On the next Tuesday Night Opera, hear a rarity by Richard Strauss from 1936: Friedenstag or Peace Day. It’s a one-act opera composed by the 72-year-old Strauss. The story takes place in a besieged castle at the end of the 30 Years War. The Catholics and the Protestants are battling it out.
Archive for June 3, 2014
Tuesday, June 3, 2014 by Noel Morris
It’s a strange story. Igor Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale feels like the popular AMC TV series The Walking Dead in that the protagonist wanders the countryside, people go missing, everyone’s a stranger – in fact it really was like that in parts of Europe at the end of World War I (zombies excepted). That was the backdrop for Stravinsky’s little road show, L’histoire du soldat (1918). It was conceived as a portable theater piece “to be read, played, and danced” in villages around Switzerland.