Săptămâna luminată de Nicolae Brânzeu – prima operă românească de tip expresionist
The lit week by Nicolae Brânzeu – the first Romanian expressionist opera

Summary/Abstract: Founded more than 420 years ago, this opera aimed to recreate a perfect blend of music, theatre and dance – the pillars of ancient Greek theatre – a desideratum that, in some respects, has persisted over the centuries. The Enlightened Week by Nicolae Branzeu, which, as we will demonstrate, happily brings together the constituent elements of total syncretic art, has a special place in the history of the Romanian opera. The work, structured as a one-part poem, capitalizes on the Wagnerian technique of infinite melody. The compositional language of Romanian musical expression is distinguished by the recitative vocal interventions (the arioso treatments are less common) and by giving the central role to the orchestra; it is the one that exposes the musical motifs, comments or supports the scaffolding of dramaturgy with a special sensitivity. The Enlightened Week is a place where human encounters the sacred and the heresy. The context outlines the discovery of new coordinates of the archetypal characters: the mother under the sign of a cleavage – life-giving and death liberator; the son – located between the abyss of human conscience and salvation; the old woman, stood out as a saviour, lost in revenge. The apotheosis predicted by the spectator is in total discord with the sonorous event that the composer ultimately validates. The present study outlines the panoply of leitmotifs, the harmonic work, the gradation of musical tensions and the role mapping, to provide a unitary projection of the author's identity matrix in the context of universal compositional diversity. The Enlightened Week anchors a reference chapter of the Romanian opera, and its value coordinates – captured by the interwar press – were also validated by George Enescu. A unique work in the Romanian genre creation, obscured by the maze of history.

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