A few years ago, the Swiss author Iso Camartin was actually supposed to write a libretto for a "Bach opera" that Rudolf Lutz, director of the Johann Sebastian Bach Foundation in St. Gallen, wanted to perform.

His text would have been linked to selected arias and choruses by Bach using the good old parody technique, possibly supplemented by a few newly composed recitatives.

However, when he looked more closely at Bach, Camartin came to the conclusion that such a libretto made no sense, since Bach apparently made a conscious decision not to compose an opera.

Instead of the libretto, Iso Camartin has now written a book in which he clarifies the facts for himself, "Why Johann Sebastian Bach did not write an opera".

First of all, do you really have to ask the question?

Do you also ask why Monteverdi wrote no instrumental works or why Wagner did not write any masses?

But if you do ask the question about Bach's operas, the pragmatic answer is quickly given: there were no opera houses in Bach's main places of activity in Weimar, Köthen and Leipzig during his tenure.

And for the courtly theaters in Berlin and Dresden, Bach's influence was evidently not sufficient to receive a composition commission;

international operatic centers such as Venice and London were far beyond Bach's sphere of activity anyway.

Baroque opera, parody and theory of affects

Iso Camartin is not satisfied with this answer.

In his book, he explains in detail the suitability of Bach's music for opera, which is obvious in view of the baroque theory of affects.

Emotions such as sadness or joy, pain or love were represented on stage and in church with the same musical means in the eighteenth century.

In addition, as Camartin conclusively explains, many of Bach's secular cantatas can pass as a "mini-opera".

Iso Camartin justifies the fact that Bach did not at least try an opera with the fact that the Thomaskantor did not see himself primarily as an entertainer, but understood music as a science.

Bach was able to express everything with the means of church music; the Lutheran service was “stage” enough for him.

This thesis is accompanied by comments on the history of opera in Leipzig and on Bach's sparse contact with this genre, whereby Camartin largely reports on the research of Christoph Wolff and Michael Maul.

In a tour de force he also treats the history of baroque opera in general, the practice of parody and the theory of affects.

In contrast, Camartin's considerations of individual Bach arias are formulated in a much more individual way.

QR codes at the end of the chapters then lead the reader directly to the corresponding audio or video example on YouTube.

As good as this book is to read and as individually designed as it is, it hardly offers anything new for Bach enthusiasts.

Instead, there are too many inaccuracies in the text as far as the facts about Bach are concerned.

In 1722, for example, Bach was not a direct competitor to Telemann in the selection process for the position of Thomaskantor, but only applied when Telemann had long since declined.

Bach composed his hunting cantata in Weimar and not in Leipzig, and the piece is not scored for shawms but for oboes.

A good and important requirement

Telemann did not go from Leipzig to Hamburg in 1705, but to Sorau. The lyricist for Bach's cantata "I have enough" is not unknown, but was identified by Christine Blanken years ago as Christoph Birkmann;

the completion of the B minor Mass in 1748/49 was certainly not done for the Dresden court.

After all, it is very daring to call Leipzig “a German capital”.

Of course, these mistakes are not catastrophic, but they could have been easily avoided.

The mentioning of Count Questenberg as a possible commissioner for Bach's operas is also highly speculative, as this nobleman was in 1749 in poor health and financially too bad to carry out such a project.

In the final chapter, Camartin calls for Bach and his music to be performed everywhere, including on the opera stage.

That's a good and important demand, but it's already being met at many festivals.

Earlier this year, the Netherlands Bach Society and Opera2day in The Hague brought out a production of Bach music on a new libretto by Thomas Höft entitled "Die Apocalypse", which will also be shown at the Leipzig Bach Festival in 2024.

The subtitle reads: "The opera that Bach never wrote."

Iso Camartin: "Why Johann Sebastian Bach did not write an opera".

rüffer & rub Verlag, Zurich 2022. 157 p., hardcover, €24.