Perhaps the most influential thinker of the story as a Comedy hero? The Opera “Marx in London” is a Moody out of me at the end of the Karl Marx anniversary year, and stimulates the thoughts in a fun way.
The capitalism critic, whose writings should change the world, lives comfortably, and citizens. But due to his inability to deal with money, his industrialist friend him under the arms. Of those founders of an ideology that borders on a Religion, has an illegitimate son, whose existence in the world must be kept secret, so there is no damage to their image. His wife, the daughter of a chief administrative officer, is going to the dogs – not because they have lost their social rank by revolution activities, but because your man is livin ‘ large and away from home.
This could be the subject of a fascinating psychological analysis, or even sharp criticism. Or a Comedy? “Marx in London” is exactly that.
Of the Bonn Opera, based the work on a concept by the German Director Jürgen R. Weber. The text-book by Charles Hart in the English language was set to music by Jonathan Dove and after the premiere on 9. December got the result a standing ovation.
Comic operas have become in the Modern rarely. Jonathan Dove is trying to change this
There is never a dull moment at family Marx
29. Opera by the British composer depicts 24 hours in the life of Karl Marx and his family. After many moves they ended up in London and are under observation of a government agent. At the beginning, the title character has to watch as his furniture to be removed. The reason for this is unpaid debt.
He tried to pawn the silverware his wife, but then, in a flaming speech by a future cash-free utopia – and during the speech surge, the silver is lost to him. As all this is not enough, for example, a young man appears, proves to be the illegitimate son of Karl Marx. In the result of frantic busy-ness, to keep the presence and the identity of the young man’s secret. As a Deus ex machina, Friedrich Engels, rescues, finally, the Marx family out of the financial mess.
It was actually Engels who was on his death-bed, that Karl Marx had an illegitimate son. As a consultant, the historian Tristram Hunt stood by the creators of the piece. So everything is justified in the plot historically, even if with ease is told.
Yannick-Muriel Noah as Jenny and Mark Morouse than Marx
Marx has long been taken so seriously that a serious Opera on the Subject would run the risk to act ideologically, says Jürgen R. Weber: “He is still regarded in many places as a very scientific, a profound thinker who had the key to a utopia. Marx was and remains a quasi-religious phenomenon.”
The light narrative style of the Text and the action will be reflected in Jonathan dove’s score, with echoes of Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Benjamin Britten and Philip Glass. These elements are cleverly integrated into the great Whole: time significance of hard times is frivolous. “I’m not afraid of melodies,” says Dove, whose works of “Flight” and “The Adventures of Pinocchio” entered the Opera repertoire. “I think there are enough serious, experimental, avant-garde music. By contrast, the Comedy in the Opera.”
Humor in the 21st century. Century
Comic operas are in fact for over a century, are extremely rare. For Doves comrades-in-arms Jürgen R. Weber and the reasons lie far in the past. “There is an unwritten law: If you understand something, there can be no art. I think it was actually Nietzsche who said: Even if you don’t see the ground, it might still be flat. Even today, people think, ‘Because I don’t understand it, it must be true.'”
Idea generator and film Director in personal Union: Jürgen R. Weber
Weber, who has experience in the Director and in the development of popular German TV-soap operas (“Good times bad times”, “in Love in Berlin”), white, what arrives at the audience. Dove white it is obvious also, but this calculation is not included in his creative process: “I have been very lucky to discover that if I make the sounds I want to hear myself and if I can compose a Show that I want to yourself go, then there will be others who have pleasure in them. Of all the seats in the theatre, I then will likely have the most fun.”
Initially, the directing Team wanted to work with a German to English text book, similar to the machine language mixing, of the decided in the Marx family prevailed – but then for English. “I wanted the Comic to work in the factory,” says Dove. “Although I understand German reasonably well, I’m miles and miles away, to set to music texts in English in a fun way. In English I can put the words but to understand the punch line.”
“I know only this, that I am not a Marxist”
No slapstick, belly laughter provoked, but fine situation Comedy provides the music theatre of Dove and Weber. German subtitles to accompany the Events in the Opera house in Bonn. To understand “Marx in London”, requires no profound knowledge of History, but only the openness, the colourful orchestral sounds, as well as the voices of Mark Morouse than Marx, Yannick-Muriel Noah as his wife, Jenny, Marie Heeschen in the role of his daughter, chick, Christian Georg as an illegitimate son, Freddy, Ceri Williams, the housekeeper, Helene, and John Mertes as an angel.
Scene and costumes come from Hank Irwin Kittel
After many UPS and Downs one of the greatest German thinkers, landed in the United Kingdom and was buried there. This production, in collaboration with the Scottish Opera can be understood as a gift to Marx’s home country, two hundred years after his birth.
“I know only this, that I am not a Marxist”, said Karl Marx. This could also be considered as a starting point for “Marx in London”.