C'est la guerre; Lysistrate

„Rather than find out – you have to find. You have to find the tones. As to which ones, this will be determined by your biological makeup. You have to find – that's the secret.” With these words, Emil Petrovics (1930-2011) expressed his ars poetica. The early 1960s yielded two of his one-acts: his overwhelmingly successful musical drama C’est la guerre and the comic opera Lysistrata, which he later revised in 1971. In the former, premiered at the Opera House in 1962, he created in the wheelchair-bound retired officer and the caretaker's wife two aggressive and complementary representatives of the political regime. Based on the comedy by Aristophanes and premiered at the Opera House in 1971, Lysistrata was intended, as the composer put it, “to shape into notes the image of Hellenism that emanates from the legends and their associations.”