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.
Each of the three acts centres on a querulous exchange between Orpheus and Euridice, as his unqualified love for her turns to hatred when he learns she had been seduced by Hades in the underworld. Eventually, he murders her, and even when her ghost appears to him, begging to be released from her torment, he continues to reject her, preferring to wallow in self-pity. At the end of the opera, the only character who achieves any sort of resolution is Euridice’s sister Psyche, who is free to return to her lover, the blind Amor.
It’s a bit of a patchy, self-indulgent work, but fascinating; the best of Krenek’s angular, expressionist score, mostly atonal though harking back to romantic tonality, is strikingly effective. This concert performance, which Pinchas Steinberg conducted at the Salzburg festival in 1990 on Krenek’s 90th birthday (Krenek died a year later), seems to have been a real labour of love. The character of Euridice clearly engaged Krenek more intensely than Orpheus. She gets the most memorable music, which the fine mezzo Dunja Vejzović makes the most of. Ronald Hamilton is the reproachful Orpheus, and Celina Lindsley Psyche, while opera anoraks will note the then up-and-coming baritone Bo Skovhus is cast in a pair of minor roles. A really worthwhile rarity.
