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A Cruel Joke Wexford
Jerome Hynes Theatre, National Opera House
10/19/2025 - & October 21, 23, 25, 27, 30, 31*, 2025
Alexander Zemlinsky: The Dwarf, Opus 17
Eleri Gwilym (Dona Clara), Charlotte Baker (Ghita), Charne Rochford (The Dwarf), Ross Cumming (Don Esteban), Victoria Harley, Olivia Carrell, Erin Fflur (The Maids), Cerys MacAllister, Heather Sammon, Eleanor O’Driscoll, Camilla Seale (Friends of the Infanta)
Christopher Knopp (Piano, Music Director)
Chris Moran (Stage Director), Lisa Krügel (Sets & Costumes), Maksym Diedov (Lighting Designer)
C. Rochford, E. Gwilym (© Pádraig Grant)
Sadly, the operas of Zemlinsky are rarely performed, despite being powerful and musically rich. Luckily, one of his short operas was featured in this year’s edition of Ireland’s Wexford Festival of Opera as one of their “pocket operas”, which are either short operas without intermission, or works of short duration abridged to fit in ninety minute slots, also uninterrupted. Typically, four such operas are presented, in addition to three main ones, allowing one to see two pocket operas and one full‑length work per day – quite a generous offering.
Like Richard Strauss’s Salome (1905), Der Zwerg’s libretto is based on an Oscar Wilde story, The Birthday of the Infanta (1891), itself inspired by Velázquez’s painting Las meninas (1656). Both stories share an element of the grotesque as well as a psychological aspect, rare in opera from earlier years. This can be explained: Zemlinsky was Viennese, and his contemporary was Sigmund Freud.
The tragic story goes like this. A dwarf is gifted by the Ottoman Sultan to the Infanta, the Princess of Spain, on the occasion of her birthday. The deformed dwarf was deliberately raised to be unaware of his condition. On the few occasions that he saw his own reflection, he believed it to be a monstrous ghost taunting him. The librettist Georg C. Klaren (1900‑1962) chose to alter the twelve-year-old Infanta in Wilde’s story to a more cruel, sexually mature eighteen-year-old. Thus, the love she conveys to the dwarf is not merely that of a child’s playmate. After showing affection, dancing with him and offering him a white rose, she cruelly reveals to him his condition. Unable to bear the truth, the dwarf collapses and dies.
The Wexford Festival chose to present this powerful work in English, a wise decision given the bite of the text and the need to communicate the intense drama immediately rather than through surtitles. However, the English text was neither as intense nor as poetic as the German original. This is a case of translating into English a German libretto based on an English text.
Another choice that did not help the opera was the use of a piano rather than an orchestra. Despite the excellent playing of Canadian music director Christopher Knopp, much was lost. Zemlinsky was a great orchestrator, so the texture of his often sensual score was much diminished. Without an orchestra, the score is less sensual and much harsher, sounding more dissonant from the start. Part of the magic of Der Zwerg’s orchestral score is that it draws one into a sensual fairytale setting, making the dénouement that much more tragic.
Despite the aforementioned shortcomings, this was a powerful and effective performance, thanks to Knopp and the cast’s excellence. The uncontested star of the show was British tenor Charne Rochford as the Dwarf. He is both an excellent singer and actor. The role is written for a dramatic tenor and lies high. Fortunately, he appears one third into the 80‑minute opera, but from then on, he is always onstage. Had the role been any longer, it would be a killer role à la Tannhäuser, Tristan or Siegfried. Rochford is endowed with a bright heroic tenor with squillo. His timbre remained even throughout and did not lose any of its beauty under pressure. As an actor, he brilliantly portrayed his timidness upon entering Court, unsure how the Infanta would receive him. When tricked by Dona Clara’s honeyed flattery, he reveals his inner secrets. When she talks of love, he confesses not knowing what it is, never having experienced it. In this segment of the opera, he convinces as an innocent ingénue, making the public cheer for him.
The other singers, though less pivotal, were more than competent. Welsh soprano Eleri Gwilym’s Dona Clara, the Infanta, has a pleasant lyric soprano and is a brilliant actress. Her haughtiness and cruelty were convincing. Her servant maidens and even her female friends seemed more like witches than domestics.
Irish director Chris Moran chose not to portray the Dwarf as a physically deformed man, which would have been cumbersome for the singer. By merely dressing him in brightly coloured garb, contrasting with the elegant clothes at Court, he is made into an outsider. It is said that Zemlinsky thought of himself as unattractive, and the choice of this specific story may have been his channeling of a broken heart, following his relationship with Alma Schindler (1879‑1964), the future wife of Gustav Mahler.
Moran divided the stage into two levels. The upper level provided a screen which showed excerpts from Oscar Wilde’s The Birthday of the Infanta, which was an effective device. Horror was conveyed indirectly and without gore. Allusions of the Dwarf’s monstrosity were conveyed by shadow projections evoking Javanese shadow puppets. The sets and projections deliberately channeled F.M. Murnau (1888‑1931), an inspired idea.
More horror was achieved by the grotesque makeup of the singers, especially the Infanta. Only the Dwarf and Ghita, the Infanta’s attendant, had normal features, without grotesque makeup, an allusion that true ugliness is in the soul. British soprano Charlotte Baker, portraying Ghita, is endowed with a warm voice to match the attendant’s more humane personality. She was the only person concerned with the Infanta’s cruel comedy. At the end, as the Dwarf lay dying, the Infanta laments that her “puppet” was destroyed so rapidly. She then coldly returns to the dance. It was a cynical ending, perfectly befitting both Oscar Wilde and Alexander Zemlinsky.
Ossama el Naggar
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