
*5 January 1951
†23 August 2022
Christof Herzog, born and raised in Lübeck, studied composition with Milko Kelemen in Stuttgart, received the Stuttgart City Prize for Young Composers and a grant from the Baden-Württemberg Art Foundation. He wrote two opera projects with Gisela Elsner: Die Zerreißprobe UA Munich 1985 and Friedenssaison (so far only excerpts have been performed). Together with Christa Weber, he founded the Weber-Herzog-Musiktheater, which resulted in many short operas, chanson programs, children's cantatas and 6 a cappella operas - performed at numerous private theaters in Munich and Berlin, at the Semper Oper Dresden, the Komische Oper Berlin, Theater Biel and Theater Solothurn. Herzog wrote orchestral pieces: WDR, Orchestra of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra; 3 great operas, 1 fairy tale opera (not yet premiered) and numerous chamber operas: Kiel Opera, Dortmund Opera, Dresden Semper Opera, Berlin Komische Oper, Biel Theater and Solothurn Theater. Christof Herzog died on 23 August 2022 in Berlin.
In my music I put value on the gesture in terms of an emotional and social attitude. That is why I focus on the human voice - in a figurative sense also in pure instrumental music. My music not only expresses moods, it lets voices speak. Seen in this way, the focus for me is on the melody, whether in open or fragmented form. For example the opera Irma - it is set in the so-called Third Reich: a rebellious inn daughter who rebels against her despotic father as well as against the Nazi rabble in the village. The music underlines or comments on the text with various stylistic devices. With the fairy tale opera Prinz Flascholett and the color blue a prince who faints at the sight of the color blue, I combine the classical opera with the freshness of the musical and the lightness of the operetta and consciously address a broad audience, address and parody in comedic form arbitrariness and exclusion.