We’ll celebrate the music of Franz Schreker on this week’s Sunday Opera (5/3 3:00 p.m.). Schreker was another composer whose work was censured because of the rise in anti-Semitism in Germany in the early 1930’s, and he went from being hailed as the future of German opera to obscurity. His works have been heard more often in recent years, and his operas are beginning to be re-discovered. This week’s program is featuring a recording of his second opera entitled “Der Ferne Klang” or “The Distant Sound” which deals with a young composer who searches the world to find the distant sound of the title. Although this sound is always within him, he cannot hear it, and the search destroys both his life and the life of the girl he loves.
The cast includes Elena Grigorescu, Thomas Harper, Andreas Haller, Werner Hahn, and Peter Nikolaus Kante who are joined by The Hagen Philharmonic Orchestra and Municipal Opera Chorus with Michael Halasz conducting. Stay tuned after the opera for more of Schreker’s music that’ll include his Romantic Suite, Fantastic Overture, Chamber Symphony, and Prelude to “Memnon.”
