Neues vom Tage

Neues vom Tage
Lustige Oper by Paul Hindemith
The composer in 1923
Translation	News of the Day
Librettist	Marcellus Schiffer
Language	German
Premiere	8 June 1929 (1929-06-08) Kroll Opera House, Berlin

Neues vom Tage (English: News of the Day) is a comic opera (Lustige Oper) in three parts by Paul Hindemith, with a German libretto by Marcellus Schiffer.

The opera is a satire of modern life, celebrity and marriage, involving parodies of both Puccini's music and Berlin Kabarett. The opera became notorious for a scene with a naked soprano (Laura) singing in the bath about the wonders of modern plumbing, though Hindemith replaced her with the tenor (Hermann) in the revised version.

The on-stage nudity particularly aroused the ire of Ernst "Putzi" Hanfstängel, Hitler’s musical advisor, and was later indirectly cited by Joseph Goebbels as evidence that the "degenerate art" of "cultural bolshevist" composers should be excluded from Germany.

Performance history

Neues vom Tage was first performed on 8 June 1929, at the Kroll Opera House, Berlin, under the musical direction of Otto Klemperer. Hindemith revised the opera, changing the text and adding a little new music, for the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, on 7 April 1954. The premiere of the work in the United States was at the Santa Fe Opera in 1961.

Roles

Roles, voice types, premiere casts of original and revised versions

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast, 8 June 1929 (Conductor: Otto Klemperer)	Revised version, 7 April 1954 (Conductor: Paul Hindemith)
Laura	soprano	Grete Stückgold	Mercedes Fortunati
Eduard, Laura's husband	baritone		Giuseppe Valdengo
Hermann, a professional co-respondent	tenor	Erik Wirkl	Gino Sinimberghi
Herr M	tenor	Arthur Cavara	Alessandro Pellegrini
Frau M	mezzo-soprano	Sabine Kalter	Adamo
Baron d'Houdoux, an entrepreneur	bass	Dezső Ernster	Giuseppe Modesti
Frau Pick, a newspaper reporter	contralto		Myriam Pirazzini
Uli	bass	Fritz Krenn	Coriolano Jorio
Hotel director	bass		Gerardo Gaudiosi
Room maid	soprano
Guide	bass		Plinio Clabassi
Head waiter	tenor
Registrar	bass		Giovanni Amodeo
First manager	tenor		Nino Adami
Second manager	tenor		Silvio Santarelli
Third manager	tenor		Gianni Avolanti
Fourth manager	tenor		Piero De Palma
Fifth manager	bass		Aldo Terrosi

Recordings

Hindemith: Neues vom Tage – WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln

• Conductor: Jan Latham-Koenig
• Principal singers: Elisabeth Werres (Laura), Claudio Nicolai, (Eduard), Ronald Pries (Hermann) / Horst Hiestermann (Herr M), Martina Borst (Frau M), Oscar Garcia de Gracia (Hotel director), Arwed Sandner (registrar) / Celso Antunes (1st manager; head waiter), Wolf Geuer (2nd manager), Thomas Donecker (3rd manager), Christoph Scheeben (4th manager; guide), Dieter Gillessen (5th manager), Heribert Feckler: bass (6th manager), Sabine Bitter (room maid)
• Recording date: 1987
• Label: WERGO – 28 61922 (CD)

References

Sources

• Casaglia, Gherardo (2005). "Neues vom Tage, 8 June 1929". L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia (in Italian).
• Casaglia, Gherardo (2005). "Neues vom Tage, 7 April 1954". L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia (in Italian).
• Skelton, Geoffrey (1992). "Neues vom Tage" in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. Stanley Sadie, London: Macmillan Reference ISBN 0-333-73432-7
• Hindemith, Paul (2003). Neues vom Tage. Lustige Oper in drei Teilen (Sämtliche Werke I,7-1) ed. Giselher Schubert, Mainz: Schott Musik International

External links

• Neues vom Tage: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• Page about the Aachen production in 2000