Alexander Zemlinsky: Sarema

Alexander Zemlinsky’s opera Sarema, based on Rudolf Gottschall’s story The Rose of the Caucasus, was written between 1893 and 1895 and won the 25-year-old composer the Luitpold Prize in 1896. The premiere followed on 10 October 1897 under Hugo Röhr at the Munich National Theatre, thus marking the Austrian composer’s first years of success. Zemlinsky received the Beethoven Prize of the Tonkünstlerverein for his Symphony in B flat major composed in 1897, and by 1899 he had written his opera Es war einmal, …, which was acclaimed in Vienna in 1900 under Gustav Mahler’s direction.

Photo credit: Bavarian State Opera Archive