Sunday, 7
Vienna Chamber Opera
Conductor
Soloists
Peter Kirk (Sir George / Oskar)Josefine Göhmann (Lady Magnesia & Armande)Jacob Phillips (Alexandre / Adolphus Bastable)Timothy Edlin (Das Porträt)Wilma Kvamme (Phyllis /Philomène)
Musical Direction: Irene Delgado-Jiménez
Staging: Anna Bernreitner
Set and Costume Design: Manfred Reiner, Hannah Ă–llinger
Lighting: Franz Tscheck
Dramaturgy: Christian Schröder
Lady Magnesia
One-act opera
Libretto by Vera Stanewitsch based on George Bernard Shaw’s play Passion, Poison and Petrifaction
Twice Alexander
Opera buffa in one act
Libretto by André Wurmser
Black comedies, crime plays, or operatic parodies?
The one-act operas Lady Magnesia (composed in 1975) and Alexandre Bis (Twice Alexander, composed in 1937) defy simple categorization—just like their versatile composers, Mieczysław Weinberg and Bohuslav Martinů.
The premise in both works is strikingly similar: A husband accuses his wife of infidelity and takes what he believes to be appropriate action. But things quickly spiral out of control. George plans to murder Magnesia, but ends up entangled in a conversation with her instead. Alexandre stages a comedy of mistaken identity to test his wife’s fidelity—only to plant the very idea of an affair in her mind.
Where Mozart’s Così fan tutte drops the curtain, these operas are just getting started: Does the men’s mistrust lead to a happy ending? Can a demand for proof of loyalty bring clarity or even redemption—or does it simply destroy the relationship?
Each opera arrives at a different conclusion—delivered with ironic twists, jazzy interludes, and wild imagination that are signature to both Weinberg and Martinů.
Intermission
55'
Opera buffa in einem Akt
55'
