Blond Eckbert

"Blond Eckbert" is an opera by Scottish composer Judith Weir. The composer wrote the English libretto herself after the short story "der blonde Eckbert" by Ludwig Tieck, completing it in 1993. The original two act version of "Blond Eckbert" was Weir's third full length opera. She later produced a shorter "pocket" version of the work, scored for chamber forces.

Performance and recording history

The original two-act version of the opera was first performed on 20th April 1994 by English National Opera at the London Coliseum. This version was expected by the composer to last approximately one hour and twenty minutes, but the live recording of the original cast takes approximately 65 minutes.

"Blond Eckbert" was given its American debut by the Santa Fe Opera in August 1994.In 2003, the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra gave a concert performance of the opera with slide projections.

A more lightly scored one-act "pocket" version of the opera, lasting less than an hour, was premiered on the 14th June 2006 at the Linbury Studio of the Royal Opera House by The Opera Group and subsequently toured.

Further performances of the pocket version are scheduled in Germany and Austria in 2007-8 by the Berlin Chamber Opera, the Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck and the Vienna Chamber Opera

A live recording of the original London cast of the two-act version of "Blond Eckbert" has been released on CD. This production was also filmed and broadcast by the BBC. The film has been shown at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival

Characters

Music

The two-act version of "Blond Eckbert" is scored for double woodwind, (second players doubling piccolo, cor anglais, bass clarinet and contrabassoon,) four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, timpani and one other percussion player, harp and strings. The pocket version is written for oboe, clarinet (bass clarinet), 2 horns, 2 violins, viola, 2 cellos and harp with no chorus.

When interviewed for the programme notes to the first production, Weir placed herself musically more in a Stravinskian tradition than one based on Britten. Anthony Tommasini's New York Times review of the CD of the original production mentions Berg, Messaien, big band jazz and German romanticism as sources for her musical imagination. The musical language is spiky, compressed but more accessible than much modern music.

Whilst Tommasini and Tom Service, in his Observer review of the pocket version, are enthusiastic, Bernard Holland, in his New York Times review of the Sante Fe production, and Andrew Clark, in his Financial Times review of the pocket version, both find the music episodic and lacking in development without being altogether hostile to the work as a whole.

Libretto

The libretto displays a playfulness familiar to those who have seen Weir's first opera "A Night at the Chinese Opera". The Shakespeare-echoing first stage instruction "A bird flies across the stage, pursued by a dog." is itself echoed by the last instruction "The bird closes off the scene, and flies away, chased by the dog."

The same humour is found in the sung lines. Berthe describes the bird's song with the words "you would have thought the horn and the oboe were playing.", whilst the bird, parodying the Waldeinsamkeit/"Alone in a wood" verses in the original short story, is instructed to sing the lines "Alone in the wood, I don't feel so good." as if airsick.

ynopsis

Act 1. The bird describes how Eckbert peacefully lives alone with his wife with few visitors apart from Walther. The scene becomes clear revealing Eckbert and Berthe. Eckbert sees a light in the distance which he correctly takes to be Walther who has been out collecting natural history specimens. Eckbert thinks about how it is good to be able to tell friends secrets. When Walther arrives, Eckbert decides to get Berthe to tell Walther the story of her youth.

Berthe describes how she grew up in a poor shepherd's home and how she ran away because she was a burden on her parents who were often angry. She met an old woman in black who led her to her house where were a dog, whose name Berthe has forgotten, and a bird that lays gems for eggs. Eventually Berthe ran away with the gems and the bird which she let free when it began to sing. She returned to her home village to find her parents dead. She bought a home and married Eckbert.

Walther thanks Berthe for telling the tale and says how he can really imagine the bird and the little dog, Strohmian. Both Eckbert and Berthe are amazed at Walther's naming the dog correctly and are terrified at his motives. When Walther goes out the next day, Eckbert follows him with a crossbow.

Act 2. The prelude describes Eckbert's killing of Walther. Eckbert then reads a letter which Berthe wrote as she was dying from the stress of thinking about how Walther knew the dog's name.

In a town, Eckbert meets Hugo, a man who looks like Walther. Hugo comforts Eckbert but then the crowd start accusing Eckbert of murder.

Eckbert runs away and comes to the place described by Berthe as where she met the old woman. He sees another man who reminds him of Walther. The bird flies over head and he approaches the old woman's house. She asks if Eckbert is bringing back her bird and her gems.

When Eckbert in turn asks the old woman why she is asking this, she replies "I was Walther, I was Hugo." She tells him that Berthe was his half-sister raised by the shepherd, because his parents would not keep her. Her time of trials was almost over when she stole the bird and gems. Eckbert goes insane and dies.

References

Weir, Judith (1994) "Blond Eckbert" libretto, London, Chester Music Limited.

English National Opera (1994) "Blond Eckbert" - programme to original production.

[http://83.223.107.18/~theopera/index.php?/productions/more/blond_eckbert_other_stories/] web page of production by The Opera Group.

[http://arts.guardian.co.uk/reviews/story/0,,1798897,00.html] Tom Service's review of The Opera Group production.

[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9802E5DD1130F935A2575BC0A962958260] Bernard Holland's review of production by Santa Fe Opera.

[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05EFD71439F93BA35751C0A960958260] Anthony Tommasini's review of the CD of the original production.

[http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d2d3014a-0144-11db-af16-0000779e2340.html] Andrew Clark's review of The Opera Group's production.

[http://www.chesternovello.com/Default.aspx?TabId=2433&State_2909=1&EventsSearch_2909=Blond%20Eckbert&EventDateFrom_2909=01/01/1994%2000:00:00&SmallSearch_2909=true] ChesterNovello's list of performances of Blond Eckbert.