Franz Schreker's Der Schatzgräber

[brendangcarroll]

I am not sure if this has been posted before - apologies if this is old news.

Franz Schreker's mystical opera Der Schatzgräber (The Treasure Seeker) will be staged by Christoph Loy & conducted by Marc Albrecht at the Deutsche Oper Berlin next May! That's the same team that brought Korngold's Das Wunder der Heliane wonderfully back to life 3 years ago (now on DVD). It should therefore be spectacular!

[Alan Howe]

I trust that this won't be an unwatchable Regietheater production...

[Maury]

I guess there hasn't been much interest in this since I didn't see any follow-up. I have this DVD plus Das Wunder Der Heliane mentioned in passing. To answer the question, no, neither of these are Regietheater as the stagings are consistent with the librettos. They are clearly saving on sets as in both cases there is one unchanging location but respecting again the basic action. There are what I would term harmless updatings of costumes to some undetermined 20th C. time. Der Schatzgraber is better sung IMO here than Das Wunder but the latter singing is not offputting or unlistenable.

I read with interest Adriano's comments on these two composers and I agree with him about the loss of singers and sense of style. This can be heard quite clearly with Lehar and Kalman where we have a more extended time frame of available recordings. While I greatly appreciate cpo's devotion to recording these works they are almost wholly lacking a sense of the Silver Age operetta style and I think (with others) also these kind of turn of the century Freudian operas.

This was the second time I saw both DVDs and I must say my opinion of Heliane went up on second viewing. (I did not like the two prior CD recordings BTW.) The score is not decadent at all; in fact I would call it muscular and quite a contrast with Violanta and even Tote Stadt. It seemed to me that Heliane is sort of a tragic Fidelio  where Don Pizarro and Don Fernando are in league with each other rather than opposed with the couple, in this case Heliane and the Stranger. The Blind Judge as obvious symbol of Justice is merely a mouthpiece for the psychotic malevolent King. But there is no sentimentality here. I must commend the conducting of Marc Albrecht. It is excellent in allowing the music to breathe and not always be pegged to 11.

As for Der Schatzgraber the opera plays well dramatically, even though objectively it is farfetched. The jewels that the Queen loses have little to do with her beauty as even the libretto admits but are status symbols that the murderess royal servant Els wants for status as well. Given all the men chasing after her madly already, more beauty is irrelevant. I think the libretto's point is that even the Minstrel Artist is seeking status and is attracted to Els, in the process debasing his art. In the end the only lovers Els does Not kill are the Minstrel and the Court Jester she is forced to marry.