Liebesliederwalzer

MM Academy & Klaus Bertisch

Johannes Brahms is one of those great 19th-century composers who cultivated just about every genre, but he never bothered with opera. “What if Brahms had composed an opera?” That thought may well have flashed through the mind of dramaturg and director Klaus Bertisch when working with four young singers on Brahms’ Liebesliederwalzer and Neue Liebesliederwalzer. These cycles, written for solo voices and piano four-hands, consist of short, varied songs on the theme of love. Two young men and two young women engage in conversation and challenge each other in a game of love reminiscent of Mozart’s Così fan tutte. But Brahms does not clarify the relationships between the young people – he leaves that to the audience, guided here by Bertisch’s addition of short extracts from Alessandro Manzoni’s novel I promessi sposi. 

For the two cycles to be performed at La Monnaie, Klaus Bertisch is working with the talents of the MM Academy, which is celebrating its tenth year this season. In three-four time, two quartets of young singers throw themselves into a game of enticing and repelling, of sensual proximity and ironic distance.