About the work
Der Prozess is an opera in two parts by Gottfried von Einem, to a libretto by Boris Blacher and Heinz von Cramer after Franz Kafka's novel The Trial. Karl Böhm conducted the premiere on 17 August 1953 at the Salzburg Festival, in a production directed by Oscar Fritz Schuh with sets by Caspar Neher.
Plot
Josef K. is arrested one morning without explanation and drawn into an opaque judicial process whose authorities he never gets to see. Despite every attempt to defend himself or learn the charges against him, the proceedings end with his execution.
Cultural significance
As one of the first operatic settings of Kafka's novel, Einem translated its nightmarish bureaucracy into a terse musical language of short, dense scenes, cementing his standing as the Salzburg Festival's leading opera composer after Dantons Tod.