Today’s CD, Haydn’s opera Die Feuersbrunst (“The Burned-Down House”), is a very odd duck indeed.
For one thing, some of this sounds like a Monty Python skit with a couple of guys talking in high-pitched voices pretending to be women. Or kids. Or marionettes, as is the subject-matter of this “comic opera in two acts.”
From the website Answers.com:
The plot, involving the adventures of a buffoon named Hanswurst who speaks in a light Viennese dialect, is truly absurd enough to defy summary, but it’s fast-moving and full of amorous intrigue between masters and servants. Both the arias and the spoken interludes are brief, and Haydn rose to the occasion with a mixture of jolly tunes and exaggerated pathos that must have been great fun for all involved. The singers (there are four vocal parts) enter into the situation-comedy spirit of the action…
Buffoons and situation-comedy jocularity. Yes. It’s all here.
Along with lots and lots of talking. In German. It’s like an immersive German-language course.
What I can’t figure out is why this comedic opera is called Die Feuersbrunst. When I typed “Feuersbrunst” into Google, up popped these images:
So that’s what a Feuersbrunst looks like. Here are a couple more definitions from a web site I had to translate:
Eu · F · brunst the first (often plural) (geh), a devastating fire that destroyed many buildings and even neighborhoods
ER • F • brunst the first, -, fire • first • • te Brüns; Screwed, a fire, in which a large damage occurs
So there’s nothing comedic about a Feuersbrunst. It is devastation by fire.
Yet, all descriptions of Haydn’s opera, like this one form another web site…
Die Feuersbrunst was a popular singspiel due to the comic nature of the plot, rumoured to have been written for the servants, maid and coachman at the court. It adheres to the same principles that Mozart would later adopt in The Magic Flute which made both works popular.
…Indicate that this is a low-brow comedy, a singspiel to be more precise.
Talk-play.
From its entry on Wikipedia, Singspiel…
is a form of German-language music drama, now regarded as a genre of opera. It is characterized by spoken dialogue, which is alternated with ensembles, songs, ballads, and arias which were often strophic, or folk-like. Singspiel plots are generally comic or romantic in nature, and frequently include elements of magic, fantastical creatures, and comically exaggerated characterizations of good and evil.
A combination of talking and singing.
Think Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady.
Or the late Lou Reed in just about any song he ever composed.
Here it is. Listen for yourself:
The cast:
Hanswurst: Tom Sol baritone
Steckel: Rein Kolpa tenor
Odoarado/Ghost: Frank van Aken tenor
Columbine: Jorine Samson soprano
Leander: Corinne Romijin contralto/mezzo-soprano
The orchestra:
Esterhazy Orchestra
Frank van Koten
It’s difficult to determine when this was composed. Not a lot of factual information on it seems to be available.
I did find another entry on a different web site that provided a bit more information:
Between the years of 1773 and 1779 Haydn was musical director at the court of Nikolaus Esterházy. In the summer months the Prince moved to his palace in Esterházy (now in Hungary) and commissioned Haydn to write puppet operas to entertain himself, his family and his servants. Die Feuersbrunst was a popular singspiel due to the comic nature of the plot, rumoured to have been written for the servants, maid and coachman at the court. It adheres to the same principles that Mozart would later adopt in The Magic Flute which made both works popular.
I also discovered that in many references to this comic opera, the phrase “uncertain authenticity” is used to describe it.
I assume that means nobody knows for sure if Haydn wrote this. If he did, he was somewhere in his forties.
A lot more research is in order. Alas, I don’t have time this morning. If you learn more about this interesting-but-quirky piece of music, please feel free to chime in.