opera notebook
some operas I have seen on videoRudi Stephan, Die Ersten Menschen (1920)
libretto by Otto Borngräber
De Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam, 2021
- Conductor: François-Xavier Roth
- Director: Calixto Bieito
- Set Designer: Rebecca Ringst
- Chawa: Annette Dasch
- Kajin: Leigh Melrose
- Chabel: John Osborn
- Adahm: Kyle Ketelsen
Calixto Bieito's gaudy, hyper-sexualized, hideously violent staging is next to unwatchable. But perhaps it recreates, for a jaded era, the scandalous appeal that Otto Borngräber's play must have had for composer Rudi Stephan, and for modernist critics and audiences at the premiere of Die Ersten Menschen (after the First World War and after both its creators had died).