Death was more than familiar to him. Born in Berlin in 1936, Aribert Reimann experienced the World War there. His slightly older brother died in 1944 in a children’s hospital that was bombed by the Americans. The family then fled west on foot from the advancing Soviet soldiers; the chance discovery of a huge package of Knorr soup cubes ensured their survival for two months. Reimann processed the war experience in his opera “Troades.” He called it his favorite piece because it was written “against the war, for survival.” His ninth and final opera “L’invisible” is dedicated to his dead brother; he was fixated on him: “The shadow of death has been by my side since I was eight years old.” All of his other operas are also about dying, in the female sexual neurosis “Bernarda Alba’s House”, in the child murder story “Medea” and particularly gruesomely in “Lear”, the drama of an unreasonable old ruler.
On the death of the opera composer Aribert Reimann – Culture
