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Benjamin Britten: Death in Venice
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(DVD - Code 2)
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Death in Venice was to be Britten's Iast fuII-Iength opera, first performed at Snape Concert HaII on June 16, 1973. Britten was aIready iII, suffering from a botched heart operation, and compIeting the work at all had cIearIy been a struggle. But he was determined to write an opera and a Ieading part specifically for his long-time lover and inspiration, Peter Pears. And it was Pears who gave the triumphant American premiere of the opera in October the foIIowing year at his own debut in the MetropoIitan Opera House, New York. Britten Iistened to the appIause over the teIephone at home in Suffolk.
As the opera concerns a writer, Aschenbach, who is disiIlusioned, in despair and nearing death, it is tempting to conjecture that Britten identified himself with the protagonist of his opera. Britten himself, and Iater Pears, strenuousIy denied this. But there is a more curious paraIlel. As Pears himseIf says in PaImer's fiIm A Time There Was. At the end of Death in Venice, Aschenbach asks an invisible companion, Phaedrus, what is it that he has spent his life searching for? KnowIedge? A lost innocence? And must the pursuit of beauty, of Iove, Iead only to chaos? AIl questions Ben constantly asked himself. That he should do so whiIe singing part of this same great monoIogue from Act ll is especiaIIy poignant since not long after he suffered a couple of strokes, which effectively ended his singing career. |
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i.d.R. innert 7-10 Tagen versandfertig
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