Georg Nigl (Mann), Brigitte Geller (Frau), Sonia Visentin (Freundin), Mathias Schulz (Sänger) & Michelangelo D’Adamo (Kind)

Orchestra & Chorus Teatro La Fenice Venezia, Eliahu Inbal (conductor) & Andreas Homoki (director)

WORLD PREMIÈRE ON DVD

This 2008 production from the famous Teatre la Fenice is the world première on DVD of Schoenberg’s first twelve tone opera, and Schoenberg's only comedy.

The plot is based around a Husband and Wife (they are not given names) who reject opportunities for extramarital flings whilst at the same time attacking the superficiality of fashion.

The main prop of Andreas Homoki’s vividly directed production is a white leather sofa, which, at the end—with the Friend and the Singer on it, both of whom had tried to attract the attention of the Husband and Wife —the Husband and Wife push away. Frank Philipp Schlössmann’s décor also includes blackboard-like flats covered with words and figures, principally the word “modern” in various languages.

Directed by Andreas Homoki and with Eliahu Inbal as conductor, this first release on DVD appears: "From Today to Tomorrow," composed in 1929 by Arnold Schönberg. At that time, a bitter discussion about the "crisis of opera" was raging, leading to great uncertainty. There was experimentation to find a way to contemporary opera, and one of the possibilities tried was the so-called "Zeitoper", the presentation of current issues on the opera stage. In other words, playing in the present time, mostly humorous and interpreting the small and large vicissitudes of daily life. In the fall of 1928, Schönberg was convinced that he could compose a "Zeitoper" that would be just as successful as his colleagues Krenek and Weill. But Schoenberg would not have been Schoenberg if he had not immediately attempted to criticize the musical styles associated with the genre (especially American dance music and jazz) in his twelve-tone, strictly contrapuntal work. The opera was indeed highly celebrated at its premiere, but did not receive the lasting circulation its creator had hoped for. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the twelve-tone row is not so easily suitable for setting a popular comic opera, or perhaps it was simply due to the phenomenon of "time opera" - being bound to one's own time... Because: "Mama, what are they: modern people?" asks the child at the end of the one-act opera, and this sentence basically sums up the core of the entire plot of Max Blonda's libretto.