Der Zar lässt sich photographieren

Der Zar lässt sich photographieren (The Tsar Has his Photograph Taken') is an opera buffa in one act by Kurt Weill, op. 21. The German libretto was written by Georg Kaiser, and Weill composed the music in 1927.

Performance history

The opera was first performed at the Neues Theater in Leipzig on 18 February 1928. Weill had intended it to be a companion piece for Der Protagonist, though it was staged at its premiere with Nicola Spinelli's A basso porto (1894). Der Zar lässt sich photographieren and Der Protagonist were then performed together at Altenburg on 25 March of the same year.

The first American performance took place on 27 October 1949, at the Juilliard School, New York. The first performance in the United Kingdom was at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London, on 12 March 1986.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, 18 February 1928 (Conductor: Gustav Brecher)
The Tsar	baritone	Theodor Horand
Angèle	soprano	Ilse Koegel
The false Angèle	soprano	Maria Janowska
The assistant	tenor
The boy	contralto
The leader of the gang	mezzo-soprano or tenor
The false assistant	tenor
The false boy	contralto
The equerry	bass

Synopsis

Place: a photographic studio in Paris

Time: 1914

An offstage male chorus chants the opera's title (and comments on the action from time to time). Angèle (the proprietress) and her male assistants, one of them a boy, have little work to do, but a telephone-call brings news that the Tsar wishes to have his photograph taken. A large box-camera is set up, but, before the Tsar arrives, four members of a gang of revolutionaries burst in. They bind and gag Angèle and her staff. Three of the gang dress up as Angèle, her assistant and the boy, and the leader of the gang, proclaiming that the revolution is imminent, conceals a gun in the camera. It will fire at the Tsar when the bulb used for taking the photograph is squeezed. The captives are put in another room, the leader hides, and the Tsar is announced.

The Tsar is dressed in a summer suit and accompanied only by an equerry. He wants an informal portrait rather than an official one. He is attracted by the False Angèle and asks to be left alone with her. She is keen to take the photograph (i.e. to "shoot" him), but he flirts with her and offers to take her photograph first. She manages to avoid being accidentally shot by the Tsar, and is finally about to press the bulb to shoot him when the equerry re-appears to report that the police have followed some assassins to the studio. The false Angèle, realising that the game is up, puts on a seductive gramophone record (the "Tango Angèle") and asks the Tsar to avert his eyes while she undresses. She and the rest of the gang escape through the window just before the police arrive with the real Angèle and her assistants, who had previously themselves escaped and raised the alarm. The gun is removed from the camera, and the Tsar, though dismayed that the real Angèle is not as attractive as the false one, finally, as the chorus again says, "has his photograph taken".

Music

The opera's music is continuous, rather than arranged in "numbers". There are big orchestral climaxes at dramatic moments but also some popular-music forms, such as the foxtrot which accompanies the entrance of the Tsar. The "Tango Angèle" was specially recorded for the first performance, and is one of the earliest examples of pre-recorded music being used on stage in a dramatic work.^[1] It was Weill's first best-selling record.

Recordings

• Barry McDaniel, Marita Napier, Carla Pohl, Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conductor Jan Latham-König (Capriccio 60007-1)

References

Notes

1. ^ Programme-note by Chris Macklin for performances of the opera at the University of York on 17-18 March, 2007.

Sources

• Amadeus Almanac, accessed 26 October 2008
• Cook, Susan, Opera for a New Republic: the Zeitopern of Krenek, Weill and Hindemith UMI Research Press, 1988
• Hinton, Stephen (1992), "Der Zar lässt sich photographieren", The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. Stanley Sadie (London) ISBN 0-333-73432-7
• Holden, Amanda (Ed.), The New Penguin Opera Guide, New York: Penguin Putnam, 2001. ISBN 0-140-29312-4
• Warrack, John and West, Ewan, The Oxford Dictionary of Opera New York: OUP: 1992 ISBN 0-19-869164-5

External links

• Kurt Weill Foundation page about the opera