Wachsfigurenkabinett

In 1928, Erich Bormann and Max See established an opera studio at the Bayerische Staatsoper to provide an opportunity for young composers to focus on the then popular form of short opera. Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s five-part cycle of chamber operas under the general title Wachsfigurenkabinett (Waxworks) was composed for this opera studio. The titles of the individual works are: Leben und Sterben des heiligen Teufels, Der Mann, der vom Tode auferstand, Chaplin-Ford-Trott, Fürwahr…?! and Die Witwe von Ephesus. Der Mann, der vom Tode auferstand depicts the nightmare of a capitalist who listens to a revolution opera on the radio and becomes increasingly agitated in his fear of an actual revolution taking place. Fürwahr…?! is a scene reminiscent of the humour of Karl Valentin – father and son meet outside the front door in a drunken state and both insist that the other does not live here. A police constable is unable to solve the problem and both decide that the lady of the house should determine who is justified in opening the front door. Immediately all becomes clear. The cycle was never performed in its entirety during Hartmann’s lifetime. Only the first and last parts exist as complete scores: handwritten piano sketches of all five parts have additionally survived which are interleaved with a piano reduction of the first section. Following encouragement on the part of Hans Werner Henze for the first performance of the cycle at the 1st Biennale festival in Munich in 1988, the composers Wilfried Hiller and Günter Bialas were additionally commissioned to complete the scores together with Henze. 

"Both pieces in Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s sketches appear rather incomplete. In order to make a performance possible, I have tried to vary the composer’s basic material and to fill the gaps in the sketches with these variations. In the short score sketches of Fürwahr…?! [Indeed…?!] the instrumentation has been meticulously laid down. It is clear from this instrumentation that Hartmann considered the sketched music to be more or less the final version. But being a friend and well acquainted with Hartmann and his music I still intensified the harmonic picture a little […]. I did not, however, introduce foreign notes. I could manage Hartmann’s notes. Sometimes I made a note sound longer than is indicated in the short score or doubled it at the forth above to brighten a certain chord, and I sometimes made an octave transposition of individual notes from a sequence. But whatever I did was done to give a faithful version of Hartmann’s original tonal conception and to revive the wit and humour that are contained in this short opus."