After 54 years, I heard my ‘Traumspiel’ just as I had imagined it! (Aribert Reimann on the Hof performance). “Ein Traumspiel” (A Dream Play) – Aribert Reimann's first opera – is finally available on CD, in the production by the Hof Theater that was enthusiastically acclaimed by critics and opera audiences alike. The visually stunning “Traumspiel” captivates from the very first note with its melodic diversity and intensity. Aribert Reimann succeeds in bringing the underlying theme of August Strindberg's play, compassion, to life in a sensual way, and at the end gives Indra's daughter a gift package of human worries, sufferings, and complaints, tied up with masterful music, to take with her to the afterlife to the god Indra. In addition to August Strindberg, Reimann was also inspired by the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, although he takes a completely different musical approach to Rilke's first “Duino Elegy”: in his composition “Denn Bleiben ist nirgends” (For to Stay is to be Nowhere), he combines the text, recited by a speaker, with a symphony orchestra playing in a broad, expansive style to create a melodrama.