Die Drei Pintos - Performance History

Performance History

Mahler had been an admirer of Weber, and in this way he succeeded in creating a complete opera which was premiered at the Neues Stadttheater, Leipzig on 20 January 1888, with Mahler conducting. Richard Strauss admired the work, but appears to have changed his opinion after his mentor Hans von Bülow panned it; like Bülow, the influential critic Eduard Hanslick was also critical.

After Mahler's death (1911) Die drei Pintos gradually disappeared from regular production. Although it is rarely produced nowadays, the "Intermezzo", composed entirely by Mahler based on melodies by Weber, hints at the flute calls (echoed by other wind instruments such as the oboe and bassoon) in the slow section of the first movement of Mahler's Symphony no. 1.

Performances are rare. There was a production at the John Lewis Theatre in London on 10 April 1962 and a concert performance at the Edinburgh International Festival in 1976. The American première, given by the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, took place on 6 June 1979, and in June 1997 a concert performance was given as part of the Vienna Festival. In January 1998, seven fully staged performances in a new production conducted by Geoffrey Moull were given by the Bielefeld Opera in Germany. In February 1998, three performances in English were given in a fully staged production by Opera Omnibus in Haslemere, England. In October 2003, there were six performances of a new production at the Wexford Festival. In 2010, the Bronx Opera Company gave the New York staged premiere in English. In March 2011, there were four performances by UCOpera at the Bloomsbury Theatre near University College London.