Grete Minde by Engel, E., Sun 17 Dec 2023, From (2023/2023), Directed by Olivia Fuchs, Conductor Anna Skryleva, Opernhaus, Magdeburg, Germany

Opera in three acts by Eugen Engel | Libretto by Hans Bodenstedt after Theodor Fontane's novel of the same name premiere | With German surtitles Ages 14 and up The rediscovery and world premiere of the only opera by the German-Jewish composer and businessman Eugen Engel at the Magdeburg Theater caused - 90 years after its creation - worldwide enthusiasm in February 2022: "Grete Minde is a music-dramatic extremely effective, cleverly constructed, yes, stirring work ' said Bernhard Doppler on Bavarian radio. At the beginning of May, a live recording of the world premiere of the Magdeburg production was released on CD by the renowned Orfeo label. Theodor Fontane's novella Grete Minde tells the history of the Tangermünde city fire of 1617. The focus is on the young outsider Grete Minde, who - deprived of her rightful inheritance by her half-brother and the city council - takes revenge on her hometown: she sets a devastating fire and dies together with her small child in front of everyone in the burning church tower. Fontane's unprejudiced treatment of his characters was possibly the starting point for the German-Jewish composer Eugen Engel to devote himself to one of the author's themes in his only opera around 1930. Although he earned his living as a merchant, Engel's personal passion was music. Grete Minde undoubtedly represents the high point of his oeuvre, but could not be premiered in times of growing National Socialism. The handwritten score saved Engel's daughter when she emigrated to the USA in 1941. The composer himself was murdered in the Sobibor extermination camp in 1943, none of his 12 siblings survived the Shoah. From October, the highly acclaimed production can be experienced again on the stage of the Magdeburg Opera House!