Steven Sloane, with whom I became friends when he conducted Mozart's "Magic Flute" for Houston Grand Opera this season, invited us up to New York to watch him conduct an opera for this year's Lincoln Center Festival at the Park Avenue Armory. The opera was Die Soldaten, by Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Zimmermann started composing the piece in 1957, finally premiering in Cologne in 1965. His original concept was multiple playing areas incorporating cinema and sound systems, cutting edge for his time. This production incorporates many of Zimmermann's originally instructions, but is performed on a 260 foot runway along which the entire audience moves. Technically it is a marvel to experience. It is a dark foreboding story of multiple lives, set in no particular time, but incorporating many elements of Germany during World War II. Zimmermann was drafted into the German army in 1939, discharged due to health problems in 1942. He was an unstable individual, ending his own life in 1970.
Steven, conductor of the Bochumer Symphoniker in Germany, is an American, very creative and almost always conducts from memory. Not so this time. This score is so complex that some call it unplayable. Steven and his orchestra did a spectacular job interpreting the work which was tough sledding to listen to at times during the performance. It is a tragedy of spectacular proportions.
The New York Times did a short video piece on the opera which you might find interesting:
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