Der junge Lord

"The Young Lord" is a true ensemble opera, with impressive songs and an orchestra hardly larger than that of a Mozart opera, the characters being accompanied by respective leitmotifs or instruments. Henze frequently uses purely tonal structures. Yet this does not mean that Henze returns to the past, or that he betrays his avantgarde achievements. His style reveals a kind of highly 'artificial' and witty handling of tradition. The connoisseur recognizes many subtle allusions to tradition, while the ordinary listener enjoys everything he expects from a comic opera: lightness, tempo, wit, warmth and a touch of dream-world. "The Young Lord" was commissioned by the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Although Henze knew what artistic talent and possibilities were to be expected there, his justifiably high expectations were probably surpassed when he saw the first performance on 7 April 1965. Filippo Sanjust conjured up a most imaginative and accurate picture of the Biedermeier world upon the stage, which contains just enough fantastic exaggeration to fit the work. The producer, Gustav Rudolf Sellner, has put life into all those details in a manner that particularly benefits the film. Finally, Christoph von Dohnányi has proved to be the ideal Henze conductor.