The discography of Zemlinsky's operas nears completion. It may not have thrown up a rival to Der Zwerg (on Schwann, 4/86), which has long been recognized as his dramatic masterpiece, but it has without question supplied us with much delectable listening. Der Kreidekreis was completed in 1932 and successfully staged just before the blight of Nazi artistic policy descended on German opera houses. Characteristically it is full to the brim with gorgeous harmonies and timbres.
The story is essentially the same as that of Brecht's more famous Caucasian Chalk Circle, and the action culminates in the same coup de theatre, in which the genuine mother (Tschang-Haitang) refuses to harm her son by dragging him away from the impostor Mrs Ma. But as the author Klabund (pseudonym for Alfred Henschke) put it: ''The old Chinese drama of justice and morals was usable only as raw material... [I attempted] to invent a Chinese fairytale... as if someone were dreaming of China''—particularly someone, he might have added, with a midEuropean early-twentieth-century penchant for decadent eroticism. The twist in the tale—that the former prostitute Haitang had been impregnated when asleep by the now Emperor Pao—produces a happy ending of such extreme self-indulgence it seems almost pointless to take offence.
Curiously, at this climax of high sensuality, Zemlinsky's music doesn't entirely rise to the occasion. Yet everything has been so promising until then—from the opening train-like ostinato with its snakey saxophone and Ravel-crossed-with-Weill chinoiseries, all the way to the gorgeous interlude for the journey to Peking (second CD, track 9). Perhaps it should not be surprising that a composer so closely associated with Mahler and Richard Strauss should demonstrate such a refined mastery of orchestral colour. But the constant caressing of the ear, never cheaply or blatantly done, is still something of a marvel. Ultimately this may be nothing more than a very late example of Viennese Gefuhlskultur, but if so it's a taste I'm glad to have acquired.
The hint of Weill is an interesting sign of the times. There is plenty of speech and melodrama (speech with orchestral accompaniment) and several of the main characters introduce themselves matter-of-factly in the manner of Weill's Chinese morality play Der Jasager (of 1930). Zemlinsky's affection for the idiom of The Threepenny Opera and Mahagonny is constantly in evidence, and there is a dash of social comment for those who wish to read such things into the work. As so often, when one detects an influence, or an obvious parallel (such as the courtroom scene of Peter Grimes or the 'speaking orchestra' of Judith Weir's The Consolations of Scholarship) this throws into relief the comparatively unfocused quality of Zemlinsky's more permissive style. That, and the dubious indulgence of the final scenes, may continue to deny Der Kreidekreis a viable existence in the opera house; but with so much superb music home listening is still a joy.
The performance is first-rate throughout. The cast is without weakness, the orchestral support is outstanding and the recording finds a happy medium between richness and clarity (in fact it relegates the orchestra a fraction more than I would wish, but in an opera where every word counts that's fair enough). The only serious drawback I can think of is that Renate Behle as Tschang-Haitang is heavier of voice than the supposedly older Mrs Ma of Gertrud Ottenthal. Don't let that put you off, though.'