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such stuff (Free subscription) | 18/07/2008
Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s 1965 opera “Die Soldaten,” the story of a woman’s degradation at the hands of a series of heartless soldiers, has a prelude of such stupefying intensity that it stands for the moment as the ne plus ultra. The full orchestra sustains an enormous dissonance spread out over many octaves. Beneath it, the timpani pound out, “in iron rhythm,” the note D—perhaps a nod backward
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The Rambler (Free subscription) | 17/07/2008
Or: How many nights do you need to sell out at up to $250 a seat before critics stop calling you perversely obscure? According to David Byrne’s review of Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten in New York, more than five. Byrne’s review is full of dumb*, but here’s a quick compare-and-contrast between his oppressively conservative version [...]
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Opera Today (Free subscription) | 15/07/2008
By HEIDI WALESON [Wall Street Journal, 10 July 2008] The technical wizardry of the Lincoln Center Festival production of Bernd Alois Zimmermann's "Die Soldaten" is spectacular. Initially produced by the RuhrTriennale Festival in Germany, the New York version is staged in the vast volume (200 by 300 feet, 80 feet high) of the Park Avenue Armory's vaulted Drill Hall. The set (designed by Robert Innes...
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Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise (Free subscription) | 15/07/2008
Infernal Opera. The New Yorker, July 21, 2008.
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Darcy James Argue's Secret Society (Free subscription) | 11/07/2008
David Byrne reviews the Lincoln Center Festival's insane Park Avenue Armory staging of Bernd Alois Zimmermann's 12-tone opera Die Soldaten: The playbill refers to the piece as both a monument and a tombstone, since music in this genre couldn’t really...
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Sequenza21/ (Free subscription) | 11/07/2008
Few operas I have seen have left as great an impact on me as Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten which I originally saw at City Opera in the early ’90s and just saw again in its current run at the Park Avenue Armory as part of the 2008 Lincoln Center Festival. (There are only two [...]
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David Byrne Journal (Free subscription) | 09/07/2008
On Monday evening I attended a performance of the opera Die Soldaten (The Soldiers), by Bernd Alois Zimmermann. He began composing the piece in 1957, but it was not until 1965 that the first stage performance was produced. (Personally, I...
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Opera Today (Free subscription) | 09/07/2008
John Simon [Bloomberg.com, 8 July 2008] July 8 (Bloomberg) -- The Park Avenue Armory is the site of ``Die Soldaten,'' Bernd Alois Zimmermann's 1965 12-tone opera in a gargantuan production imported to Manhattan from Germany for the Lincoln Center Festival. It fills out what used to be the Drill Hall of the elite Seventh Regiment, whose drills may have been more musical than Zimmermann's opera.
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Opera Today (Free subscription) | 07/07/2008
By GEORGE LOOMIS [NY Sun, 7 July 2008] Any festival in a big city needs to offer something radically different from normal fare, or it doesn't deserve to be called a festival. This hurdle is surmounted triumphantly by the Lincoln Center Festival with its production of Bernd Alois Zimmermann's "Die Soldaten," or "The Soldiers," which opened on Saturday, not simply because it has chosen a complex, modernistic...
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Examiner (Free subscription) | 07/07/2008
The opening note of Bernd Alois Zimmermann's "Die Soldaten" has to be the most moving in opera when heard in David Pountney's production: The 974-seat bleacher containing the audience slowly starts to roll down train tracks in the Park Avenue Armory's Drill Hall, passing over a football field-length runway where most of the action takes place.
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Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise (Free subscription) | 05/07/2008
On July 3 I saw the dress rehearsal for the Lincoln Center Festival presentation of Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Die Soldaten. As early signs indicated, it's an astonishing experience; details will follow in a New Yorker review. Unfortunately, the only tickets...
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Opera Today (Free subscription) | 04/06/2008
By KATE TAYLOR [NY Sun, 2 June 2008] The opera "Die Soldaten," written in 1965 by the German composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann, is nearly impossible to perform. With its huge orchestra, its intensely difficult 12-tone score, and a narrative in which past, present, and future overlap — Zimmermann once imagined it being performed on 12 stages to distinguish the work's times and locales — the piece has...
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News & Information (Free subscription) | 02/06/2008
The opera “Die Soldaten,” written in 1965 by the German composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann, is nearly impossible to perform. With its huge orchestra, its intensely difficult 12-tone score, and a narrative……Read more
