New Opera About Alma Mahler Premieres in Vienna

Ella Milch-Sheriff’s opera Alma opened at the Vienna Volksoper this Saturday. The opera tells the story of Alma Mahler-Werfel, composer and muse to fin-de-siècle Vienna’s greatest artists.

Driving the news: On Saturday, October 26th, Israeli composer Ella Milch-Sheriff’s opera Alma premiered at the Vienna Volksoper. With a libretto by Ido Ricklin, the opera Alma Mahler-Werfel (née Schindler)—the composer, muse, and wife to Gustav Mahler, Walter Gropius, and Franz Werfel—and her experiences as a mother. It stars soprano Annette Dasch in the title role.

A bit of context: Alma Mahler-Werfel (1879-1964) has been the subject of countless novels, biographies, films, and paintings. However, this opera is the first to centre the complicated historic figure. Mahler-Werfel is notorious for her antisemitism (despite marrying and having relationships with various Jews) as well as her decision to doctor letters from her husband Gustav before publishing them. Her enigmatic contributions to music history have led musicologists and historians to coin her output “The Alma Problem.”

The Vienna Volksoper advertises Alma as an opportunity to explore one of Vienna’s great female personalities through the eyes of a female composer. It promises to be full of intrigue, to say the least.

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Sara Schabas

Sara Schabas is a Dora-nominated soprano, writer and yoga teacher. She has performed and created leading roles with companies including Vancouver Opera, Pacific Opera Victoria, the Dayton Opera, and Aspen Opera, and is a former member of Barbara Hannigan’s Equilibrium Young Artists. Currently based in Montreal, she is a doctoral student at McGill University — where she recently received the Wirth Vocal Prize — and editor of Art Song Canada magazine.