Work of the Week - Hans Werner Henze: Elegy for Young Lovers

One opera - two productions: On Saturday 24 April, two new productions of Hans Werner Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers will open in Europe. In the UK an English National Opera and Young Vic co-production (the third collaboration by the award winning partnership) directed by Fiona Shaw will open at the Young Vic Theatre in London. On the same evening Aalto Theater, Essen in Germany will present their production directed by Karoline Gruber as part of the European Capital of Culture 2010.

Henze’s opera, to a libretto by W H Auden and Chester Kallman, was commissioned by the Schwetzingen Festival and first performed there in 1961, with a new production at Glyndebourne Festival Opera following that same summer . Dedicated to the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal and centred around the egotistical poet Mittenhofer, Elegy for Young Lovers offers a savagely witty - and sometimes wryly self-referential - exposé of the creative ego and its insatiable need to feed off all around it.

Seven performances of Elegy for Young Lovers will take place at both The Young Vic Theatre and Aalto Theater Essen from 24th April.

• Hans Werner Henze - Profile
  
• Young Vic London
  
• Aalto Theater Essen
  

 
Photo of a rehearsal at the Aalto Theater Essen: Kathrin Holighaus