Seriously satirical
Leonore 40/45 is a sharply profiled work, which stands out from the ‘norm’ by virtue of both its musical and its textual structure. It enjoyed a successful Basel premiere in 1952 but subsequently provoked pro and con demonstrations during the 1950s. Bonn’s landmark rediscovery will soon be followed by its Austrian premiere in Linz and it will also be performed in Vienna as part of the Musikfest.
Leonore 40/45 is a witty, amusing and thought-provoking work. The librettist Heinrich Strobel, music writer, editor of the Melos magazine and musical director of the Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk, belongs just as much to the contemporary, progressive guard as his colleague (also musical director) from the Zurich station, the composer Rolf Liebermann. Both possess wit and sharpness, stage-savvy instinct and those attributes - say, jest, satire, irony and deeper meaning - that give this opera its impact.
Seriousness and satire, hilarity and the grotesque are juxtaposed in harsh contrasts. A German and French petty bourgeois milieu, on a stage divided in two as a prelude; a concert hall, as the platform of an anti-atonement demonstration; Paris, in the throes of invasion; the choral ensemble of German prisoners; the shop of a French instrument maker; the half-realistic, half-spooky tribunal (which could be by Wedekind): - all these images are enlivened with characters who have their sharp profiles. The old and everlasting story of two lovers separated by their nationalities is spread over the whole, while the connection between the scenes is placed in the magical hands, or in the head, of Monsieur Emile - a supernatural figure, half philosophical emcee, half disillusionist conjuror.
On one side, it is an opera seria, but without the pathos of classical times, which were filled with world-weariness or ideas of redemption. On the other side, it is an opera buffa, unmasking that descriptive phrase, and with a happy ending giving the theatre - partly in French, partly in German - what belongs to the theatre.
Liebermann has written music to accompany this anti-chauvinist, partly amusing, partly stirring opera text, which travels its own way through its style, its adaptability and its intellectual, yet witty, content. Its ancestors are Weill and Brecht, Paul Dessau, even Ernst Krenek, but no direct analogies should be made, because Liebermann decidedly has his own musical style, which has nothing in common with eclecticism. Since a music conditioned by the concept of opera semiseria has to refrain from extraordinary difficulties, the composer mostly uses a relatively simple, unproblematic language...
Hans Erich Apostel
In: Österreichische Musikzeitschrift, Vienna, 1953.
