Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt
(Only one who knows what it is to yearn)
Available on Oper Frankfurt’s website from 7.30pm on March 26 until June 20. The film was made by Unitel in cooperation with Oper Frankfurt, the Hessische Rundfunk & ARTE.
Oper Frankfurt continues its series of streamed events, with a new one added at 7.30pm every Friday and available on the website, YouTube and Facebook. Click here for more information. The streams are free of costst, but donations are welcome.
Tchaikovsky’s Lieder create an intimate evening on stage which introduces us to five people and their inconsistent emotions. Suppressed love is confronted with longed for moments of passion, sadness over broken relationships leads to withdrawal and loneliness. A dynamic emerges between the figures, in which they play each other off, fall in love, despise and transform one another – but are constantly thrown back on their own devices.
Tschaikowski-Lieder staged by Christof Loy. Trailer for the Online Premiere on 26 March 2021. Video © Thiemo Hehl.
Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, a setting to music of Goethe’s Mignon song, and probably still the best known of Tchaikovsky’s Lieder, lends its name to the production. Tchaikovsky achieved a stylistic diversity unsurpassed by other Russian composers with his more than 100 Lieder, mostly described as „romances“. He preferred texts by poets who avoided subjects that could be easily explained. The resulting gaps, the unsaid and unsayable are what makes Tchaikovsky’s music so expressive. His ability to tackle true human emotions head on made his Lieder very popular during his lifetime. While Tchaikovsky’s Romances are central to Russian repertoire, they have long languished in the shadows of his operas, symphonies and ballets in the west. You will hear Lieder you might never heard before in this special production, accompanied by piano and chamber music.