Das Floß der Medusa

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Das Floß der Medusa (The Raft of the Medusa) is an oratorio by the German composer Hans Werner Henze. It is regarded as a seminal work in the composer's political alignment with left-wing politics.

Henze wrote it as a requiem for Che Guevara, and set it to a text by Ernst Schnabel. It tells the story of a French frigate, the 'Medusa', which ran aground off the west coast of Africa in 1816. It marks an undistinguished episode in French political and maritime history, and was later immortalised in the painting of the same name by Théodore Géricault. As Henze's oratorio builds to its climax, the ‘dead’ move from the choir of the living to that of the dead, which is full of both adults and children, creating an imbalance on the stage.^[1]

The intended premiere in Hamburg in December 1968 was controversial before any performance could take place: some of the West Berlin performers refused to appear under the portrait of Che Guevara with a red flag draped across the stage. The police were called and Schnabel, amongst others, was arrested. However prior to the abortive performance a recording was made, with soloists Edda Moser, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, several choirs and the Sinfonieorchester des Norddeutschen Rundfunks conducted by the composer.

It was finally premiered at a concert performance in Vienna on 29 January 1971, and its first stage production was given in Nuremberg on 15 April 1972. Henze revised the work in 1990, and it has been performed several occasions since, notably by the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle in 2006.