Henze, Hans Werner: Brief an Auden, Wystan Hugh. Castelgandolfo (Roma), Dienstag, 19. April 1966
author: Henze, Hans Werner
language: en
availability: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Hans Werner Henze-Stiftung (Dr. Michael Kerstan). (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Hans Werner Henze

Castelgandolfo (Roma)
Via dei Laghi, 18

19th April, 1966

Mr. W.H. Wystan Auden
77 St. Mark’s Place
New York City 3, N.Y. 10003

Dear Wystan,

enclosed a letter from Schott’s[^1] who have been asked by Ernesto Schnabel’s office for the permission to do a public reading[^2] of Bakchae a few days before the Berlin premiere. [The German national premiere of The Bassarids took place at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin on 28 September 1966, conducted by Christoph von Dohnányi.] This thing is an idea of Ernesto’s and would take place as follows:

[^1: The enclosed letter from Schott is not kept among the correspondence between Auden and Henze, preserved at the Paul Sacher Foundation, because this letter only constitutes a copy for Henze's own documents, not to be sent.]

[^2: Already in a letter from Hamburg dated 17 October 1964, Ernst Schnabel, as editor of the Drittes Programm at the Norddeutscher Rundfunk, had written to Henze about various future plans. Among these Schnabel writes that they had agreed on a public reading in Berlin about the preparations for his opera premiere, with music and an actor.]

On the stage of the Akademie der Kuenste some qualified actors like Charles Regnier, Joana Maria Gorvin, perhaps Folker as Pentheus etc., one or two people f or the chorus would sit around and read out of the libretto. The director (which Ernesto thinks should be I) would read the stage-directions. The action might even be slightly shown, but only very slightly, a few movements, changes of places and so on. The whole thing is called Lesebuehne and quite a success in the third TV– program. [Whether and, if so, when the Lesebühne Henze talks about in this letter was held, has yet to be ascertained.]

I’m very much in favour of this idea because it would help those peoples who a few days later will go to listen to the opera. We have not asked Sellner's permission yet but I hardly think he will object but we must have your permission and I would beg of you to give it. I suppose you can ask some special fee for it as there is no music involved. Please tell Schott’s about this at your earliest convenience.

Love,