Ella Milch-Sheriff turns the life of the busiest widow in cultural history into a hearty spectacle at the Vienna Volksoper.

…previously, Milch-Sheriff had entertained with a colorful, varied and polyphonic sound language.

In the pit, Omer Meir Wellber skilfully coordinated the turbulent musical events. The short-term music director of the house and long-time artistic partner of the composer was the one who was able to persuade Milch-Sheriff to award the premiere of her Alma opera to Vienna.

Phenomenally sad and absolutely worth seeing: "Alma" at the Volksoper tells the life of the muse Alma Mahler-Werfel as a bitter story of suffering with impressive music.

New music has one main problem: it often massages the intellect, offers fascinating sound experiences and delights in its own clever construction. But it does not reach the audience with those basic emotions that opera has historically been particularly successful at pushing around until they burst out of people in the finale. In short, it stimulates the brain, not the heart. What has now been achieved with "Alma" at the Volksoper is all the more phenomenal: the work about the turn-of-the-century super-muse Alma Mahler is perhaps one of the genuinely saddest, most oppressive things that one can currently see and hear on stage. And yes, that is meant as vehement praise.

From the pit comes, under the excellent direction of Omer Meir Wellber, a kaleidoscope of music from the Viennese turn of the century. It is Wagnerian when Alma asks Manon from the realm of the dead like Klingsor asks Kundry in Parsifal. It is Mahlerian, of course. New music free from ideology, which is particularly good at drama, which entertains and seduces one to sympathize. It is new music even for those who otherwise reject new music.

Her life as a grand opera Idolized and hated, now set to music as a tragic heroine: the premiere of a feminist piece.

Where I live, then wife of the house founder, writes Walter Gropius, later Alma, architect and widow of the composer Gustav Mahler, in 1918, I don't know myself and have never known and don't want to know. Perhaps that is why the Israeli composer Ella Milch-Sheriff and her librettist Ido Ricklin have turned the life of this legendary woman, who specialized in art and artists, on its head and tell it in the new opera Alma from behind. They focus on Alma's five children, most of whom died young; a team of men would hardly have come up with such an emotional and at the same time feminist approach. The three-hour piece, which roars along rhythmically in harsh tones, conducted by Omer Meir Wellber whips up both musicians and audience with fury.

There is no more celebrity, contradictions and sparkle than this; as always, there is no such thing as an objective historical truth; everyone can construct their own. But one thing is certain: this woman belongs on an opera stage. Ella Milch-Sheriff does not even try to show Alma in all her facets and contradictions, or even to understand her power of fascination. She simply assumes the latter. This works because Annette Dasch is quite naturally the center of the action. She does not put on a show, she does not shine through her ostentatious virtuosity. In her singing and playing she combines calm, dignity, vitality, charisma, harmony and effortlessness. In this way, beyond the artistic and erotic hustle and bustle, of which Alma was always the centre, she can show a strong, emphatic and vulnerable woman who never gives in but always makes compromises, even to the point of self-denial, in order not to be marginalised. Ella Milch-Sheriff composes from the same approach. She quotes and draws on Mahler, Schönberg, Berg, Mozart, Shostakovich, she quotes and draws on Mahler, Schönberg, Berg, Mozart, Shostakovich, she amalgamates the echoes in a vital and responsive sound language that offers warm darkness without becoming late romantic, molusco-like or soft.

The sounds are a reflection of Alma's psyche, just as the balancing act between musical and avant-garde opera, between intellect and grand entrance, is. Milch-Sheriff wants to be understandable. The story on stage requires no prior knowledge, it does not require any strenuous analysis, is immediately understandable and creates an increasing emotional pull.... This includes the apocalyptically dancing quintet of children plus mother and the chronologically backwards narrative, which is not an intellectual gimmick because it makes Mahler's marriage proposal into that absurd absolute high point that was also the life of the two deeply in love at the time...

Exciting premiere of Alma at the Vienna Volksoper.

The Israeli composer Ella Milch-Sheriff is hardly known in this country, her commissioned work showed ingenuity and instrumentation skills and a pronounced sense for effective musical theater. A piece that is definitely viable. There was no boredom in the three hours, which was also helped by the excellent libretto by Ido Ricklin, who told Alma Mahler's life in five acts from back to front. Conductor Omer Meir Wellber drives the Volksoper orchestra to peak performance as an expert, from soft string carpets to delicate accompanying figures to rhythmically effervescent expression.

… All of this together drove the audience to enthusiasm, a large part of which was received by Ella Milch-Sheriff. And rightly so.

Success for Ella Milch-Sheriff's “Alma” at the Vienna Volksoper.

A triumph of a Volksoper! How long has it been since we last experienced something like this! Thunderous applause, cheers, ovations for Alma, Ella Milch-Sheriff's opera about Alma Mahler-Gropius-Werfel, Vienna's social icon around 1900, but also for Ruth Brauer-Kwam's stage-effective production, the conductor Omer Meir Wellber and especially Annette Dasch's Alma. No one needs to be afraid of Milch-Sheriff's new music: dramatically hyped up, colorful, full of offbeat waltzes, tangos, tight marches and catchy quotes from Gustav Mahler's Third, for example, it fits in with the story. Confident: Omer Meir Wellber at the podium of the impeccable Volksoper orchestra.

Alma Mahler-Werfel, wife and lover of great men, prevented from being a composer: The opera "Alma" by Ella Milch-Sheriff achieved a unanimous premiere success at the Vienna Volksoper.

... In any case, her story has never been told like in "Alma" based on Ricklin's text and with music by Ella Milch-Sheriff, and certainly not as an opera:
namely, with the focus on her tragedy as a mother, a mother who had long since failed with her children before she lost them to early death - or, as in Anna's case, had difficulty coping with the survival of the "wrong" daughter.

Milch-Sheriff's music is of that modern style in which moods and stylistic nuances are easily explained by the respective dramatic context. The Manon act is based on dented waltz sounds à la Shostakovich, the Werfel act has a lot to do with tango rhythms, and the Kokoschka act repeatedly features grotesque marches. She repeatedly uses musical adaptations that may seem like quotations but are not - for example in the Heurigen music at the beginning - and even actual takeovers. These then take over a little in Mahler, for example in the Third Symphony: These are not the strongest passages in an overall score that is undoubtedly effective on stage, well-constructed and has singable solo parts ...

The third act right before the interval, and the composer Ella Milch-Sheriff pulls out all the dramatic stops, and Omer Meir Wellber at the podium doesn't need to be told twice and brings out all the brutal forces with the Volksoper orchestra.

The premiere of Ella Milch-Sheriff's opera about Alma Mahler-Werfel was enthusiastically applauded for its colorful music and dazzling subject.

This is what a premiere success looks like: This is what it sounds like: The applause swells to a mighty crescendo and culminates in standing ovations. Such cheering would not be so remarkable if the Vienna Volksoper had given a repertoire work a new lease of life on Saturday. But a stage novelty was launched on the Währinger Gürtel, and opera audiences are not known to be so keen on premieres.

The duo Ella Milch-Sheriff (music) and Ido Ricklin (book) nevertheless managed to create a potential stage hit.

The music by Milch-Sheriff is a miracle of variety: sometimes a kind of Viennese song sounds from the orchestra pit, sometimes melodic arches arch in an elegant Art Nouveau manner, sometimes pulsing free-tonal chord mists waft, urgent rhythms pulsate, or deformed brass fanfares roar. Even Mahler and Mozart quotations fit effectively into this melting pot score. Not to be forgotten: the compact performance of the choir and orchestra under Omer Meir Wellber, also celebrated by the audience. The signs are good for a long life for this Volksoper novelty.

The emotionality is found less in the vocal lines than in the music. Milch-Sheriff's score is energy-driven, more emotional than many contemporary works, without sacrificing comprehensibility of the text. Waltzes, the imperial anthem and, at the end, Mahler and Bach are absorbed and modulated. The result is a multifaceted music that nevertheless does not fall apart stylistically, but finds a sensitive tonality for the individual scenes.

[...] 

Men including the composer Gustav Mahler, the writer Franz Werfel and the Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius were bedded, wedded and inspired by Alma, “the most beautiful woman in Vienna” at the fin de siècle. A subject of endless fascination for most of the last 150 years, the charismatic diarist and muse, alternatively described as a monster and the greatest femme fatale of her age, is now getting a fresh appraisal in an opera that will have its world premiere in her home town later this month.

The Israeli composer Ella Milch-Sheriff’s Alma, at Vienna’s Volksoper, focuses on the protagonist’s tragic experiences with motherhood after an unrelenting series of miscarriages and fatal child illnesses, as well as her thwarted creative identity, slippery relationship with the truth and unabashed eroticism.

[...]

for full review see: Sex, grief and a crushed musical identity: Alma Mahler steps on to the operatic stage | Opera | The Guardian