24 | DafneVeranstaltungen

After 396 years - reconstruction of the Tragicomedia of Dafne by Roland Wilson based on a libretto by Martin Opitz (Torgau 1627) | semi-staged performance

Award of the International Heinrich Schütz Prize 2023

396 years after its premiere one can hear it again in Dresden: Schütz' opera Dafne. That is to say- what the Early Music period instrument ensembles Musica Fiata and La Capella Ducale and their director Roland Wilson will sing and play was most certainly not what the wedding party experienced in Torgau in 1627, when Sophie Eleonore, the eldest daughter of the Elector Johann Georg I, was married to the Darmstadt Landgrave Georg II.

Unfortunately, the list of lost works by Schütz is long; it includes what is probably the first German-language opera: Dafne. Roland Wilson, a veritable expert on the music of Heinrich Schütz, likes to compare the project of finding suitable music for the surviving libretto by Martin Opitz to a Sudoku puzzle in which not a single number is given.

With this reconstruction of Dafne, we discover a whole new side to Schütz: as the creator of a very entertaining and enjoyable opera.

Roland Wilson enjoys a high reputation not only as a zink player, but also as (co-)founder and director of the ensembles Musica Fiata Köln and La Capella Ducale. Wilson studied trumpet at the Royal College of Music, discovering his fondness for baroque music here, and began to learn the zink autodidactically. He perfected his skills at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague. In 1976 he began his work with Musica Fiata Köln, and in 1992 he founded La Capella Ducale, which has enabled him to continually expand the ensembles’ repertoire. As a musicologist and orchestra director, his name is synonymous today with the rediscovery and reconstruction of many a rarity of early music. So, who could be more predestined to resurrect Dafne than Roland Wilson?! Or else … who could be more foolhardy?! Because this process is a true risk, though being certainly worthwhile. So let's dive into the sound world of the Sagittarius and early baroque opera!