Onkel Präsident

"The genre of 'Comic Opera' has been neglected by composers for a long time." Thus spoke the grand old man of new music, Friedrich Cerha, and found a remedy: Together with the lyricist Peter Wolf, Cerha set about writing a "musical farce", which is about to be given its first performance by the State Theatre on Gärtnerplatz in the Prinzregententheater under the title "Onkel Präsident" (Uncle President).

Based on Ferenc Molnár's stage play "Eins, zwei drei" [One, Two, Three], which was filmed by Billy Wilder in 1961, Cerha describes the transformation of the cycle courier Josef Powolny into a top executive with a title. "Uncle President", the all-powerful head of a steel corporation, pulls out all the stops to "invent" a presentable husband for millionaire heiress Melody Moneymaker.

Friedrich Cerha has created a fast-paced comedy rich in musical allusions which constantly pokes fun at opera as an art form, through witty asides – such as when the tenor gets into an argument with the musical director about whether he is allowed to sing his aria now, or when the President accuses the musical director of conducting "too loudly, you can't hear yourself think". The turbulent plot is framed by the President's dialogue with an elderly composer. "At your age, Verdi had already finished 'Falstaff'", the President says at the beginning, reproachfully, and then continues: "You can't beat 'Falstaff', after all". That may be true, but with "Onkel Präsident", the 87-year-old Siemens Music Award winner Friedrich Cerha has succeeded in giving a vital boost not only to his art, but also to the allegedly lifeless genre of "comic opera" in general.

Composition commissioned by the State Theatre on Gärtnerplatz with the kind support of the Ernst-von-Siemens Music Foundation

In cooperation with Volksoper Wien