Robert+Kurka+Good+Soldier+Schweik+Suite

Good Soldier Schweik.

wind orchestra notes: @http://www.umwindorchestra.com/2010/06/good-soldier-schweik-suite.html

nice overview from Long beach opera: @http://www.longbeachopera.org/archive/2010-2/the-good-soldier-schweik

opera; @http://www.schirmer.com/Default.aspx?TabId=2420&State_2874=2&workId_2874=29880

> //Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com// First performed in 1958, Robert Kurka's THE GOOD SOLDIER SCHWEIK, which the American Kurka based on stories by the Czech writer Jaroslav Hasek, is a black comedy about a half-witted soldier who blunders his way through the "Great War." The jazzy musical idiom recalls Weill and Blitzstein. Director Rhoda Levine had a lively take on the opera's central premise that war is insane and the only way to cope with it is to be an idiot. Military helmets were buckets with plungers stuck on top; John Conklin's sets were black boxes and staircases that [were] sorted and stacked in various configurations; Conklin costumed nearly everyone in gray fatigues, and Robert Wierzel's gloomy lighting completed the Stygian effect. [The opera] is effective and entertaining, and conductor Stewart Robertson captured the style with flair. //Heidi Waleson, The Wall Street Journa//
 * <span style="background-color: #eceee4; url(http: //www.schirmer.com/Site/Schirmer/Design/IMAGES/chevron2.gif); background-position: 5px 7px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; list-style-type: none; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-left: 25px; padding-right: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 4px; padding-top: 5px;">Shortly before his death at age 38, Robert Kurka completed an opera based on Hasek's classic WWI comic novel THE GOOD SOLDIER SCHWEIK. He co-wrote the libretto with Lewis Allen, [and] limited his instrumental forces to a 16-piece ensemble. As a result, the score's punchy, sardonic sound world perfectly suits the story. [Written in] the Weill/Brecht modernist model with its declamatory vocal lines...Kurka's melodic writing is influenced by American musical theater [with] the dual influences of jazz and Czech folk music. The recording [is] from the Chicago Opera Theater's April 2000 production, and it's a knockout in every way.
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//l//