Der Traumgorge (''Gorge the Dreamer'') should have marked an auspicious stage in the development of Zemlinsky's reputation. It was his third opera, completed in 1906, its predecessor, Es war einmal (''Once upon a time'') had been successfully staged by Mahler in Vienna. Der Traumgorge was to all intents and purposes commissioned by Mahler to follow this up, but the opera was already in rehearsal when he resigned his directorship. His successor, Weingartner, cancelled the premiere and the work remained unperformed, indeed in a limbo of non-existence (most lists of Zemlinsky's works omit all mention of it) for over 70 years, until a complete set of performing material was discovered in the archives of the Vienna State Opera. It was first performed in Nuremburg in 1980, 38 years after its composer's death.
It is still a youthful work (in Zemlinsky's catalogue it immediately follows that uneven but gorgeous orchestral fantasy Die Seejungfrau) but a remarkably assured one. The manner will be familiar to anyone who knows the two later one-act operas Eineflorentinische Tragodie and Der Zwerg (though the subject-matter of Der Traumgorge is far gentler than either of those). The basic texture is an evanescent, richly embroidered orchestral web, in which colour and harmonic movement are often as important as melody. In a sense it is an instrumental drama, its emotions are signalled by the voices but made manifest in the orchestra, and it is of the essence of the curious plot that Zemlinsky chose that this should be so. An allegory of the artist's role in society, the libretto taken at face value is of startling daftness. Gorge, a country pastor's son, lives wholly in the world of fairytales, his continual mooning about Snow White and Puss-in-boots loses him his level-headed fiancee and he goes out into the world in search of a fairy Princess. He finds her in the person of Gertraud, a beggar-woman, feared and reviled as a witch and an arsonist; he is improbably hailed as leader by a group of youthful revolutionaries, but abandons them when he learns of their violent ends; he returns home with his beggar-princess to found a school and raise a family.
It is not the role of Zemlinsky's music to give fiesh to these pasteboard symbolic characters (which would scarcely be possible: the uncomprehending peasants who mock Gorge and curse Gertraud have more 'reality' than they) nor to express the stilted sentiments they utter. The music is there to represent the archetypes that Gorge and Gertraud and their relationships stand for: the visionary artist, the misunderstood idealist, the unrecognized builder and shaker at odds with those who see no need to build or to be shaken. In scenes of pure dialogue one instinctively sides, I'm afraid, with the villagers in their exasperation at Gorge's gormlessness, but Zemlinsky is far more successful in the evanescent lyricism of the visionary set pieces: Gorge's dream of his fairy Princess, her lulling of him to sleep, his recognition of Gertraud as predestined ''Mother Sister, Wife'', the grandeur of her vision of Pentecostal fire and above all the exquisite tenderness of the calm evening epilogue: a musical equivalent, almost, of Samuel Palmer. It is an important document in Zemlinsky's development, and one can quite see why Mahler (and Schoenberg and Webern, as it happens) should have found its combination of harmonic subtlety and orchestral opulenee so appealing.
How good to have the opera in sueh an exeellent performance: it is just the sort of thing that Gerd Albrecht does well, and most of his soloists are admirable. I particularly liked Protschka's gently ardent Gorge, but was less impressed by Martin's hard and unalluring voiee in a role that needs glamour above all. A elear and uneluttered reeording, too, though in an opera where 95 per eent of the musieal interest lies in the orchestra I could have done with a less forward placing of the voiees. Do try it: for all the awkwardness of its libretto Der Trautgorge evokes a very particular fin-de-siecle romanticism (close to Mahler's own Das klagende Lied or to some parts of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, though melodically more fluidly elusive than either) with impressive resoureefulness.'