Hitler's opera [Wieland, der Schmied]

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john2
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Hitler's opera [Wieland, der Schmied]

#1

Post by john2 » 11 Mar 2015, 17:12

[Topic renamed by the host, Ivan Ž.]

When Hitler first went to Vienna he applied to get into art school. After he was rejected he wanted to apply again but had to wait a year. I read that Hitler passed the time away by going on a tour of the city and studying the building's architecture. Another thing he apparently did was write the libretto for an opera. Anyone else heard of this? I did a google search but couldn't find anything. I was curious if it survived.

GoeringsPetLion
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#2

Post by GoeringsPetLion » 23 Sep 2020, 19:34

According to August Kubizek in his book The Young Hitler I Knew (German: Hitler, mein Jugendfreund), Hitler took piano lessons in Linz from Josef Prewratzky for some time ("it was certainly not a year", p. 76), and composed in Vienna part of an opera ("he had to put aside the half-finished opera", p. 199) about the Germanic legendary figure Wayland the Smith, who in German is called Wieland der Schmied (pp. 193-199).

Excerpt from pp. 193-194:
I knew that almost everything he was writing was set in the world of Richard Wagner, that is to say, Germanic antiquity. One day I remarked, casually, that I had learned during lectures on the history of music that the outline of a musical drama about Wieland the smith had been found amongst Wagner’s posthumous writings. It was, in fact, only a short, hastily sketched text, and no drafts for a stage version existed, nor was anything known about the musical treatment of the material.

Adolf immediately looked up the Wieland legend in his book on gods and heroes. Strangely enough he did not object at all to the plot of the Wieland legend, although King Nidur’s action is entirely motivated by avarice and greed. The hunger for gold, so important an element in Germanic mythology, produced in him neither a negative nor a positive response. Nor was he at all impressed by the fact that Wieland kills his son out of vengeance, rapes his daughter and drinks from beakers fashioned from the skulls of his sons. He started to write that same night. I was sure that in the morning he would surprise me with the draft of his new drama, Wieland der Schmied, yet things turned out differently. In the morning, nothing
happened, but when I returned for lunch I found Adolf, to my great surprise, sitting at the piano. The scene that followed has remained in my memory. Without any further explanation, he greeted me with the words, ‘Listen, Gustl, I am going to make the Wieland into an opera.’ I was so surprised as to become speechless. Adolf enjoyed my reaction to his announcement and went on playing the piano, or what for him passed as playing. Old Prewratzky had taught him something in his day, undoubtedly, but not enough to play the piano as I understood it.

When I had recovered, I asked Adolf how he imagined he would set about it. ‘Quite simple – I shall compose the music, and you will write it down.’ Adolf’s plans and ideas always moved, more or less, on a plane above normal comprehension – I had long since grown used to that – but now, when my own special domain, music, was in question, I really could not keep up with him. With all due respect to his musical gifts, he was no musician; he was not even capable of playing a musical instrument. He had not the slightest idea of musical theory. How could he dream of composing an opera?

The first page of the prelude (handwritten by Kubizek) was found in Kubizek's estate, and is shown in the current exhibition Der junge Hitler (The young Hitler) of the Museum Niederösterreich in St. Pölten, Austria. It is believed to be the only surviving sheet.

Reference and more information about the exhibition: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... stria.html
Wieland.jpg
[File restored by the host, I. Ž.]


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Ivan Ž.
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Re: Hitler's opera [Wieland, der Schmied]

#3

Post by Ivan Ž. » 16 Nov 2020, 03:44

Kubizek's conclusion of the chapter "Adolf Writes an Opera" (from the aforementioned book, p. 199):
I do not know what became of our opera. One day new, pressing problems requiring immediate solution confronted my friend. As even Adolf, in spite of his immense capacity for work, had only one pair of hands, he had to put aside the half-finished opera. He spoke less and less of it, and in the end did not mention it at all. Perhaps the insufficiency of his endeavours had meanwhile dawned on him. To me, it had been obvious from the beginning that we would never succeed in our attempt to write an opera, and I took good care not to raise the subject again. Wieland der Schmied, Adolf’s opera, remained a fragment.

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