Palestrina

This unique artist-drama centres on the conflict between the internal process of creation and the public demands of the political world, here symbolized by the Council of Trent in the mid-16th century. The main character of the opera, the ageing, lonely composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, is in the middle of a creative crisis when he learns that the polyphonic style of which he is a master is to be banned by the forthcoming Council. Cardinal Borromeo of Rome asks him to write a Mass that will convince the fathers of the Church that their demands for comprehensibility of the text will still be possible in a traditional polyphonic setting. In a visionary creative frenzy Palestrina, divinely inspired, writes in just one night a beautiful mass of such brilliance that it will convince both the Pope and the Council.

Palestrina is Hans Pfitzner’s powerful and much discussed contribution to the history of opera. The idea to choose a real composer as protagonist gave Pfitzner the opportunity to reflect Palestrina’s compositional style, and also both personal and general tensions of the artistic genius in terms of music. Pfitzner concentrates on the confrontation of two worlds and chooses a three-act structure. The enduring success of this opera, completed in 1915 and first produced in 1917 at the height of the horrors of the First World War, has much to do with the brilliant libretto written by Pfitzner himself and to its extraordinary musical and dramatic qualities, described as ‘awesome’ by the composer Arthur Honegger.