Commission to Hèctor Parra

The Spanish composer Hèctor Parra addresses man’s great longing for nature and the threatening and destructive power that nature in turn emanates in his piece Ich ersehne die Alpen, a song for soprano, electronics and orchestra based on the text Ich ersehne die Alpen; So entstehen die Seen by the playwright Händl Klaus. The icy landscape of the mountains forms a striking metaphor for the dualism between beauty and death. In her loneliness, the character Olivia projects her longings onto the mountain landscape, while her fragility and powerlessness become increasingly apparent in the face of nature. While Olivia lies in her garret suffering from insufferable heat, in feverish delirium she longs for “the Alps with their spacious cold.” Completely exhausted, she bids farewell to life and wishes for solidification in ice. The landscape of the mountains forms for her the dreamed-of salvation, a projection screen of insatiable desire in the transition from life to death.

The lyrical soprano voice is interwoven with a richly colored orchestral sound, radical in places, representing the roughness and danger of the mountain landscape. An essential part of the score is the electronic sounds that enter into dialogue with the orchestra and the singer. They are electronically modified recordings from the environment of an icy mountain landscape, which seem like acoustic traces from a distant world. The composition commission Ich ersehne die Alpen to Hèctor Parra for the Stuttgart State Opera in cooperation with the Orquesta Nacional de España is sponsored by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

Further information:
staatsoper-stuttgart.de

Dates

March 26 and 27, 2023
Liederhalle Stuttgart