"The Young Lord" is a true ensemble opera, with impressive songs and an
orchestra hardly larger than that of a Mozart opera, the characters being
accompanied by respective leitmotifs or instruments. Henze frequently uses
purely tonal structures. Yet this does not mean that Henze returns to the
past, or that he betrays his avantgarde achievements. His style reveals a
kind of highly 'artificial' and witty handling of tradition. The
connoisseur recognizes many subtle allusions to tradition, while the
ordinary listener enjoys everything he expects from a comic opera:
lightness, tempo, wit, warmth and a touch of dream-world. "The Young Lord"
was commissioned by the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Although Henze knew what
artistic talent and possibilities were to be expected there, his
justifiably high expectations were probably surpassed when he saw the first
performance on 7 April 1965. Filippo Sanjust conjured up a most imaginative
and accurate picture of the Biedermeier world upon the stage, which
contains just enough fantastic exaggeration to fit the work. The producer,
Gustav Rudolf Sellner, has put life into all those details in a manner that
particularly benefits the film. Finally, Christoph von Dohnányi has proved
to be the ideal Henze conductor.
