OPERA SEARCH
Die Nachtschwalbe
(The Night Swallow) (1947)Libretto by Friedrich Wolf (G)
lyrS,lyrT,lyrBar,buffoB; chorus
1.1.1.1-0.2.1.0-strings
onstage:pft
Abbreviations (PDF)
Bote & Bock
Leipzig
Company: Unknown
| NELLY, seamstress, 17 | Lyric soprano |
| GERDA, her friend, 18 | Soubrette |
| HARRY, an admirer from a suburb, 20 | Lyric tenor |
| AUNT HOLZSCHUH, worker in a building crew, 45 | Character alto |
| SCHMOERL, police superintendent, head of the night patrol, 50 | Lyric baritone |
| BULKE, detective | Buffo Bass |
| Women, Girls, Youths, Men, Detectives |
A dance hall in a suburb of a city after the war
Nelly, whose mother died while she was young and who does not know her father, is given expensive jewellery as a present by the dubious Harry. The girl is embarrassed, flattered – she feels drawn towards Harry, who has a reputation of being a loose fellow. At a routine police raid, the jewellery becomes her undoing. The superintendent on duty, Schmoerl, suspects a case of receiving stolen goods and prostitution. Schmoerl, a German officer with a sense of thoroughness, wants to get to the bottom of the trouble which he believes can be found in her social background. But the more deeply he digs, the more unsteady becomes the ground under his bourgeois morals; behind the facade of respectability nothing but hypocrisy appears. For during the hearing Schmoerl learns that Nelly is his own daughter, the knowledge of whose existence he had repressed for 17 years. ‘I had to press a thousand cases into files ere my case hit me,’ is his bitter insight. To Harry, who has been wounded by a shot on his escape, Schmoerl’s story becomes a lesson. The circle of seduction and disillusion – symbolized by a demonically returning, phoenix-like night swallow – seems this time to be broken.
Dramatic, Poetic