First listening to a Zemlinsky opera, Der Zwerg: such an outstanding work, I absolutely loved it! The music was impressive, very immersive and involving, and although the scene is rather static and without many changes, the orchestral texture and the timbric variations depicted brilliantly the intense, passionate feelings, what could be seen and what was kept hidden, with a powerful chromatism, but also sharper harmonies showing the tension and sufference of the inner essence of the human being; really striking. There was a great juxtaposition of real and illusive, between the colourful, bright, but at the same time cold and cruel, atmospheres of the royal court, and the tragic duality of the dwarf, whose love, unlike Tristan and Isolde, couldn't be realized be realized even in death. The lively, suggestive spanish dances also remembered me Debussy's Iberia and Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio espagnol.
Next stop, Eine florentinische Tragödie......