Opera in 2 parts
Libretto by Otto Borngräber
First performed July 1 1920, Opera House, Frankfurt am Main
This new production first seen July 2 2023
Sung in German with German & English surtitles
not really suitable for those under 16
Introductory talks (in German) in the Holzfoyer 30 mins before curtain up and available here shortly before opening night and everywhere where podcasts are to be found.
The names in Rudi Stephan’s Die ersten Menschen are modern day transcriptions of the Hebrew for Adam (Adahm), Eve (Chawa), Cain (Kajin) and Abel (Chabel). His opera’s about a family’s search for meaning and purpose after Paradise was denied them.
While Adahm tries to find a reason for existence, hoping for »fruit« and harvest, his wife Chawa longs for intimacy and physical contact. Now that their sons are grown up, she desperately wants another baby. She doesn’t know how to handle her boys any more, and even finds Kajin, the elder one, frightening. The mother’s unease is justified: Kajin’s hormones are running riot, but as there’s only one woman in the world, all his desires and longings are directed at his mother. Chabel, the younger son, has found a solution to their problems: an almighty God appeared to him, to whom sacrifices must now be made. To the family’s amazement, Chabel brings a sheep to be sacrificed. His brother Kajin starts making fun of Chabel's religious zeal, but when Adahm and Chawa, in desperation, jump at this chance of finding a meaning, Kajin feels sickened. Horrified by the bloody slaughter, he flees out into the ravaged world.
ACT 2: Chawa, longing in vain for proof of vestiges of her husband’s love, seeks consolation from Chabel, who at least promises love from the God he worships. Both get caught up in religious fervour which, of the blue for both of them, turns into carnal passion. Kajin’s still struggling with his longings. Chabel tries to convert him to God. The brothers' attempts to understand each other's issues, which evolve under a starry night sky, come to a sudden end: when Chabel extols Chawa's beauty, Kajin becomes suspicious, and jealous. And, unbeknownst to Kajin, Chabel and Chawa have indeed become physical. When he catches them in flagrante delicto, Kajin kills his brother in a furious fit of jealousy. Adahm’s too late to prevent the catastrophe, finding Kajin and Chawa by Chabel’s body. While Chawa wants to take revenge on her elder son, Adahm tries to blame the murder on the family’s dire situation, and suggests that Chabel’s death be seen as a sacrifice to God. At his wits’ end Kajin attempts, one last time, to rid himself of his desires and longings. The shocking fates of their sons seem to have reconciled Chawa and Adahm. Adam hopes that the new day might herald a better future. Bettina Bartz/Tobias Kratzer
In his »erotic mystery/enigma« Otto Borngräber envisaged the first people driven out of paradise as a nuclear family left to their own devices: Chawa longs for her husband to want her as he used to, but Adahm’s more concerned about eking out an existence. Their pubescent son Kajin charges around in the wilderness looking for a woman, while his brother Chabel seeks redemption by praying to a God. When Kajin catches his mother and Chabel in ecstatic union, he kills his brother, then sees the »future blood of future mankind« in a terrifying vision.
Rudi Stephan’s waves of symphonic music for this dramatic story is a real discovery. The world premiere took place in Frankfurt in 1920, five days after the composer fell in World War I; his only opera is still very rarely performed today. In Tobias Kratzer’s production the biblical events are combined with a dystopian vision of the future, the work was voted »2023 Rediscovery of the Year« by Opernwelt magazine.
