Zimmermann, Oscar: Soldaten (Die) (PAL) (Arthaus DVD)

The sad state of Die Soldaten as an opera more known of than known may largely be due to its composer’s ultimate refusal to face life as it is depicted in this, his magnum opus. His suicide in 1970 denied us at least a second opera, Medea, which he had gone some way to sketching. Had he determined to live he would have certainly been able, somewhat like Wagner (a comparison he would have loathed), to drive through his dreams to create ‘total theatre’.