Das verratene Meer

Das verratene Meer (The Betrayed Sea) is an opera in two parts and 14 scenes, with music by Hans Werner Henze to a German libretto by Hans-Ulrich Treichel, after Yukio Mishima's novel The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. 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 and produced by Götz Friedrich. The US premiere was at San Francisco Opera on 8 November 1991.^[1]

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, 5 May 1990 (Conductor: Markus Stenz)
Fusako Kuroda, a 33-year old widow	soprano	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	Clemens Bieber
Ryuji Tsukazaki, merchant navy officer	baritone	Andreas Schmidt
Ship's mate	bass-baritone
Gang member number 1	baritone	Martin Gantner
Gang member number 2	countertenor
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

References

Notes

1. John Rockwell (1984-04-30). "Henze's Setting of Mishima's Sailor". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-09-21.

Sources

• Amadeus Almanac, accessed 6 November 2008
• Clements, Andrew, "Das verratene Meer", The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) ISBN 0-333-73432-7

External links

• San Francisco Opera page on Das verratene Meer