The Ludwig and Bruckner composer has died
RIPThe Bavarian composer Franz Hummel, who has died at 83, had his moment of fame with a Wagnerian musical titled “Ludwig II – Longing for Paradise”. Premiered in 2000 within sight of the mad king’s castle, it was revived with considerable success in 2019.
Among 19 operas, Hummel wrote one called Zarathustra and another on the life and murders of Gesualdo. He was working on an opera on the life of Anton Bruckner when mortality intervened.
An opera about Bruckner? Read Walter Damrosch’s description of him in his autobiography. Despite the grandios Romantic music it could possibly have been the dullest opera ever written.
Ludwig II was magnificent. The Allgäu Region built a Gottfried Semper-inspired glass-fronted theatre for it just outside Füssen, facing the nearest lake, Forggensee. You’d enter the foyer in the interval with an unimpeded twilight view of the lake and the Alps to enjoy with your glass of bubbly. The show was exquisite, with more beautiful melodies than you could shake a stick at. If there were any justice in this world it would still be running in the Füssen Festspielhaus, as it’s now called. RIP Franz, and thanks for that most wondrous of works.