Der langwierige Weg in die Wohnung der Natascha Ungeheuer

Der langwierige Weg in die Wohnung der Natascha Ungeheuer
Opera by Hans Werner Henze

The composer in 1960
Description show
Librettist Gaston Salvatore
Language German
Premiere 1971 (1971)
Deutsche Oper Berlin

Der langwierige Weg in die Wohnung der Natascha Ungeheuer (The Tedious Way to Natascha Ungeheuer's Apartment) is a composition by the German composer Hans Werner Henze. It represents one of the most outré examples of his early socialist-inspired works.

Described as a "show for 17 performers", it is a setting of a libretto by the Chilean poet Gaston Salvatore, who had been prominent in the student disturbances of 1968 in Berlin. It features a baritone soloist, whose demanding role includes sprechstimme, screeches and spoken passages. He is accompanied by an organist, jazz band and a chamber ensemble akin to that used in Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. Additionally, a large battery of percussion is used as well as voices and music on tape, including brief extracts from Verdi's Aida and Mahler's Fifth Symphony. These Henze intends to represent the street sounds of Berlin.

The "show" is an allegory: Natascha Ungeheuer is the "siren of a false Utopia" according to Salvatore. She lures the leftist intellectual into the cosy situation whereby they preach socialist values whilst essentially living the same bourgeois middle class lifestyle, identifying with the proletariat in words only. In a broadly analogous way to Christ tempted by the devil in the wilderness, Salvatore's hero resists the temptation to go all the way to Natascha's apartment, yet "has not yet discovered his way to the revolution."

The work was premièred at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin in September 1971 with William Pearson as the soloist and the chamber ensemble consisting of the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and the Fires of London along with the percussionist Stomu Yamash'ta under Henze's direction. It was met with boos from the audience, which, Henze reflected, "was understandable [in] that our portrait of Berlin caused displeasure" amongst the very intellectuals it savaged.[1]

The work was recorded soon after for Deutsche Grammophon with the same forces.

References

  1. ↑ Quoted in Walsh, S. Natascha Ungeheuer, liner notes for CD release, DG 1996
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