Hmm. This seems to be the fist opera I've ever seen with an Eszett in the title--that little b-looking guy who's pronounced in an S-ish fashion. That's the technical term for it that us linguists like to throw around to sound smart.
This is based on (loosely based on) the story of a small-time German con artist who the Germans decided should be a sort of folk hero, for somewhat obscure reasons. Well, not TOO obscure--everyone hates authority--but really, it doesn't seem like that much of a thing, really. Like, you guys are really easily impressed. There's this clerk, Wilhelm Fadenkreutz, who's normally kind of timid and hapless but wins a medal for uncovering an embezzlement case. This giving him a swell of confidence, he tries to kiss a woman who turns out to be the mayor's daughter and loses his job. At home his sister, Auguste, is being courted by an assessor, Birkhahn. He proposes marriage, but she's worried that he won't want her after he learns her brother's unemployed, so when he asks him what he does, she blurts out that he's an army captain, so he has to go along with that, and goes out and buys a captain's uniform from a costume shop. They all go to a party that Birkhahn has invited them to, where his terrible play is being performed. Puffed up by all the respect he's getting from people who think he's a captain, and also kind of drunk, Wilhelm instigates a coup against the allegedly corrupt mayor, whom he's going to have arrested. His deception is revealed, but the mayor, though relieved to not be arrested, is still upset that there's now going to be a big ol' scandal. But his wife convinces him that he can pass the whole thing off as a joke and everything will be fine. Wilhelm gets his job back; Birkhahn decides not to marry Auguste, but let's face it, she can do better. The end.
It's a very likable piece. The previous Blacher opera I saw, 200 000 Thaler, was also a comedy, but this one sort of seems to be going for it more, with a lot of fun comedic musical set pieces. The music I found made more of an impression than it did in the other. The highlight is when Wilhelm's buying the uniform; he looks at himself wearing it in the mirror, and we cut to a ballet scene (I don't know if this is how the libretto dictates it go, but it ought to) of soldiers and women in fancy dress dancing to increasingly frenzied music. I was impressed. And hey, here's a fun thing I've never seen before: the Fadenkreutz' parents are characters too: the father is a trouser role; the wife a skirt. So it's a gender-swap thing, for no particular reason that I can see except that it's fun. As I said. And as it is.
We are, I think, pretty darned lucky that there's a DVD of this at all: it's from 1974, and, appropriately, it is extremely seventies-looking. Somehow the whole look gave me a Monty Python impression, which is no bad thing.
Look: if you make more Blacher available, I will see it. It's just. That. Simple.
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