When I saw Der ferne Klang, I stated my belief that none of Schreker's other operas were available on video. However, I was wrong as heck about that, and this is the proof. PROOF! You can even watch it on youtube if the Japanese subtitles aren't a deal-breaker.
It definitely feels of a piece with Der ferne Klang: very sort of abstruse, expressionist plot that I guess we expect from this milieu. We're in sixteenth-century Genoa, where this hunchbacked noble, Salvago, has this island paradise called "Elysium" that he's invented, which his dissolute friends (or "friends") use to take women for orgies. One of these friends, Tamare, wants Carlotta, the daughter of a Genoese official, but she has her sites set on Salvago. She's a painter and she wants to depict his soul. So he sits for her, and eventually they decide that they're in love, and they're going to get married. Only then she decides to go with Tamare instead. Wimmen, amirite? Although it's sort of an symbolist thing about outer and inner beauty and such and I dunno. Anyway, Salvago finds them together, he and Tamare shout at each other for a while, and then he, Salvago, murders him, Tamare. But Carlotta dies with Tamare's name on her lips and Salvago loses his mind.
Welp...it is what it is. I do like Schreker's music, which is sort of dissonant but also melodic and generally pretty exciting. This is a nice production, although they have made the decision to depict Salvago not as a hunchback but in drag for most of the show, which...this could potentially have unsavory implications if thought about too hard. But in general it depicts the spirit of the milieu well, with everyone dressed in elaborate, fetish-y leather. There are big statues lying all over the stage; according to the DVD notes, this was inspired by the Gardens of Bomarzo, as depicted in that popular novel, Bomarzo. Like Salvago, Pier Francesco Orsini, the novel's protagonist who oversaw the creation of said gardens, is a hunchback, so that's an interesting connection to make.
As for the opera as a whole, however...I dunno. When things get so detached and abstract like this, I feel it's a bit hard to appreciate the story on anything other than an intellectual level. It's certainly hard to feel anything about the characters. This was probably true of Der ferne Klang also, but I seem to recall liking this more than that. I'm sorry not to have loved something that the garbage subhuman nazis hated, but, well, I didn't dislike it, exactly. I'm glad to have seen it, and if you have a charity I can donate to that supports punching nazis, I will gladly give money to it.
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