Das verratene Meer is an 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...

 in two parts and 14 scenes, with music by Hans Werner Henze

Hans Werner Henze

Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...

 to 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 Hans-Ulrich Treichel

Hans-Ulrich Treichel

Hans-Ulrich Treichel is a Germanist, novelist and poet. His earliest published books were collections of poetry, but prose writing has become a larger part of his output since the critical and commercial success of his first novel Der Verlorene...

, after Yukio Mishima

Yukio Mishima

was the pen name of , a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor and film director, also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état...

's novel The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea , is a novel written by Yukio Mishima, published in Japanese in 1963 and translated into English by John Nathan in 1965.- Plot summary :...

. Composed between 1986 and 1989, it was Henze's 9th opera, his third that he wrote for the Deutsche Oper in Berlin.

Performance history

It was first performed at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin on 5 May 1990, when it was conducted by Markus Stenz

Markus Stenz

Markus Stenz is a German conductor. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik Köln with Volker Wangenhein and at Tanglewood with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa....

 and produced by Götz Friedrich

Götz Friedrich

Götz Friedrich was a German opera and theatre director.He was a student and assistant of Walter Felsenstein at the Komische Oper Berlin in Berlin, where he went on to direct his early productions...

. The US premiere was at San Francisco Opera

San Francisco Opera

San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...

 on 8 November 1991.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, 5 May 1990 (Conductor: Markus Stenz Markus Stenz Markus Stenz is a German conductor. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik Köln with Volker Wangenhein and at Tanglewood with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa.... )
Fusako Kuroda, a 33-year old widow	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Stephanie Sundine/Beverly Morgan (Ms. Sundine acted while Ms. Morgan sang, due to Ms. Sundine's illness at the time of the premiere)
Noboru, her son aged 13, number 3 in the gang	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Clemente Bieber
Ryuji Tsukazaki, merchant navy officer	baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...	Andreas Schmidt Andreas Schmidt (baritone) Andreas Schmidt is a German classical bass-baritone in opera and concert.- Professional career :Andreas Schmidt studied church music with his father Hartmut Schmidt and singing with Ingeborg Reichelt and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.His 1984 debut was in the part of Malatesta in Donizetti's Don...
Ship's mate	bass-baritone Bass-baritone A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende...
Gang member number 1	baritone	Martin Gantner Martin Gantner Martin Gantner is a German operatic baritone. He made his professional opera debut in Koblenz as Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro. He soon after joined the roster of singers at the Deutsche Oper Berlin where he notably portrayed one of the gang members in the world premiere of Hans Werner...
Gang member number 2	countertenor Countertenor A countertenor is a male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of a contralto, mezzo-soprano, or a soprano, usually through use of falsetto, or far more rarely than normal, modal voice. A pre-pubescent male who has this ability is called a treble...
Gang member number 4	baritone
Gang member number 5	bass-baritone

Synopsis

Part I: Summer

• Scene 1 - Fusako's house
• Scene 2 - An abandoned warehouse
• Scene 3 - A park on a hill above the sea
• Scene 4 - Fusako's house
• Scene 5 - The warehouse
• Scene 6 - The park
• Scene 7 - On the pier in the harbour
• Scene 8 - The warehouse

Part II: Winter

• Scene 9 - The park
• Scene 10 - The warehouse
• Scene 11 - Fusako's house
• Scene 12 - The warehouse
• Scene 13 - Fusako's boutique
• Scene 14 - The warehouse

External links

• San Francisco Opera page on Das verratene Meer