''Morgen und Abend'' (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

: ''Morning and Evening'') is an opera by

Georg Friedrich Haas Georg Friedrich Haas (born 16 August 1953 in Graz, Austria) is an Austrian composer. In a 2017 ''Classic Voice'' poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000, pieces by Haas received the most votes (49), and his composition ''in vain'' (20 ...

to a

libretto A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the t ...

by the Norwegian writer

Jon Fosse Jon Olav Fosse (born 29 September 1959) is a Norwegian author and dramatist. Biography Jon Fosse was born in Haugesund, Norway. A serious accident at age seven brought him close to death; the experience significantly influenced his adulthood wr ...

.''Morgen und Abend''
Royal Opera House website, accessed 24 October 2015 It is based on Fosse's 2000 novel '' Morgon og kveld''. The opera was jointly commissioned by the

Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Op ...

, London, and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. It was premiered on the main stage of the Royal Opera House on 13 November 2015. The director of the production is

Graham Vick Sir Graham Vick (30 December 1953 – 17 July 2021) was an English opera director known for his experimental and revisionist stagings of traditional and modern operas. He worked in many of the world's leading opera houses and was artistic d ...

. The composer has said "'Don't expect melodies, don't expect harmonies, just expect soundscapes". The vocal lines include

microtones Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones—intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of tw ...

, including quarter-tones and sixth-tones.

Roles

Synopsis

The opera, which lasts about 90 minutes, outlines the birth and death of a fisherman, Johannes. In the first section, Johannes's father Ollai waits for his birth, imagining what his wife and the child are experiencing, until the Nurse announces the birth has been successful and invites him to see the child. In the next section Johannes meditates on his child Signe and speaks with his friend Peter and his wife Erna, but eventually realizes that as the latter two have long since died, he himself must also be dead.

Critical reaction

Richard Morrison, writing in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', opined that although the piece was slow to develop "By the end...I felt I was watching a very weird masterpiece". Rupert Christiansen, writing in ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'' found the work "hypnotically beautiful yet turgidly tedious...Yet Haas’s music casts a spell...it moves like Scandinavian weather – clouds scudding, mists thickening, wind keening, thunderclaps crashing – through a glacial landscape of shimmering microtonal sound that is both precisely calibrated and eerily atmospheric". Tim Ashley, in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', felt that "beautiful though it sounds, it is weak as drama".Tim Ashley
"Morgen und Abend review – birth, death and the longueurs in between"
''The Guardian'' website, accessed 16 November 2016.

References

;Notes ;Sources *Morrison, Richard (2015). ''Thrilling ride from womb to tomb'', in ''

'' arts section, p. 11, November 16, 2015. *Shipman, Chris (2015)
''Georg Friedrich Haas on Morgen und Abend — 'Don't expect harmonies...''
in Royal Opera house website, accessed 24 October 2015. {{Authority control Operas Operas based on novels German-language operas Operas with mythological or folkloric settings 2015 operas Opera world premieres at the Royal Opera House