Sancta Susanna
Encyclopedia
Sancta Susanna is an early opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 by Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...

 in one act, with a German libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 by August Stramm
August Stramm
August Stramm was a German poet and playwright who is considered one of the first of the expressionists. He also served in the German Army and was killed in action during World War I....

. Composed over a two week period in January/February 1921, its premiere was on 26 March 1922, at Opernhaus, Frankfurt.

The work is his third and final in a triptych of expressionist influenced one-act operas - the previous two being Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen
Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen
Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen is an opera in one act by Paul Hindemith, with a German libretto by Oskar Kokoschka based on his play written in 1907....

op. 12 (1921), and Das Nusch-Nuschi
Das Nusch-Nuschi
Das Nusch-Nuschi is an opera in one act by Paul Hindemith, with a German libretto by Franz Blei.Subtitled A Play for Burmese Marionettes it is in fact a fully staged work with both singers and dancers, the second in a triptych of expressionist influenced one-act operas, the others being Mörder,...

op. 20 (1921) - and much like the previous works, scandalised Frankfurt’s concert going public, affording the young composer heightened critical attention and notoriety.

Background

Sancta Susanna examines the relationship between celibacy and lust in Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

, depicting the descent of a nunnery into sexual frenzy. Hindemith, around this time in his career has often been regarded, ‘a twenty-four-year-old dabbling in the realm of German expressionism’, and although it cannot be described as a fully fledged work of expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...

, the opera undoubtedly shows a significant reflexivity on the composer’s part to such contemporary artistic trends.

Much like his contemporaries, Hindemith spoke of the early twentieth-century as a time in which ‘the old world exploded’, and artists were forced to make sense of this changed world by disregarding to a large extent, codes and conventions that had been established - in some cases - for centuries. Thus in the libretto (from the notable expressionist poet and playwright August Stramm) stage directions dominate over speech, which is highly fragmented through ellipses and incomplete phrases. Central to the opera is the expressionistic notion of shock as a means of articulating oneself, and musically, this was achieved to a large extent by pushing harmonic and tonal processes ‘to the very limits of tonality’. Hindemith did not however, divorce himself entirely from formalism, and the work is structured in a series of variations.

Critical reaction

The controversy generated by the opera upon its premiere is reflected in the difficulty Hindemith faced, getting the work performed in the first place. Among his problems was finding a competent and willing conductor. Fritz Busch, who had premiered the composer’s earlier operas, and who was seen as both progressive, and a champion of Hindemith’s work, refused to offer his services on moral grounds. Upon its premiere, contemporary critic, Karl Grunsky wrote that the performance ‘signifies a desecration of our cultural institutions’, and at a performance in Hamburg, concert goers were required to pledge in writing not to cause a disturbance during the performance. Even as recently as 1995, performances of the work have attracted criticism from Christian organisations.

At the same time as it has generated controversy, Sancta Susanna (and more generally Hindemith's operatic triptych) has been praised for its technical excellence. In 1930, Marion Scott wrote in Proceedings of the Musical Association that although the contents of his early operas is unquestionably ‘horrific’, their ‘musical brilliance is equally certain, and “Sancta Susanna” is the cleverest of the bunch.’ The article describes him as ‘the acknowledged leader of the “new music”’, and it is in no small part that his provocative early works contributed to such recognition.

Synopsis

The opera opens in a convent at night, the protagonist, Susanna, lying in prayer in front of an altar. She is approached by a number of figures, the most prominent of whom is Sister Clementia, who states that Susanna is sick, and ‘scarcely live[s] on this earth any longer’. The dialogue is underpinned by a high pedal
Pedal point
In tonal music, a pedal point is a sustained tone, typically in the bass, during which at least one foreign, i.e., dissonant harmony is sounded in the other parts. A pedal point sometimes functions as a "non-chord tone", placing it in the categories alongside suspensions, retardations, and passing...

in the organ, and - in conjunction with conventionally extra-musical sounds such as that of belfry bells, - heightens one's sense of total immersion, and helps reinforce the ritualistic and religious themes.

Susanna finds herself increasingly seduced and overpowered; initially by the sweet scents and sounds entering through the chapel window, but soon by the physical presence of her maid-servant, and her lover. Following a Latin invocation of Satan by Susanna, she is cautioned by Sister Clementia, with the tale of a nun, Sister Beata, who gave in to her erotic fantasies, and as a punishment was bricked up behind the altar. Susanna, no longer capable of abstaining, discards her veil, rips the loin cloth from the crucifix in front of her, and demands such punishment from the nuns, who have now congregated around her. Musically, this finale consists of a giddying, sequence in woodwind and strings, abruptly cut off by a piercingly dissonant, yet dynamically restrained chord in the upper strings. Following this, vocal and brass forces compete – the nuns all now chanting ‘Satana’ - in what is both a deafening and densely scored series of chordal exchanges.
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