Uroš Rojko: King David, chamber opera

6.30 pm - Upbeat, discussion with the composer

25. Slovenian Music Days

Uroš Rojko: King David, Cither and Sword, chamber opera

Text and Director: Marc Günther
Conductor: Hans Michael Beuerle

Christoph Müller, actor (Theater im Marienbad Freiburg)
Anton Webern Vocal Ensemble
Ensemble Avanture

Dr Hans Michael Beuerle, professor at the Freiburg University of Music and conductor of the Freiburg Bach Choir and the Anton Webern Vocal Ensemble, initiated the creation of a new work, first conceived as a burlesque for music theatre. After reading Brentano, Grimm and Basile, whose suggested fairytale texts held no ‘resonance’ for me, Italo Calvino’s novel ‘The Nonexistent Knight’ came to my attention. I heard music and saw images and scenery. The decision had been made. After almost a year of work (libretto: Doris Reckewell), and just before the first instrumental rehearsal, an unexpected complication arose: a prohibition by the ‘Calvino Estate’. In an unbelievable coincidence director Marc Günther came to our aid, and together we undertook a seemingly impossible task. He wrote a new libretto, and working from syllable to syllable I removed the original text from the score and replaced it with the new text. In addition to other smaller modifications, I composed a new trio for female voices, and on Marc’s suggestion I reversed the order of the sixth and seventh scenes. After the first set of rehearsals one could sense the relief in the teasing remark: “Why didn’t you tell us earlier that you had written music for King David?  You would have saved us all of that comedy with Calvino!”.
The musical language is adapted to a synthesis of theatre performance and musical narrative. The singing parts are often notated as ‘Sprächgesang’, with precise rhythmic notation but leaving freedom in the intonation. In spite of the frequent use of more radical compositional techniques, the musical syntax attempts to address ears less accustomed to an explicitly contemporary musical language.

Uroš Rojko