V. DER WAHNSINN Sie muß immer sinnen: Ich bin... ich bin.., Wer bist du denn, Marie? Eine Königin, eine Königin! In die Kniee vor mir, in die Knie! Sie muß immer weinen: Ich war... ich war... Wer warst du denn, Marie? Ein Niemandskind, ganz arm und bar, und ich kann dir nicht sagen wie. Und wurdest aus einem solchen Kind eine Fürstin, vor der man kniet? Weil die Dinge alle anders sind, als man sie beim Betteln sieht. So haben die Dinge dich groß gemacht, und kannst du noch sagen wann? Eine Nacht, eine Nacht, über eine Nacht,- und sie sprachen mich anders an. Ich trat in die Gasse hinaus und sieh: die ist wie mit Saiten bespannt; da wurde Marie Melodie, Melodie... und tantzte von Rand zu Rand. Die Leute schlichen so ängstlich hin, wie hart an die Häuser gepflanzt,- denn das darf doch nur eine Königin, daß sie tantzt in den Gassen: tantzt!... ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkHNxhtQUps

Text: I was at the theatre. Laughed quite a lot. Very amusing plays they write these days. When I have only a penny in my pocket I just can't resist going there. But among my fellow-officials there are such swine: those people pertinently don't visit the theatre; unless you give them a free ticket. I was at the theatre. There was some sort of comedy play with funny verses. About bankers they said straightaway that they cheat the people and that their sons live immoral lives. About journalists there was a very amusing song, too: that they love cursing at everything. I love being in the theatre. Very diverting plays they write these days. When I have only a penny in my pocket I just can't resist going there. There was one actress who sang very well. It made me think of her... fy, for shame!.. No, no, silence. It has for many years been a dream of mine to turn Gogol's short story Diary of a Madman into a one-act opera for only one singer and orchestra; an opera which will in this respect be comparable to Poulenc's La Voix Humaine and Schönberg Erwartung. In 2017, I had the opportunity to set to music some excerpts from Gogol's wonderful play, this song being one of the results. Gogol's story depicts a low-level clerk's gradual descent into madness, eventually leading to his confinement in a mental asylum. Starting with a journal entry dated as The Year 2000, 43rd of April, the second half of the work chronicles the worsening of his condition, starting with the moment that he arrives to the conclusion that he is the new king of Spain. The story ends with his total breakdown, due to the brutal way he is being treated in the asylum. What makes the story so well suited for opera in general is the gradual unfolding of the drama towards its inescapable climax. Furthermore, Gogol's own words can directly be turned into a libretto, as it is possible to abridge Gogol's text by ca. 60% while still retaining nearly every step of the worsening of the protagonist's mental condition. And besides all this there is something that makes the story extremely interesting to be turned into a 21st century opera. We now have an incredible amount of musical idioms and atmospheres at our disposal that can be used to depict everything ranging from the harmonious and tonal to the disharmonious and atonal. This implies that the madman's gradually increasing mental instability can be musically underlined by music that is becoming more and more atonal and dissonant during the course of the opera; the gradual increase in dissonance being alternated by moments where a general mood of sad solitude is musically depicted, illustrating the madman's troubled soul. Gogol's Diary of a Madman is just waiting to be transformed into precisely such an opera. In my es ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKt1gGOTNsw