Duration: full evening
Text by the composer after the novel "The Forty-first” by Boris Lawrenjov under the collaboration of Götz Friedrich
Place and time: Russia, after the great October Revolution, spring 1919

Characters: Marjutka (soprano) - Marjutka’s Voice of Thought (soprano) - Guard-Lieutenant Goworucha-Otrok (tenor) -The Lieutenant’s Voice of Thought (baritone) - Cavalry Captain Buryga (baritone) - Inspector Jewsjukow, Special Quarter of the Red Army (bass) - 4 Red Army Soldiers (tenor, baritone, 2 basses) - Red Army Soldiers, White Guards, Kirgisan, with soloist parts, speakers (chorus)

At the heart of this work is an episode from the Russian Civil War between the White Russians and the Red Army in the spring of 1919. A motley group of dispersed Red Army soldiers is struggling desperately to flee to Lake Aral through the Karakumy Desert. Among them is the fanatical Maryutka. She is given the order to watch over a captured White Russian officer and escort him to headquarters. The two are shipwrecked, however, and fall in love on a lonely island. Their romance is brutally ended by the arrival of a White Russian ship: Maryutka is told that the officer is not allowed to escape alive. Forced to obey the command, Maryutka shoots him and collapses in despair upon his body.


LP (highlights):
Hannerose Katterfeld (Marjutka), Günther Neumann (Leutnant), Renate Kramer / Siegfried Lorenz (Gedankenstimmen), Rundfunk-Solisten-Vereinigung, Rundfunkchor und Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin, cond. Gert Bahner
LP Deutsche Schallplatten Berlin, Nova 8 85 080

CD (excerpts):
Hannerose Katterfeld (soprano), Renate Kramer (soprano), Günter Neumann (tenor), Fritz Hübner (baritone), Solistenvereinigung und Großer Chor des Berliner Rundfunks, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, cond. Gert Bahner
CD BMG 74321 73540 2


Bibliography:

Friedrich, Götz: Einige Antworten auf Fragen zur Inszenierung ..., in: Stephan Stompor (Hrsg.): Felsenstein, Friedrich, Herz - Musiktheater, Leipzig 1970.
Hennenberg, Fritz: Dialektische musikdramatische Verfahren in der Oper „Der letzte Schuß“, in: Jahrbuch der Komischen Oper Berlin 1968.
ders.: Analyse „Der letzte Schuß“, in: Musik und Gesellschaft 1/1968 und 5/1968.
Matthus, Siegfried: Werkstattgespräch mit Hans-Gerald Otto, in: Theater der Zeit 6/1968.
ders.: Freundlichkeit und vergnügliche Belehrung, in: Musik und Gesellschaft 1/1969.
Vogt, Hans: Siegfried Matthus: Der letzte Schuß, in: Neue Musik seit 1945, Stuttgart 1972, pp. 370-380.