This three-act opus, the libretto of which is based on ETA Hoffmann's romantic novella The Lady of Scudera from 1819, had its world premiere in 1926 at the State (Semper) Opera in Dresden. However, the composer was not well received by audiences or critics, who pointed to "a great discrepancy between Hoffmann's fervent romantic theme and the sober unromantic music". Just one year later with Cardillacappeared on the stage of the New German Theater in Prague (today's Prague State Opera), which regularly presented new operas. In the same year, Hindemith was appointed professor of composition at the State College of Music in Berlin, but after a few years he was excommunicated by Nazi ideologues and his work was labeled as "degenerate art". Hindemith's compositions were not allowed to be played in public, so the composer left for the USA and returned to Europe only after the end of the Second World War. After the end of the war conflicts, he also reworked his opera Cardillac in terms of a more "classical" aesthetic. He intervened in the musical component and in the libretto of Fedrinando Lion and expanded the plot to four acts. The new version was first performed on June 20, 1952 at the City Theater in Zurich.
Paul Hindemith visited Ostrava three times (1931, 1932, 1936), when he performed at concerts as a composer and as a viola and viola d'amour player. By staging the opera Cardillac , the Ostrava Opera wants to pay tribute to one of the most outstanding representatives of 20th century music, whose work remains underappreciated in the context of our musical interpretation. The opera will be performed in the first three-act version, and we firmly believe that the mysterious story of a Parisian goldsmith from the seventeenth century, in connection with whose creations there are inexplicable murders, will excite the audience of the NDM opera.
