Jonny spielt auf Part II Scene 11 (Finale)

The final sequence of the staged concert performance (and Australian premiere) of Ernst Krenek's 'Jonny spielt auf' (1926). English translation by Jeremy Sams

The Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne
Friday 4 October, 2019

Max- Fraser Findlay
Anita - Lee Abrahmsen
Jonny - Shoumendu Schornikow
Daniello - Raphael Wong
Yvonne - Rebecca Rashleigh
Anita’s Manager - Roger Howell
A Hotel Director - Cameron Sibly
A Station Attendant - Louis Hurley
1st Policeman - Louis Hurley
2nd Policeman - Cameron Sibly
3rd Policeman - Darcy Carroll

The Richard Divall Emerging Artists Programme of Melbourne Opera.
The Orchestra Project
Visual Design and Music Direction - Peter Tregear

Composed by the then 26-year-old Ernst Krenek (1900–1991) Jonny blends Weimar-inflected grand opera with riotous jazz and dance music to create a genre-defying, epoch-defining, comedy-drama, that for the first time put the sounds and sensibilities of the modern city onto the operatic stage.

Within months of its premiere in Leipzig in 1927 Jonny was to be found striking up in over 42 opera houses, becoming arguably the most successful opera premiere ever. Its run of performances only came to an end when the Third Reich, offended by its forward-thinking take on contemporary sexual, racial, and musical norms of the day banned the work as ‘degenerate’ and forced its composer to flee his native Austria in fear of his life.

The opera tells the story of Max, an introspective composer who finds his otherworldly sensibilities challenged by a free-spirited opera singer, Anita, with whom he falls in love.

Max’s personal transformation is mirrored in a sub-plot in which Jonny, an African-American jazz musician, steals a valuable violin from the self-regarding virtuoso Daniello, with the help of Jonny's girlfriend, Yvonne, a hotel maid. The opera concludes with Max departing for America to the exuberant sounds of Jonny’s music ‘striking up’.