THE SECRET KINGDOM apotheosizes the simple life, submission to Nature, joy in little things, and the renunciation of ambition, fame, and glory. The composer wanted to say ‘no’ to modern civilization, which, he felt, consisted of dehumanized haste, degrading commercialization, and hopeless universal corruption.
The plot is an elaborate fairy-tale involving a kingdom in revolt, a monarch of Hamlet-like despondency who would like nothing better than to abdicate, and a queen who seeks to usurp her husband’s throne and establish a new kingdom with the leader of the rebellion.
In the end, all of the characters are thwarted, and a new kingdom, based on a love of nature is magically created in a remote forest.
In his long, diverse, and extraordinarily productive career, Ernst Krenek passed through many compositional styles and aesthetics, from the unbridled atonal Expressionism of his youth to an energetic espousal of indeterminacy in his old age, and was not averse to trying his hand at Tin Pan Alley songs. The music is glorious - awash with a Hollywood soundtrack and jazz club vibes. The story, sadly prescient in 1922, is of a corrupt society and an undervalued environment on the brink of collapse.
