In 1820 Franz Schubert began composing the opera Sakontala – and now, 186 years later, the opera will at last be premiered, but only because Karl Aage Rasmussen embarked on a reconstruction of the opera in 2002 against the background of Schubert’s posthumous sketches. Sakontala is a full-scale Romantic opera in two acts for soloists, chorus and orchestra. The libretto was written by Johann Philip Neumann, who was a friend of Schubert, and is based on a tale from the classical Indian poet Kalidasa.
Karl Aage Rasmussen himself says of the reconstruction of Sakontala that it was never his intention to compose like Schubert, but to let his posthumous sketches form the background for all technical and artistic decisions. The first performance of Schubert/Karl Aage Rasmussen’s Sakontala will be given as part of the festival Herbstliche Musiktage in Bad Urach in Germany on 4th October 2006.
Read more about the performance at http://www.herbstliche-musiktage.de/programm/3,1,1,4.lasso
Read more about Sakontala on www.ewh.dk/sites/sakontala
