Krenek - Orpheus und Eurydike

The Guardian 80

Hamilton/Vejzović/Lindsley/RSO Wien/ORF-Chor/Steinberg
(Orfeo, two CDs)

Only two of Ernst Krenek’s operas, Jonny Spielt Auf and Karl V, maintain even the tiniest toeholds in the repertory. But he wrote more than 20, composed over almost half a century, of which Orpheus und Eurydike was the third to be performed – in 1926. It was received very warmly at its premiere, but was soon eclipsed by the huge success of the “jazz opera” Jonny Spielt Auf, which premiered three months later.

The libretto of Orpheus is adapted from a play by Oskar Kokoschka, written during the first world war, when the artist was coming to terms with the ending of his turbulent affair with Alma Mahler. Those circumstances no doubt account for the sour and cynical tone of this post-Freudian take on the legend, which carries through into Krenek’s adaptation. The composer had become part of Alma’s circle in the 1920s; she had asked him to complete Mahler’s 10th Symphony, which he declined to do, and in 1924 he married her daughter Anna, though the marriage lasted less than a year. By then, Krenek had already made his adaptation of Kokoschka’s text; the opera was completed in 1923.