manner or tonal- Ten months later, he and the other survivors reached ity that was independent of the characters and some- Jamestown, Virginia the first British colony in the new what documentary in nature, they worked together world. Strachey then wrote a long, narrative letter ad- with their performers to develop a highly precise spo- dressed to an “excellent lady” back in England, later ken score comprised of breaks and emphases—often published as A true reportory of the wracke describing pitted against that flow of thoughts that would be con- the experience of the shipwreck in which he writes, sidered natural—as well as changes in the register and “our knowledge taught us how much we owed to the rapidity of speech. It is in such a way that Ming Tsao, rites of nature and not neglect the means of our own as well, composed the spoken lines for his Geisterinsel, preservation” (which forms the text for Fernando’s as becomes clear in Prospero’s very first words: “This letter in Scene 6 Die Geisterinsel).1 island || was like | a wilderness – the wilderness became a garden.” Here, the “musified” language no longer aims to carry its listeners on the waves of thoughts and feel- ings, as it would in a melodrama, instead steering their attention to details of intonation and thus encourag- ing intense concentration on the text. Translation: Christopher Roth William Strachey, A true reportory of the wracke, 1609 1 William Strachey, “A true reportory of the wracke” in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Virginia Mason Vaughn and Text for Paul Cézanne (1989) Alden T. Vaughan (eds.) (London: Arden Shakespeare, 1999), by Jean-Marie Straub and Deutsche Texte auf unserer Homepage unter pg. 291. Stefan Flach has translated Strachey’s letter into Danièle Huillet www.kairos-music.com German for my libretto. 6 7 Strachey’s letter, along with other documents such as men of judgment.” 2 Such words could certainly have requires one not only to read the lines but to speak in Shakespeare’s text whereas in Gotter’s libretto she Michel de Montaigne’s Of the Caniballes (translated formed a basis for Prospero’s character. them as well, gauging the movement of the tongue remains an evil spirit who terrorizes people when by John Florio in 1603) are said to have influenced Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1610–1611) is an example against the teeth as well as the intake of breath; a they fall asleep. So many differences between the two William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Indeed, Montaigne of his late style, a style that Adorno, in reference to physicality that is at the core of my own music. texts only highlight the differences in cultural and writes, “In this new world, they preserved a communi- the late style of Beethoven, likens to “ruptured” fruit. I was commissioned by the Staatsoper Stuttgart to class values between Shakespeare and Gotter’s audi- cation where things are never represented simply as Shakespeare, in his late work, utilizes techniques that rework a relatively unknown opera of the same title ences. they are, but rather as they appear, or as they would are quite similar to those of Beethoven’s late work, by Johann Rudolph Zumsteeg, a contemporary and In my reworking of the Zumsteeg opera, and conse- have them appear, in order to gain the reputation of such as extreme compression of the line through champion of Mozart. The librettist was Wilhelm Fried- quently of the Gotter libretto, I condensed the story omissions and elisions, obsessive repetitions, choices rich Gotter who based his libretto on Shakespeare’s to focus only on Prospero, Miranda, Fernando (or that somehow defamiliarize expression in their re- The Tempest.