As of: March 14, 2024, 3:44 p.m
By: Markus Thiel
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“Opera without poetry doesn't work”: Aribert Reimann believed in the classical ingredients for musical theater - his fame proved him right.
© Gaby Gerster
The great, archaic stories were his domain: Aribert Reimann believed in literary opera in a persistent, pleasantly out-of-date way.
He died on Wednesday at the age of 88.
We don't know exactly what he believed in - although Aribert Reimann was undoubtedly a spiritual person.
But he believed in one thing with certainty: the human voice.
And more than that: the fact that stories have to be told on stage, especially the big, old, archaic ones that are so much about us.
Stories of love and death, in which he often involved the well-known heroines and heroes of literature - so that they could appear anew in the opera, with his tailor-made sound.
Seen in this light, Reimann, who died on Wednesday in his native Berlin at the age of 88, was a traditionalist.
And someone who made an offensive statement: “Opera without poetry and only vocalizations just doesn’t work,” he once told our newspaper.
“I always need an overall storyline.” In this respect, tradition at Reimann meant: musical theater needs basic ingredients, otherwise it doesn’t work.
Reimann loved the human voice because he was the son of a singer and a church musician and also because he was able to study the voice so intensively.
He began his career as an accompanist at what was then the Berlin Municipal Opera, now the German Opera.
It is almost forgotten that Reimann's first stage pieces were created in collaboration with Günter Grass, but for ballet.
Sensuality permeated his scores
The music world wasn't exactly waiting for the young composer, so Reimann also earned money as a pianist.
And when it came to the more extensive works, he immediately dealt with the big, all-encompassing themes such as death, loss and failure.
This always approachable man admitted that this also had a therapeutic background.
Reimann's childhood was overshadowed by the war.
As the bombing of Berlin became more and more devastating, the family fled in a handcart.
In 1944, Reimann lost his older brother in this inferno.
The primacy of the cantabile (even if the singing voice was sometimes allowed and had to spread extremely) radiated into Reimann's orchestral treatment.
As far as he moved away from tonality, his scores were filled with sensuality and even culinary delights.
Reimann rejected electronics; he didn't like “synthetic sounds”.
Reimann is somewhat related to his colleague Wolfgang Rihm, who ridicules and even despises the dogmas of the avant-garde, the sometimes obstinate insistence on radical otherness.
His fame proved Reimann right: the great operas were indeed popular successes.
The “Lear” was his greatest success
Above all, the Shakespeare setting of “Lear”, which was created at the suggestion of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and premiered at the Bavarian State Opera in 1978 - as is well known, there was a new production there in 2021 with Christian Gerhaher in the title role.
An intimidating opera series was created: “The Ghost Sonata” after Strindberg (1984, Berlin), “Troades” after Euripides (1986, Munich), “The Castle” after Kafka (1992, Berlin), “Bernarda Alba's House” after García Lorca (2000 , Munich), most recently “L'invisible” after Maeterlinck (2017, Berlin).
There are also many songs, singing scenes with an orchestra and purely instrumental works.
And at some point Reimann became a classic, the revered doyen of the German-speaking composers' guild.
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Great singers liked to be accompanied by him on the piano; Brigitte Fassbaender, for example, created some of the deepest, most reflective song interpretations ever; just listen to Schubert's “Winterreise”.
Aribert Reimann made one of his last public appearances in February.
There he accepted the German Music Authors' Prize for his life's work in Berlin.
“I was completely surprised to receive this award and am incredibly grateful for it,” he said.
And anyone who knew Reimann knew that he was serious from the bottom of his heart.