W.Kienzl : Der Evangelimann, opera - Atto I -Prima parte

[@angusmcrandy]

Act 1 Place and time: the Benedictine monastery St. Othmar in Lower Austria, in the year 1820. Mathias, clerk in the monastery of St. Othmar, is in love with Martha, the foster daughter of the magistrate Friedrich Engel. Mathias’s brother Johannes is jealous of Martha’s affection and starts an intrigue against him. When the magistrate is informed of what is happening between his charge and Mathias, he dismisses the clerk and expels him from the monastery. Martha resists Johannes’s intrusiveness. When Johannes witnesses Martha and Mathias swearing fidelity to each other at their farewell, his jealousy turns into blind hate and he sets the monastery on fire. It is not he, however, but Mathias, who is arrested as the alleged wrongdoer. Act 2 Place and time: Vienna, 1850 Mathias has served a twenty-year sentence and, having been denied re-integration into society, travels the country as an itinerant preacher (this act contains the most popular piece in the opera: Selig sind, die Verfolgung leiden um der Gerechtigkeit willen, sung by Mathias and a children's chorus). Martha took her life after his imprisonment, Johannes has become rich by dishonest means and lives in Vienna, now a severely ill man. Thirty years after the events at St. Othmar the brothers meet again. Mathias forgives Johannes, who can thus die in peace.

[@juliogonzalezcampayo3201]

Gracias/Thank you, Mr. Edwards.

[@millertj27]

What year was this recorded?

[@MonikaMonika-vq1ol]

millertj27 2006