Jonny spielt auf

• Anita, an opera singer (soprano )
• Max, a composer (tenor )
• Daniello, a violin virtuoso (baritone )
• Jonny, fiddler in an African-American jazz band (baritone )
• Yvonne, a maid (soprano )
• Hotel Director (Tenor)
• Railway Employee ( Tenor)
• Art Manager (Tenor)
• Three policemen (Tenor / Baritone / Bass )
• Hotel guests, hotel employees, travelers, police officers, servants, public ( chorus and supernumeraries )

Jonny spielt auf (op. 45) is an opera in two parts by Ernst Krenek and is considered a showcase image of the freedom of the arts in the Roaring Twenties. It was premiered on 10 February 1927 at the New Theatre in Leipzig in the staging of Walther Bruegmann, had 421 performances in its first season and was also a worldwide success. However, in Austria were already the first performances of troubles that dated back to the early Nazi movement could have been disturbed. From 1929 Munich performances were disturbed until the opera eventually banned after the " takeover " in 1933 by the Nazis and was branded as "degenerate music ". The jazz musician of the title picture on the piano score was misused for the poster of this Nazi exhibition. Krenek's own libretto was translated into 14 languages.

Action

The opera is set in the high Alps, in a central European city and in Paris during the 1920s.

The singer Anita and the violin virtuoso Daniello are on tour in Europe. She is currently staying at the same hotel in which Jonny, the African-American leader of a jazz band, currently lives. He has thrown on the French maid Yvonne one eye. As Jonny realizes what has magnificent violin Daniello, Yvonne is for him only a minor matter. His greatest desire is now to own the instrument. Soon he sees the opportunity came to steal the violin. Hardly the fact he has succeeded, he also gets the same scruples. Swiftly he tucked the instrument only in the room of a singer and later at the somewhat unworldly composer and conductor Max, who is also recently put up at the hotel and has fallen in love with Anita. It also does not take long before these two come under the suspicion of theft. Fortunately, he does not hardens.

Towards the end of the opera, all protagonists meet at the train station to travel on to Amsterdam. Unfortunately, Daniello gets under the moving train and fatally injured. Jonny, now back in the possession of the precious instrument, it sneaks back into Max's luggage. This time the composer has no luck. He is accused of theft, was arrested and jailed. Jonny to free the composer again succeed. At the last minute, it creates Max to jump into the already moving train in which his beloved Anita is waiting for him.

Jonny climbs with the stolen violin on a station clock. Suddenly it turns into a giant globe on which the Black airs triumphantly. All around him dance to the jazzy rhythms from America, which is now the old world are beginning to conquer.