Peer Gynt is a 1938 opera by Werner Egk to a libretto after the play Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen. The premiere took place on 24 November 1938 at the Berlin State Opera where Egk was the conductor at the time.The Oxford Dictionary of Music ed. Michael Kennedy, Tim Rutherford-Johnson, Joyce Kennedy (2013) p. 256: "operas: Columbus (1933 radio, 1942 stage); Die Zaubergeige (1935, rev. 1954); Peer Gynt (1938); Circe (1945, rev. 1966 as 17 Tage und 4 Minuten); Irische Legende (after Yeats, 1955, rev. 1970); Der Revisor (after Gogol's The Government Inspector, 1957); Die Verlobung in San Domingo (1963)."
The opera was controversial in the Nazi press. This criticism was quashed when Adolf Hitler, an attendee at the performance, allegedly approved of the work. Despite Stravinsky-like music, the premiere met the approval of Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler, although Hermann Göring raged against it, and that approval has since tainted both the opera and composer. The opera was performed in seven German cities until 1944 and even in Czech in Prague and in Paris.
Roles
Recording Peer Gynt, Wilfried Vorwold (bass), Kari Løvaas (soprano), Norma Sharp (soprano), Cornelia Wulkopf (alto), Janet Perry (soprano), Waldemar Wild (bass). Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Heinz Wallberg, Orfeo Classics 1982
References
External links Work details, Schott Music