Jakob Lenz [CF:UE036508]

Rihm's powerful one-act opera deals with one man's slow deterioration into schizophrenia. Most impressive is the fact that Rihm composed this opera at the age of 25. Jakob Lenz now joins the ongoing Universal Edition Study Score Series. "Based upon Georg Buchner's novella, Rihm's opera depicts a 19-day episode in the life of the 18th-century poet Jakob Lenz, a friend of Goethe and member of the Sturm und Drang movement, who suffered from what would now be diagnosed as schizophrenia. It's a graphic musical portrait of a man's mental disintegration and a huge dramatic challenge for the baritone in the central role of Lenz." - Andrew Clements, The Guardian