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Der junge Lord

Music by Hans Werner Henze · libretto by Ingeborg Bachmann · premiered 1965 · at Deutsche Oper Berlin

Der junge Lord (The Young Lord) is an opera in two acts by Hans Werner Henze to a German libretto by Ingeborg Bachmann, after Wilhelm Hauff's 1827 fairy tale "Der Affe als Mensch" (The Ape as Man) from Der Scheik von Alessandria und seine Sklaven (The Sheik of Alexandria and his Slaves). The style and plot owe much to Italian opera buffa, with the influence of Vincenzo Bellini and Gioachino Rossini noted. Andrew Porter has noted four distinct musical styles in the opera, corresponding to four different levels of characters:

"neo-classical" style, for the townspeople; "neo-Straussian arioso", for Sir Edgar's entrance; a "wilder, more erratic" style, for the traveling circus; lyrical style, for Luise's love music. Robert Henderson has commented on the Brechtian nature of Bachmann and Henze's treatment of the story.

Text from the Wikipedia article "Der junge Lord", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the Composer

Hans Werner Henze (1 July 1926 – 27 October 2012) was a German composer. His large oeuvre is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Neoclassicism, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as traditional schools of German composition. In particular, his stage works reflect "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life". Henze was also known for his political convictions. He left Germany for Italy in 1953 because of a perceived intolerance towards his leftist politics and homosexuality. Late in life he lived in the village of Marino in the central Italian region of Lazio, and in his final years still travelled extensively, in…

Text from the Wikipedia article "Hans Werner Henze", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Other Operas by Hans Werner Henze