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Publication of Full Score of Zemlinsky’s 'Der Zwerg'
by Lloyd Moore
posted 9 October 2006

Universal Edition has recently published a study score of Zemlinsky’s one-act opera Der Zwerg (UE 17571), This work, based on Oscar Wilde’s play The Birthday of the Infanta, was composed between 1919 and 1921 and given a successful first performance in Cologne in May 1922 under Otto Klemperer but, after a handful of further productions, disappeared from the repertoire. In 1981, a radically modified version, entitled Der Geburtstag der Infantin, was performed in Hamburg . Although this production went some way towards rehabilitating the work, Der Zwerg was not to be heard again in its original form until 1996 when it was given a series of concert performances in Cologne under James Conlon and subsequently released on CD by EMI Classics. Since then, Der Zwerg has become the most frequently performed of all Zemlinsky’s stage-works. UE’s new edition has been prepared for publication by the Zemlinsky scholar Antony Beaumont who has consulted all the available sources to provide the definitive edition of this masterpiece.

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