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Die weisse Rose (White Rose) DE - 1967
Udo Zimmermann 1943 - DE
Libretto by Ingo Zimmermann
Synopsis - Roles
Upcoming Performances
Synopsis - Top
The opera tells the story of real-life personages Hans and Sophie Scholl, a brother and sister in their early twenties, who were leading during World War II a non-violent resistance group against Hitler known under the code name of Die Weiße Rose (White Rose). The brother and sister team was caught distributing anti-Nazi leaflets and subsequently condemned to death. They were guillotined by the Nazis in 1943.
The first version of the opera in 1967 was not a big success. When Hamburg State Opera officials decided they wanted to revive the opera in the mid-1980s, Zimmerman decided to work on an entirely new opera. He discarded his brother's libretto in favor of a new text by Wolf-gang Willaschek. The new work is a one-act opera, consisting of a set of sixteen scenes, each a coherent musical unit, adding up to a total of seventy minutes. There are only two roles in the new opera, those of Hans and Sophie, and the "orchestra" is reduced to fifteen instrumentalists.
Roles - Top
Hans SchollTenorM-M
Sophie SchollSopranoF-H
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