Columbus in Berlin

The musical news in Berlin last week was a ballet-opera, Columbus. Written by a 50-year-old German composer named Werner Egk, it deals with Columbus' journeys to America and has some mildly metaphysical ideas built into the libretto. But Berlin was less interested in the story than in the style. Composer Egk (rhymes with peck) has his principal singers stand inconspicuously beside the orchestra while ballet dancers enact the story. The chorus is posted behind gauze curtains.

The story picks up Columbus at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, follows him to America and on his triumphant return to Spain. But another voyage brings disillusionment; his crewmen abuse the confidence of the Indians and quarrel over their loot. Columbus himself is finally brought back to Spain in chains--to die with the belated realization that justice and reason are more precious than silver and gold. Best things in Egk's score: a clear song line, dramatic choruses and an effective handling of Spanish and Indian folk tunes.

Berlin's critical bouquets and the resulting bustle at the box office are the best news Bavarian-born Egk has had in a long time. He got his start in 1926 when lie showed some pieces to Composer Kurt Weill, who recommended him for a job composing bits for a radio station. Nine years later Egk wrote an opera, The Magic Violin, which has become part of the regular repertory in German opera houses. Impressed, the Berlin State Opera hired him as a conductor. Under the Nazis, Egk's career throve pleasantly enough, although he got a stiff reprimand in 1938 for "working along the lines of 'Kulturbolschewist' Kurt Weill." He had a brief wartime success with a ballet, Joan of Zarissa, which was produced in occupied Paris. After the war, Egk went through the denazification wringer and was finally cleared.

Egk is now considered one of the hopes of postwar German music. Says respected Critic H. H. Stuckenschmidt: "He belongs to the school of moderately modern music . . . not very modern, but played with most modern means." Egk himself is full of brisk ideas. Says he: "Opera must again become a real show, like French baroque opera, meant for eye & ear."

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