Staats Stuttgart/Meister - Hans Werner Henze: Der Prinz von Homburg (The Prince of Homburg)

�But tell me, who could have written a better libretto for me than my friend Heinrich von Kleist? When I was searching for a language in combination with which my music could produce something new, a diction targeted by my music, I hit on the �Prince�. [�] The tension between the life of the individual and raison d��tat, issues as to the disregard of law and order, man�s quivering before the might of ruling authorities and the courage to resist it, all of that might happen today or might have occurred one or two thousand years ago. [�] Many of my endeavours in works of recent years appear through this drama to have reached a new point, i.e. a new polyphony and its concomitant, freely chosen rigour.� � Hans-Werner Henze