Ein Landarzt

A country doctor is called to a patient. For the journey, a shadowy carriage unexpectedly awaits. While Rosa the housemaid is being threatened by the coachman, the horses as if by magic sweep off with the doctor before he can come to the aid of his housemaid. The patient is a boy who does not appear to be ill, but is actually close to death. He has a palm-sized open wound in the region of his hip in which bloody worms are visible. The doctor cannot offer any help and is thus transformed into a patient himself. He lies down with the boy and has to listen to his accusation: ‘Instead of helping me, you take up space in my deathbed.’ The open wound as a symbol of human indebtedness returns the doctor-patient’s thoughts to Rosa, the housemaid who is in danger at home. He wishes to return home swiftly, but the horses now walk extremely slowly at the pace of old men. He abandons all hope, ‘naked and exposed to the frost of these ill-fated times’. (Source: WDR)

Hans Werner Henze composed both Ein Landarzt and Das Ende einer Welt for radio. In the latter work, Henze and his librettist Wolfgang Hildesheimer allow the island of the rich Marquis to sink into the sea together during the performance of a flute concerto she particularly loves. The whole narrow-minded court society sinks with her; only the poet von Fallersleben is able to escape in a bathtub. Both operas display the struggle of the individual with the surrounding hostile environment from both a comical and tragic aspect. These two radio operas are ideal in combination.