Sardakai Explained

Sardakai
Type:	Comic opera
Composer:	Ernst Krenek
Librettist:	Krenek
Language:	German
Premiere Location:	Hamburg State Opera

Sardakai, Op. 206, is a 1969 comic opera in two acts by Ernst Krenek which premiered in Hamburg in 1970.^[1] The "lightweight, fluffy farce", as Krenek described it, dealt with a Così fan tutte inspired scenario on the fictional South Seas island of Migo Migo. Krenek's libretto was intended to poke fun at both left and right wing "sacred cows".^[2] The premiere was a catastrophe, attributed by some contemporary and subsequent commentators to the Hamburg Opera director's decision to commission Krenek, who was living in California, to write his own libretto which proved to be out of touch with both the prevailing mood in Germany, and the situation at the Hamburg Opera.^[3]

Recording

• Ksenija Lukic, Egbert Junghanns, Markus Köhler, Jörg Dürmüller, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Reinhard Schmiedel, Capriccio 2CD 2000

Notes and References

1. Neil Butterworth Dictionary of American Classical Composers - 2013 - Page 256 1136790241 Sardakai, op. 206 (1967-69) was performed in Hamburg in 1970."
2. Stewart Ernst Krenek: The Man and His Music p.324
3. Ernst Krenek Horizons Circled: Reflections on My Music 1974 Page 100 "There was, for example, the uproar surrounding Sardakai, the opera he had completed just before delivering the lectures that became these essays. When it was performed in Hamburg later in 1970, the director was so intent upon ideas of his own, which were foreign to the spirit and meaning of the work, that he introduced antithetical elements that created scandal and hostility."