Los Angeles Opera: “The Stigmatized”
Robert Brubaker as Alviano and Anja Kampe as Carlotta. Photo by Robert Millard Aficionados of opera, lulled by the lush orchestral melodies of Puccini and Debussy, but preferably without the minimalist makeovers of Robert Wilson and Peter Sellars, should reach for their telephone or go online at once. Franz Schreker’s “The Stigmatized” (1918) won’t let you down. With a Jewish relative somewhere in the genetic mix, the once immensely popular and – better yet – critically acclaimed Schreker was squelched and silenced when the National Socialist party took power. The composer, who wrote eight major operas according to conductor James Conlon, succumbed to the effects of mounting stress and died two days before his 56th birthday in 1934. Schrekers’s descent into oblivion wasn’t due entirely to Nazi suppression. Late Romanticism was on the wane even by the 1920s, and the sweeping sounds and lush melodies we associate with it were giving way to the avant-garde music of Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Berg and Webern. For the moment, Schreker is the human Pompeii of early 20th century composers. He’s beginning to be excavated, but to what extent remains to be seen. “The Stigmatized” – and there…
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