Mozart and the Utopia of Love

View transcript: Mozart and the Utopia of Love

Text: Lovers who meet again in another life, recognize each other / The event is preceded by a CHAOS OF EMOTION bordering on insanity, says Kleist / Mozart used this material to develop his THE PRETEND GARDEN-GIRL / Directed by Jean Jourdheuil at the state opera in Stuttgart - - MOZART AND THE UTOPIA OF LOVE / How murdered lovers recognize each other in another life The count BELFIORE has murdered his lover, the countess VIOLANTE, in a fit of jealousy - - The countess, reawakened from death or IN ANOTHER LIFE / Has become a gardener / She has long forgiven her lover the murder / And wants to be close to the count / She calls herself SANDRINA now - - SANDRINA, Alexandra Reinprecht REUNION OF THE LOVERS / How Mozart invents a “pulsation” The count comes across SANDRINA, who has fainted / She is confused to see her beloved / No one knows what to do - - Roland Kluttig: So the orchestra begins, he calls “Gods, what a coincidence!” Then another, completely different gesture that describes the count’s trembling.
Text: How Mozart composes the reunion - -
Kluttig: A gesture that you immediately associate with trembling… Then a completely new meter, a slow three-four time, like in trance.
Text: Roland Kluttig, conductor Sandrina is unconscious, after all, and sings like in trance a relatively conventional music, and now the pulsation starts mit dem Auftritt all der Gestalten. And the surprising thing is that on the one hand there’s a steady pulsation let me play a piece – …on the bass line that continues in different harmonies and that keeps everything together. But the surprising thing is how he always adjusts the figures to what the respective characters say. So he keeps up the frame, but modifies it a little for every character.
Kluttig: Finale 1st act
Text: 1st act, No 12: FINALE 1
Kluttig: “Oh Gods, it’s magic! Violante, does she live? Woe is me, I’m shivering from head to toe, I don’t know where I am. Come, ungrateful heart, look at me, I’m still the same… She moves in a trance, then faints again The voice is Violante’s. Always with admiration and astonishment. But why in these clothes, is my mind playing tricks on me? Sandrina comes to again. Have mercy, oh Gods. The count turns around to watch her. Sandrina notices the count and freezes, astonished.
The count: Oh God, a miracle! Aminda comes …
Text: Roland Kluttig, conductor Meets Ramiro. They both stop, dazed and confused. Tell me, who are you? What do I say? What should I say? Oh, such a terrible blow of fate, such fatal a lightning bolt. I’m paralized, I’m paralized. I’m doubtful, I’m distraught, I don’t know if I’m awake or if I’m dreaming. I feel stunned. I’m confused, I’ve lost my heart. My pain is so cruel that it makes me cry. Such a schock. I’m stunned. I am unable to move. I’m losing it. I don’t know what to think. What happened to me? What happened? I don’t understand myself anymore. Oh God, I think I’m hallucinating. I feel my soul trapped in my chest. Ich habe keinen Atem um zu reden. This silence! They stand there looking as if they’ve lost their minds. What does this all mean? What happened? What should I answer? I’m so confused. I’m speechless. I don’t have the courage. I don’t understand, I don’t understand. This is not right. Is it you? Is it you? Oh, my mind is spinning. It jumps back and forth.”
Text: RECOGNITION 1st act / scene XV Unexpectedly the lovers recognize each other / The count kneels and begs forgiveness GRAF BELFIORE, Norman Shankle Jean Jourdheuil, Producer: Anyone who was a Rousseauian without having read Rousseau was turned into one by Mesmer, the thoughts he made popular…
Text: Dr. med. Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815)
Jourdheuil: And in this sense it’s… it was an intellectual and artistic landscape that wasn’t very stable. “I love you, but I want to kill you” and “I want to kill you, but I love you.” When both those feelings come together, so close, as is the case when they are arranged by the music, if I may say so, then you have already entered the realm of the subconscious.
Kluge: And the ambiguity.
Jourdheuil: The ambiguity, yes. Ambivalent, what is ambivalent, and what is dissociation? The figures, some of the figures are sometimes close to dissociation.
Kluge: What’s dissociation?
Jourdheuil: Well, when you become schizophrenic …
Kluge: Yes.
Jourdheuil: … and ambiguity is when you can still manipulate everything. Then you are ambiguous. In this sense, for example… let’s say that in the aura or the landscape of the 18th century we already have premonitions of something that later develops in Kleist’s characters. The women in Kleist’s work are often dissociative… are at risk for dissociation … and the men are more ambiguous.
Text: Achill: ambiguous, “tricky” / Penthesilea: dissociated, “fey”
Jourdheuil: Achilleu…Achelleus, can one say that? Achilles and Penthesilea. Mark Lammert, Stage and Costume: The murder is simply … I think it’s the stepping-stone for this not uninteresting libretto. And if you … if you take that as the starting point for the mystery that actually happens or… then it’s pretty interesting. And then we have, let’s say, also this layout of the space on a different level, because the fan that it takes place behind is basically nothing but the vertical layout of the space, more exactly the space for the second act. The year of the opera’s premiere is basically, if you want to phrase it in terms of secondary science, the hour of birth of dynamic psychology, as you would call it nowadays. So Mesmerism, which is basically what comes out on top in the argument between the Swabian exorcist Gaßner and the, also Swabian, doctor Mesmer in Munich … is actually the origin of modern psychology. This is the same year as the premiere of…
Text: Mesmer hypnoticizes a somnambulist in 1775
Lammert: …The Pretend Garden-Girl in Munich.
Kluge: So humans serve as media, it flows through them, so to speak, for example what has happened between Belfiore and Sandrina …
Lammert: Yes…
Kluge: …is the atmosphere…
Lammert: Yes, I would say so…
Kluge: …and it flows…
Lammert: Yes, it’s basically this theory that deals with the fluid, that means, the energy that flows through a person and that you can influence, in a positive way.
Kluge: That we live in an ether, so to speak.
Lammert: Yes, and at some point that ends in hypnosis. External influences to enhance the own mental state, or…
Text: SANDRINA as lonely SOUL 2nd act / scene XV / Abandoned place in the mountains with old, partly destroyed water system SANDRINA’s recitative It seems to me that between the bushes / I see a horrible snake - - How do I hide, where do I run / Help me, Heaven (She seeks shelter in a cave)
Text: Claudio Rizzi, répétiteur
Text: 2nd act / Outbreak of general insanity and No. 23: FINALE 2
Text: SANDRINA, THE COUNT (still in madness) What a joy / What beautiful happiness / Let’s dance - - !
Text: MOZART AND THE UTOPIA OF LOVE / How murdered lovers recognize each other in another life In cooperation with the State Opera Stuttgart – Musical direction: Lothar Zagrosek & Roland Kluttig– Production: Jean Jourdheuil – Stage & Costumes: Mark Lammert– Dramaturgy: Juliane Votteler