This was Zemlinsky's seventh and final opera, and those unacquainted with his operas will be struck by the unique, art nouveau stylizations of his music. Der Kreidekreis ("The Chalk Circle") features Oriental tinges to its melodic and harmonic approach, as well as turns of style suggestive of Debussy and Berg. As well, trappings of jazz idiom appear occasionally. The librettist was Klabund, the pseudonym of Alfred Henschke, an extraordinarily prolific poet who also translated many texts from Chinese and Japanese. Dead before his 39th birthday, he left behind a professional legacy of nearly 100 books. It is not entirely clear if he ever knew of Zemlinsky's intension to forge an opera from the play, which was a success in Germany throughout the early 1920s. The setting is in pre-modern China and each of the three acts features a spoken address to the audience, setting the scene.

The opera is an exotic fairy tale and a class morality play. This is not an easy aesthetic grafting; the spark of a dreamscape of the fairy tale can easily be extinguished by stark political concepts, and the reverse is also true. Overt fantasy often drains the tension of demonstrated social dissonances. Der Kreidekreis features stereotypes of realist fiction (the dissolute, revolution-minded student, for example) and of escapist literary fare (such as the amusing and astute eunuch/merchant). With a poor young girl named Haitang caught in the middle of family tragedy, sold, framed for a murder, and ravished by the local Mandarin during the evening, there are many storytelling tropes in operation. The cohesiveness of this work comes from the manner in which the music gels the story to itself. At once European, Asian, and occasionally American, Zemlinsky's score appeals because it demonstrates his personal plurality thoroughly. Jazz idiom is referenced frequently in his catalog of works, and his command of "Oriental" sound (as heard by a European) comes with Vienna's atmosphere of architecture and other mediums that demonstrated an interest in the Near and Far East. However difficult this blend may be, he had the inclination, background, and experience to succeed. Some listeners with an intimate relationship to jazz or Chinese music may consider the result to be mere appropriation, but the references to different forms of music are only references, and they offer a compelling insight into how such foreign music excited Zemlinsky's imagination. Like most of the composer's work, this piece is comparatively approachable. Its emphasis is on a modal sound that holds it apart from the Second Viennese School, from which he had been estranged (with the exception of Berg), though the opera is musically too rich to associate with the escapist operettas of Puccini. There is enough to enjoy in this opera to make lovers of light or serious music want to listen. Though the tensions of the opera are resolved with an optimistic flare that makes for a less serious, comedic ending, the atmosphere of the work is strangely original.

© John Keillor, Rovi