Forgotten Liszt opera to be performed for first time after 170 years
AN abandoned opera by Franz Liszt which has lain largely forgotten in a German archive for nearly two centuries will be given its world premiere this summer.
The manuscript was discovered in an archive in Weimar by Cambridge University academic David Trippett more than 10 years ago.
Much of its music was written in shorthand, only one act was completed and it was assumed to be fragmentary, often illegible and consequently indecipherable.
But it has been resurrected after Dr Trippett spent the past two years working on the manuscript and a ten-minute preview will be performed for the first time in public as part of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World contest in June.
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"In 1849 Liszt began composing an Italian opera, but he abandoned it halfway through and the music he completed has lain silently in an archive for nearly 170 years," said Dr Trippett, who is a senior lecturer in the faculty of music.
The manuscript has been hiding in plain sight for well over 100 years
"This project is about bringing it to life for the very first time.
"The music that survives is breathtaking - a unique blend of Italianate lyricism and harmonic innovation.
"There is nothing else quite like it in the operatic world."
The only source for the opera is a single 111-page manuscript containing music for piano and voices.
The libretto, based on Lord Byron's tragedy Sardanapalus, tells the story of a peace-loving king of Assyria, more interested in revelry and women than politics and war.
He deplores violence and brutality and, perhaps naively, he believes in the innate goodness of humankind but is overthrown by rebels and burns himself alive with his lover, Mirra, amid scents and spices in a great inferno.
"In effect, the manuscript has been hiding in plain sight for well over 100 years," added Dr Trippett.
"It was written for Liszt's eyes only, and has various types of musical shorthand, with spatial gaps in the manuscript.
"A lot of it is very hard to read, but the scruffiness is deceptive.
"It seems Liszt worked out all the music in his head before he put pen to paper and to retrieve this music I've had to try and put myself into the mind of a 19th-century composer, a rare challenge and a remarkable opportunity.
"Fortunately, Liszt left just enough information to retrieve what was evidently the continuous musical conception he had at the time.
"We will never know exactly why he abandoned his work on the opera and I suspect he would have been surprised to learn that it is resurfacing in the 21st century.
"But I like to think he would have smiled on it."
A ten-minute scene from the opera will be performed at the final of the BBC Singer of the World event by Armenian soprano and rising talent Anush Hovhannisyan.