Siegfried Idyll, or The End of a Friendship / Chrysanthemums, or The Death of Liù
Details
In Brief
Commissioned by the Hungarian State Opera, Balázs Szálinger, one of the defining figures of contemporary Hungarian playwriting created two works. The play Siegfried Idyll, or The End of a Friendship, which depicts the reversal in the relationship between Wagner and Nietzsche, was directed by the recently deceased Péter Kálloy Molnár, and its revival – partly in tribute to his memory – also necessitates the return to the repertoire of the other piece, Chrysanthemums, written from the sad story of the scandal-ridden death of Puccini’s maid. The latter now arrives in a new interpretation by director András Almási-Tóth, artistic director of the OPERA and associate professor at the Liszt Academy of Music. Like his earlier production of L’incoronazione di Poppea, this experimental staging makes use of the entire auditorium. This new and exciting approach to spatial design offers the audience an immersive experience, allowing them not merely to observe events from the outside, but to experience the drama unfolding in the Puccini villa at close range. The prose work, performed by stage actors, is punctuated by the string quartet Crisantemi by Puccini, performed by artists of the Hungarian State Opera, of course. Together with Siegfried Idyll, the production is presented at the Bánffy Stage of the Eiffel Art Studios.
Parental guidance
Due to sexual content, this performance is not recommended for children younger than 16.
Events
Premiere: May 13, 2018
Siegfried Idyll, or The End of a Friendship
Thirty years younger than Wagner, Nietzsche spent a full decade in thrall to the composer’s spell. However, their relationship must be regarded as something considerably more substantial and consequential than that between an idol and his admirer. Their correspondence and other documents reveal a wide-ranging discussion on topics such as generation difference, musical aesthetics, the great philosophical questions of life and even human weaknesses. And it also constantly returns to the subject of the uncannily beautiful music of Siegfried Idyll, which describes – in place of words, and in the gaps between them – a sense of life that, although yearned for, never in fact existed.
Chrysanthemums, or The Death of Liù
Torre del Lago, 1908. Elvira, the wife of the world famous composer Giacomo Puccini, is teetering on the edge of madness. After numerous – justified – attacks of jealousy, Doria, the maid, becomes the subject of her suspicions. As his family life becomes unbearable, Puccini, hidden away in a tiny village, decides to escape to Paris. Elvira doesn’t believe Puccini’s denials, and attacks the girl with ever increasing ferocity. Doria has been in their service for years but now leaves. With suspicion mounting in the village, she eventually seeks solace in suicide: she drinks poison and takes several days to die. Elvira flees from the scandal to Milan, while the autopsy reveals that the 21-year-old “little Liù” who was so close to Puccini’s heart, had died a virgin. Later the girl’s family initiates a lawsuit, threatening Elvira with five years in prison, until under pressure from the Puccinis they withdraw the accusations. 15 years later, as Puccini is dying, he writes the opera Turandot, writing the character of Liù in memory of the death of the innocent Doria. This would become the last page of music he would ever score
Opera guide
Siegfried Idyll, or the End of a Friendship
Introduction
Nietzsche, who was thirty years younger than Wagner, spent a full decade under the spell of the composer, yet their relationship was far more complex than that of a mere idol and his admirer. As part of the 2017/18 season, in keeping with its commitment to Gesamtkunstwerk, the Hungarian State Opera commissioned József Attila Prize–winning poet and playwright Balázs Szálinger, one of the most gifted artists of our time, to write a new Hungarian drama about the friendship between the two men. Based on surviving documents, the work, rooted in operatic history, addresses a wide range of themes, from the generational differences between the two geniuses and questions of musical aesthetics to major philosophical issues and even human frailties. Meanwhile, the hauntingly beautiful music of the Siegfried Idyll is heard, telling of a longed-for state of being that never truly existed.
Siegfried Idyll
This declaration of love written for his wife’s birthday was premiered as a surprise concert conducted by Wagner himself in their home in Tribschen on Christmas morning of 1870. At the time, the family was living in the idyllic Swiss town as a result of King Ludwig II’s decision, and despite their exile continued to enjoy the Bavarian king’s support. That same year Wagner was officially able to marry Cosima, the daughter of Franz Liszt, whom he had taken away from the side of his friend, the pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow. The young classical philologist Friedrich Nietzsche, professor at the University of Basel, was a regular guest in their household and was even present at the birth of their only son, Siegfried. At this time Wagner was working on the unfinished score of the opera Siegfried, of which this special symphonic greeting, also woven into his final opera, Parsifal, can be regarded as a “side project.”
Ariadne and Dionysus
Nietzsche, who was plagued by illness throughout his life, never experienced domestic bliss. For the woman he longed for as an intellectual and spiritual companion, love existed only in a platonic form. He harboured such feelings for Cosima Wagner as well, but suppressed his desires out of shame and reverence for the master. In his imagination he mythologized the love triangle: Cosima embodied Ariadne, Wagner Theseus, the island of Naxos Tribschen, and Dionysus Nietzsche himself, who only confessed at the time of his final collapse, sending the beloved woman the following letter: “Ariadne, I love you! Dionysus.”
Chrysanthemums, or The Death of Liù
Introduction
The Hungarian State Opera’s 2018/19 season was a tribute to Puccini, this great, world-renowned opera composer. The season featured not only a number of the composer’s well-known and rarely heard operas but also the prosaic musical work of Balázs Szálinger, titled Chrysanthemums, or The Death of Liù, based on the concept of Szilveszter Ókovács, working some of the motifs of the composer’s biography into stage drama. The case, which is at the limelight, was also widely reiterated in contemporary Hungarian daily and weekly newspapers: Puccini’s private life crisis was dished out with an openness defying the tabloids of our time. The chamber piece sensitively shows the connection between the maestro’s private storms and the joy and torments of creation. Beside the Puccini string quartet serving as the title of the play, details of his operas are also featured in the work.
About a brilliant, narcissistic buffoon – An interview with author Balázs Szálinger
You wrote your second prosaic piece at the request of the Hungarian State Opera. To what extent was work on Chrysanthemums different from Siegfried Idyll, using the relationship between Wagner and Nietzsche as a plot?
Siegfried Idyll required serious preliminary studies. There is a significant difference as to what kind of political, ideological embeddedness Wagner and Nietzsche held, and in which era. With Puccini, this was not a pivotal issue, because here I did not work on the master-disciple relationship between two creators, but rather private stories. We still had to pay attention so not to let historical errors find their way into the piece, of course. Basically, the focus was on people, so writing required knowledge of human nature. So actually, I had to delve in to the man himself. With Wagner, it is common to mix the master-disciple relationship with private and professional life. In the case of Puccini, the love story, which is human, beautiful and miserable at the same time, is very extreme.
How did you prepare for the writing of Chrysanthemums?
I read biographies and opera plots, and watched operas, but not because of Puccini’s professionalism, that only appears in the work as much as I know from my own life: how the artist chooses a muse, how he makes a creation from a human being. Puccini, for example, sees a whole wild west story in the little bartender girl. The basic story can still happen today with human weaknesses and misunderstandings inherent in it. In addition, I checked whether there was any material in the contemporaneous Hungarian press of this era regarding Puccini’s life, and found that there was, very much so: the story of Doria. The gossip columns of the daily presses helped a lot in providing information. At that time, the private life of well-known people was described in a rather tactless way, with more insensitive factuality. They were very straightforward: “Elvira is the cranky woman in need of psychiatric treatment”. The stories were written point-blank, with different versions and information contradicting each other. Rated using names and adjectives.
What is your image now of Puccini?
He must have been a genius buffoon, a narcissistic artistic soul, which he could turn to his advantage in the moments when common sense was needed. He even seems likeable to me.
Which story element did you focus most on?
For me, the story of the composer, with his weakness, was most exciting, and what this can do to the lives of young, innocent girls. The way in which he uses women as a private person or as a creator, is maybe not evil, but rather tactless, insensitive. He exploited Doria the most whilst she was the most innocent in the whole story. This is most ironic.
Many of Puccini’s operas are set in a strong male society with a single female actor. Chrysanthemum is just the opposite: the composer is practically the only man. What kind of women is he surrounded by?
In the piece, and in reality as well, these people were brought together nicely, you could say they deserve each other. When there is one man and four women in one piece, everything is intensified: the jealousy, the differences, that one woman is a minx, the other is in love, however suppresses it… Puccini’s wife’s, Elvira’s female jealousy appears as a serious illness that needs treatment. Their daughter, Fosca, plays the raisonneur; although in the end, almost accidentally, she is the one who triggers the tragic outcome. Giulia, a relative of Doria, who works in a pub, is not a complicated figure. She is the one through whom we find out that Elvira’s jealousy is well-founded. Through her I was able to demonstrate that Puccini was a great hunter. At the centre of the piece it is still Puccini’s and her fault.
Interview conducted by Diána Eszter Mátrai