I went to Halle for this one. It's a rare opera after all. And I have to say, it was totally worth it. I first encountered Franz Schreker's music earlier this year, when I saw Der Schatzgräber in the Deutsche Oper Berlin. I loved the fact that his music forecasted the contemporary classical music styles that I liked, which only appeared decades later. That, and the fact that his music is rather rare due to the fact that the Nazis suppressed his music made it even more attractive to me, given my penchant for rare pieces.
Das Spielwerk und die Prinzessin (The Carillon and the Princess) is a fascinating choice for me, given my interests. While it sits chronologically at the tail end of the Romantic era (premiered in 1913), its preoccupation with the "physics of sound" and psychological decay makes it a crucial bridge to the High Modernism that tends to be my favourite. Given my enjoyment of Grisey, Haas, and Saariaho, Schreker’s obsession with sonority particularly resonates. He was less interested in traditional melody and more in the "shimmer" of the orchestral mass. There is an iridescent, shifting orchestral texture characterized by polytonal layers, frequent use of celesta, harps, and percussion, and a blurred harmonic sense that definitely sounds like it anticipates spectralism.
The plot is magical and mystical, and rather dystopian. In a remote village, the master craftsman Florian laments his broken masterpiece: a magical carillon that once played celestial music. Since his wife and son were lured away by a mysterious "Dark One," the bells have remained silent or produced only dissonant groans. The villagers blame Florian’s "evil" art for their misfortunes. A wandering Journeyman arrives with a flute. When he plays, the carillon momentarily flickers to life, hinting at a connection between his "human" music and the "mechanical" art of the bells. The scene shifts to the Princess's castle, a den of hedonism where she hosts nightly orgies to drown out her existential boredom. She is a "femme fatale" in the vein of Salome. She summons the Journeyman, hoping his music can cure her malaise. However, the carillon begins to play a distorted, terrifying version of its song, reflecting the moral decay of the court. The music box becomes a source of dread rather than beauty. The villagers, driven by superstition and rage, march on the castle. The Princess, realizing that her lifestyle is hollow, experiences a spiritual awakening through the Journeyman’s pure music. As the castle is set ablaze, the carillon finally plays its original, "true" melody, a shimmering, transcendent soundscape. The Princess dies in the Journeyman's arms as the physical instrument is destroyed, suggesting that true art cannot be contained in a machine or a corrupt soul.
I thought that Schreker’s score is a goldmine of proto-modernist textures. Schreker employs a massive orchestra but uses it with the precision of a jeweler. He frequently divides the strings into numerous parts to create a "cloud" of sound. The use of the celesta, piano, and multiple harps creates a "metallic" shimmer that mirrors the carillon itself. With regards to the singing, unlike the bel canto of Verdi, Schreker uses a heightened, eroticized Sprechgesang that occasionally blooms into massive, taxing late-Romantic lines. The Princess’s role requires a "dramatic soprano" with the agility to handle jagged, expressionistic intervals. But perhaps the most interesting technical aspect is how Schreker "composes" the sound of the bells. He uses bitonality, where the music plays chords in two different keys simultaneously, to mimic the inharmonic overtones of actual bells. This definitely sounds like a direct ancestor to the Spectralist techniques of Gérard Grisey.
I also have to mention that I really liked the staging of this opera in Halle. I agree with the reviews that describe the production as creating an "own (nightmare) dream-world" that exists between times and states, focusing on symbolism rather than a literal medieval setting. This "Alptraumwelt" (nightmare world) aligns well with my preference for George Benjamin and Beat Furrer, where atmosphere and psychological tension supersede traditional narrative.
So yes, it was worth the effort to go all the way to Halle for this one. The combination of a director with a background in sharp contemporary drama and a conductor specialized in complex 20th-century textures makes this a production specifically appealing for someone like me, who seeks "optimal experiences" beyond the standard canon.
