Text by the composer
Translation: engl. (M. E. Browne)
Place: Bagdad
Characters: Der Kalif (baritone) - Baba Mustapha, ein Kadi (tenor) - Margiana, seine Tochter (soprano) - Bostana, eine Verwandte (alto) - Nureddin (tenor) - Abul Hassan Ali Ebn Bekar, Barbier (bass) - 1. Muezzin (bass) - 2. Muezzin (tenor) - 3. Muezzin (tenor) - Ein Sklave (tenor) - Vier Bewaffnete (2 Tenöre, 2 Bässe)
Corneliuss opera got off to a bad start, to say the least: the scandal provoked at the first performance in Weimar in 1858 led to protests and ultimately to the resignation of Franz Liszt as court opera director. It was not until 1904 that the opera was played again in that city and proved that the scandal had not been caused by the work but by Liszts aesthetic views. The score was long considered as the ideal example of a musical comedy with a far too complicated plot. Today, however, many prominent commentators beg to differ: "This is one of the sunniest scores ever written. Music in the spirit of Mozart and Mendelssohn: a highly delicate mixture of classical formal rigor and romantic irony, heightened with just a touch of exquisite sensuality that has just wafted in from the Orient. It is practically incomprehensible how Cornelius could have been regarded as a composer of the Wagner school for practically a century. With its intricate fusing of comedy, lyricism and sentimentality, it is precisely the opera that Schubert, Schumann, E.T.A. Hoffmann and Mendelssohn were unable to write. (Hans Zender)
Translation: engl. (M. E. Browne)
Place: Bagdad
Characters: Der Kalif (baritone) - Baba Mustapha, ein Kadi (tenor) - Margiana, seine Tochter (soprano) - Bostana, eine Verwandte (alto) - Nureddin (tenor) - Abul Hassan Ali Ebn Bekar, Barbier (bass) - 1. Muezzin (bass) - 2. Muezzin (tenor) - 3. Muezzin (tenor) - Ein Sklave (tenor) - Vier Bewaffnete (2 Tenöre, 2 Bässe)
Corneliuss opera got off to a bad start, to say the least: the scandal provoked at the first performance in Weimar in 1858 led to protests and ultimately to the resignation of Franz Liszt as court opera director. It was not until 1904 that the opera was played again in that city and proved that the scandal had not been caused by the work but by Liszts aesthetic views. The score was long considered as the ideal example of a musical comedy with a far too complicated plot. Today, however, many prominent commentators beg to differ: "This is one of the sunniest scores ever written. Music in the spirit of Mozart and Mendelssohn: a highly delicate mixture of classical formal rigor and romantic irony, heightened with just a touch of exquisite sensuality that has just wafted in from the Orient. It is practically incomprehensible how Cornelius could have been regarded as a composer of the Wagner school for practically a century. With its intricate fusing of comedy, lyricism and sentimentality, it is precisely the opera that Schubert, Schumann, E.T.A. Hoffmann and Mendelssohn were unable to write. (Hans Zender)