Stefan Wolpe - Entartete Musik: Zeus Und Elida (2000)

For listeners who can't imagine a halfway point between Schoenberg and Satie-or perhaps a tenfold multiplication of Kurt Weill's biting irony and sardonic use of jazz-these short operas by Stefan Wolpe will come as a revelation. Influenced in equal parts by socialism, serialism and Dada, Wolpe's 1928 stage works have been long forgotten, or in the case of 'Zeus und Elida,' never performed at all until 1997.
In 'Zeus,' the Greek god descends upon Berlin's bustling Potsdamer Platz-a location of modern urban life brilliantly and chaotically evoked by Wolpe. Zeus is understandably confused; after singing a Tango, he searches for his beloved Europa but finds a prostitute instead, only to wind up arrested for, among other things, impersonating a god.
'Schöne Geschichten' is even more unconventional: seven "pretty stories" (actually scathing jokes), accompanied by the highly complex and atonal music of an eight-piece jazz ensemble. Taking on science, religion, justice, culture, love, philosophy and patriotism, Wolpe dramatizes gaps in communication and points out the ways in which society fails to live up to its high ideals. The satirical diction used by the singers in this work should be apparent even to non-German speakers, and the Ebony Band brings impressive accuracy to the music, equal parts swing and sting. Once again, Decca/London's 'Entartete Musik' series has done a marvelous job recovering a slice of 20th-century musical history.