Stephan: Die ersten Menschen

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Die ersten Menschen ('The first humans'), the Bible story of Cain and Abel given an erotic, early-20th-century psychological spin by playwright Otto Borngräber, was Stephan's first and only... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Release Date: 2nd May 2006
Catalogue No: 9999802
Label: CPO
Length: 1 hour 51 minutes

Stephan: Die ersten Menschen, Act I

Work length57:17

$17.00

$21.95

Siegmund Nimsgern, Gabriele Maria Ronge, Florian Cerny, Hans Aschenbach
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra
Karl Anton Rickenbacher

Was schaffst du, Chawa? (Live)

Track length15:03

$4.00

$5.15

Wo warst, Kajin (Live)

Track length11:46

$3.00

$3.85

Doch dann kam die Zeit (Live)

Track length1:56

$1.00

$1.30

Chabel, mein Sohn, was brings uns du! (Live)

Track length4:38

$1.00

$1.30

Mein herrliches Kind! (Live)

Track length1:59

$1.00

$1.30

Du riefst? (Live)

Track length2:47

$1.00

$1.30

Er liebt mich... den ich hasse (Live)

Track length1:03

$1.00

$1.30

Leb' wohl, Vater! (Live)

Track length1:46

$1.00

$1.30

Was ist's, das Chabel sah? (Live)

Track length16:19

$4.00

$5.15

Stephan: Die ersten Menschen, Act II

Work length54:34

$13.00

$16.80

Siegmund Nimsgern, Gabriele Maria Ronge, Florian Cerny, Hans Aschenbach
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra
Karl Anton Rickenbacher

Allmächtiger! (Live)

Track length9:40

$2.00

$2.60

Wie groß bist du, Gott! (Live)

Track length9:08

$2.00

$2.60

Finden will ich das wilde wilde Weib! (Live)

Track length3:16

$1.00

$1.30

Kennst du nicht mehr deine Mutter? (Live)

Track length12:24

$3.00

$3.85

Chabel! Geliebter! (Live)

Track length3:04

$1.00

$1.30

Das Leben mir gabst du heute Nacht (Live)

Track length17:02

$4.00

$5.15

Reviews
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Reviews

2010

Die ersten Menschen ('The first humans'), the Bible story of Cain and Abel given an erotic, early-20th-century psychological spin by playwright Otto Borngräber, was Stephan's first and only completed opera. The musical language is most akin to that of Richard Strauss, yet, when you start making detailed comparisons with individual works, it's more often the case that the younger composer is anticipating or paralleling the progress of his famous contemporary. The quasi-recitative setting of dialogues recalls strongly Barak and his brothers in Die Frau ohneSchatten, while Chawa's (Eve's) big opening number in Act 2, 'Allmachtiger', feels like a first run for Helena's 'Zweite Brautnacht' more than a decade in the future. Occasionally, too, a certain folky tang or Oriental lushness (Stephan invoking the world just post-Garden of Eden) reminds us that Duke Bluebeard's Castle was on Bartók's desk at the same period.
The four-handed, two-act drama runs its course excitingly until Abel's murder. If Stephan sometimes is over-faithful to Borngräber's play in the sheer amount of soliloquising he gives his characters (especially Kajihn, his Cain), and is rather too fond of tremolando effects, it's a significant and obviously stageable achievement for a first go at the medium. This performance is blessed by fluent, stylish singing, especially from Gabriele Maria Ronge as the (literally) much put-upon Chawa/Eve, but lacks that extra degree of dramatic insight that an interpretation taken from the stage would have brought. Karl Anton Rickenbacher, an expert in rare Strauss, is careful to allow Stephan's often Pfitzner-like lyricism its say alongside more purple passages. The 1998 recording (Deutschland Radio) is clean and true.
So far, so good – but once again the wholly incompetent English translations used by CPO render booklet-note and libretto both risible and annoying to non-German readers.

Stephan: Die ersten Menschen

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