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Schön ist die Welt on CPO

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Schön ist die Welt was the last in a series of Lehár’s operettas that were premiered in Berlin. Paganini, had met with a somewhat lukewarm reception in Vienna, but had triumphed in Berlin in 1926 , due to the participation of Richard Tauber, and thereafter Lehár wrote the majority of his operettas for Berlin with Tauber in mind for the leading role. Not that Shön ist die Welt, which premiered in 1930, was an entirely new work, it being a re-working of an earlier operetta, Endlich allein, originally performed twelve years earlier, the second act of which Lehár had been particularly proud, as it was more or less through composed with minimal dialogue. This second act, with the addition of a Tauber-lied, is pretty much lifted from the earlier operetta, but the outer acts underwent substantial revisions.

The action takes place in the Swiss Alps, where Crown Prince Georg arrives at an Alpine resort to meet for the first time his fiancée, Princess Elisabeth. However, on the way he stopped to help a girl, whose name he did not discover, mend a puncture and fell madly in love with her. He announces to his father that he will not marry Elisabeth because he loves another. All turns out well when our unwitting hero and heroine go on a hike and get trapped by an avalanche at an Alpine hut and have to spend the night together. Returning the hotel the next morning, Georg discovers that the girl he helped with the puncture is in fact Princess Elisabeth. There is also a sub plot involving Count Sascha and a Brazilian dancer, called Mercedes della Rossa, which gives Lehár the excuse for some Latin American influenced music in the first and third acts. It’s all pretty insubstantial, but it does give rise to some gloriously lyrical music, especially in the second act, which involves just the two leads.The present recording would seem to derive form stage performances as we hear occasional stage noise, though there is precious little sign of any audience. There was a previous recording, also on CPO, (review), which I see is still available as a download. That was on a single CD, but included none of the dialogue, whereas here we get quite a lot of it, which could prove tedious for all but fluent German speakers, and even they could find it a little too much for repeated listening.That said, the sound is excellent and the playing of the Franz Lehár Orchestra under Marius Burkert most stylish. I also enjoyed the contributions of Katharina Linhard and Jonathan  Hartzendorf as the secondary couple, and of Jospeh Terterian as the Jazz Singer. Where I had a problem was with the contributions of the two leads. Thomas Blondelle as Crown Prince Georg has a pleasing light tenor, but he is no Richard Tauber and he is not really up to the operatic demands of Act II. Nor is Sieglinde Feldhofer as the Princess Elisabeth. She has rather too much vibrato for my taste and tends to lunge at her high notes. I couldn’t help thinking what a difference a Schwarzkopf or a Rothenberger would have made.  Elena Mosuc and Zoran Todorovich who sing the roles of Elisabeth and Georg on the other CPO recording I mentioned above, improve on the present two, but they, rather confusingly, sing the secondary couple as well, so there is no doubt that this present recoding is more cohesive.

Nor would I like to give the impression that I didn’t enjoy the set. I did. Very much indeed, despite the less than stellar contributions of the two main leads. Lehár was such a prolific tunesmith, some of the songs were rattling around in my head for days afterwards. It gets a qualified recommendation from me.

Prinzessin Elisabeth – Sieglinde Feldhofer (soprano)

Kronprinz Georg – Thomas Blondelle (tenor)

Der König – Gerd Vogel (baritone)

Mercedes della Rizza – Katharina Linhard (soprano)

Graf Sascha Karlowitz – Jonathan Hartzendorf (tenor)

Herzogin Maria Brankenhorst – Klára Vincze (soprano)

Ein Jazzsinger – Jospeh Terterian (tenor)

Hoteldirektor – Johannes Hubmeir (tenor)

Chor des Lehár Festivals Bad Ischil

Franz Lehár Orchestra/ Marius Burkert

Lehár: Schön ist die Welt  (cpo)
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Diana Damrau sings Operetta Arias

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Operetta is probably not as popular now as it was around the middle of the last century when amateur productions of popular operettas were ubiquitous. Indeed, back in the 1950s and 1960s my father was musical director of several local operatic societies, conducting a regular fare of Lehár, Strauss and Offenbach alongside American musicals by Rodgers and Hammerstein and the like. Nowadays you’d be more likely to encounter shows by Lloyd Webber or Schönberg & Boubil, or one of the now popular jukebox musicals. Even The Merry Widow and Die Fledermaus, once in the regular repertoire of our professional opera companies, are seldom performed, at least here in the UK.

Maybe the tradition is more alive in Germany and Austria because the Münchner Rundfunkorchester under Ernst Theis here put in splendidly stylish performances of all the chosen arias and duets, sounding totally idiomatic in a wide-ranging programme of music mostly from Vienna, but also taking in Berlin and Paris. There is also some wonderful solo violin playing from, I presume, the leader of the orchestra, notably in the aria from Lehár’s Zigeunerliebe, which exudes a fiery, gypsy passion.

The booklet notes take the form of a (slightly twee) conversation between Damrau and her childhood friend Elke Kottmair, who spent 12 years with the Dresden State Operetta and upon whose expertise and knowledge Damrau drew when compiling this collection. Kotke and mezzo-soprano Emily Sierra join Damrau for a trio from Johann Strauss’s little-known Das Spitzentuch der Königin, and she has also enlisted the support of Jonas Kaufmann for a duet from the same operetta, as well as duets from Stolz’s Im weißen Rössl and the famous Im chambre séparée from Heuberger’s Der Opernball, which some of you may know better as a soprano solo.

These help to add a bit of welcome variety to the programme and here I have to make something of a confession. I have never really liked Damrau’s voice, finding it rather hard and unrelenting. It has never been a particularly luscious instrument, but, to my ears, it is now sounding rather dry and, in the middle register, a little shrewish, where one really wants something more sensuous. Furthermore, when she tries to be charming, she can become excessively coy. Comparing her and Susan Graham in J’ai deux amants from Messager’s L’Amour Masqué, (included in her disc of French Operetta arias) it is to find Graham much warmer and more sexily playful.

When it comes to the Viennese items, you only have to listen to Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in Ich schenk’ mein Herz from Millöcker’s Die Dubarry or in Im chambre séparée to understand the real echt-Viennese style. I doubt there has ever been a finer recital of operetta arias ever recorded, though I also recall a lovely disc by Barbara Bonney, accompanied by solo piano, which is also well worth investigating.

For those who respond better to Damrau’s voice than I do, I have no doubt you will find much to enjoy. I did too. I just wish I had a more positive reaction to the singing.

Diana Damrau (soprano): Operette (Erato)
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Karajan’s 1955 Die Fledermaus

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Oddly enough, my previous post referred to an opera (Massenet’s Cendrillon) where a female breeches role was given to a tenor and the same thing happens here, though not quite to such detrimental effect. Where Gedda’s Prince Charming sounds all wrong, Rudolf Christ’s languidly effete Orlovsky almost reconciles me to the change and this  is my only slight quibble about a superb, classic recording, which I happen to prefer to Karajan’s later effort for Decca.

Though recorded in London with the Philharmonia, cast and conductor bring an echt Viennese quality to the whole enterprise, the judicially edited dialogue delivered in sparkling fashion. You don’t really need to speak German to understand what’s going on.

Schwarzkopf is a superb Rosalinde, none better, singing her Czardas with appropriate dash and swagger, the voice gloriously rich and firm; Streich a delightfully pert and flirtatious Adele; Gedda a properly tenor Eisenstein, with a fine line in comedy, especially when impersonating Blind in the final scene; Kunz a genially scheming Falke. Excellent contributions also from Krebs as Alfred, Dönch as Frank and Majkut as Blind. This really is a fabulous cast and Legge’s superb production ensures that the recording sounds like a real performance.

Karajan’s conducting is perhaps on the swift side, but the whole performance fizzes and pops like the very best brut champagne that the operetta celebrates and is guaranteed to lift the spirits.

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Susan Graham – French Operetta Arias

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With a title like “French Operetta Arias” you’d probably be expecting quite a bit of Offenbach and maybe some Lecocq, but what we get is a disc of largely forgotten music from between the two wars. Quite a bit of Messager and Hahn, but also a couple of tracks from the Cuban composer Moises Simons (both great fun), one by Maurice Yvain, probably best known for his song Mon homme, immortalised as My man by Fanny Brice and Barbra Streisand, and one by, of all people, Arthur Honneger, from his operette Les Aventures du roi Pausole. Annoyingly the track listing just gives the titles of the songs so you have to consult the lyrics to find out the composer and work the song is taken from. With so much rare material I’d have welcomed a little more background.

What we do get, however, is a collection of delicious bonbons, an extravagant melée of delights, all delectably performed by American mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, who has, like her compatriot Frederica Von Stade, made quite a speciality of French music. In fact I remember seeing Graham for the first time in a Covent Garden production of Massenet’s Chérubin. Here she captures to perfection the style of the period and is by turns sexy, playful and coy. At one point, due to the magic of overdubbing, she even trios with herself, on Hahn’s O mon bel inconnu from his operette of the same name, in which three women answer the same lonely-hearts and fall in love with the same man.

Undemanding music, perhaps, but pure joy and wonderfully performed by Graham with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra uder Yves Abel.