Das Fuerstenkind (The Prince’s Child) has always been an “insider’s tip” in Lehár’s oeuvre, and the composer himself regarded this robbers’ tale from Greece premiered in 1909 as one of his best works. It was also his problem child because it never became a sensational success. The reason may have been due to the works blurring of boundaries between opera and operetta.

Premiering in Munich in 1903, Le donne curiose numbered among the greatest and earliest successes of the German-Italian composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari. No Wagnerian pathos or turn-of-the-century bombast here: Wolf-Ferrari’s merry work is based on a Carlo Goldoni comedy in the spirit of a newly discovered rococo. Le donne curiose formed the basis of his world renown as a composer whose dramatic talent was always overshadowed by the subtle humor of his buffo operas. Ulf Schirmer again presents a convincing case on his behalf (previous release: Wolf-Ferrari, Orchestral Works: cpo 777 567-2).

The thought of Spain filled many French composers of the 19th and early 20th century with musical yearning – one has only to think of Georges Bizet's opera "Carmen", Maurice Ravel's "Rhapsodie espagnole" (1907), or his famous "Boléro" (1928). Ravel was already inspired by things Iberian in his first work for the stage: "L’heure espagnole" ("The Spanish Hour"), a one-act musical comedy set in Toledo, which premiered in Paris on May 19, 1911. Here he combined fantasy and comedy in the action with “spoken music” full of local Spanish colour. The short opera ends, for instance, with a fiery habanera. Ravel masterfully and wittily integrates the clocks chiming in the workshop of clockmaker Torquemada into the score, together with the sound of their ticking, and of all kinds of chimes or mechanical music machines producing cuckoo calls when striking the hour. Emmanuel Chabrier's rhapsody for orchestra with the promising title of "España" was composed in 1883 and premiered in Paris. The music was inspired by a Spanish journey that Chabrier had undertaken the year before, during which he had noted down many original motifs and rhythms. Spanish folklore is ever-present; in addition to the melodies, it is above all the rhythmic motifs and movement patterns that, when combined, achieve a complexity that was still unknown in art music at that time. These are live recordings of these two magnificent works.

At a time when the majority of German composers turned from the opera to the singspiel and its considerably smaller dimensions, Franz Lachner continued the tradition of the grand historical opera with Catharina Cornaro. Lachner’s once so very successful opera, last performed in Munich in 1903, was forgotten for many decades, but a few years ago the editor Volker Tosta of Stuttgart prepared a new edition of this work, its first published version, especially for the concert performance by the Munich Radio Orchestra. The action of the tragic opera is based on the true-life story of the Queen of Cyprus. Political intrigues and great passions distinguish the plot. It is difficult to believe that this musically so very appealing work, which captivated the audience at Munich’s Prince Regent Theater already with its highly atmospheric overture during the performance on which this album is based, ever could be forgotten. “With this opera the German school has been enriched with a dramatic work that has to be counted as one of the most genial and magnificent of the works belonging to it.” This is what the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung wrote after the premiere, and Max Zenger’s Geschichte der Münchner Oper of 1923 documents the pathbreaking effect of this opera when it states that Catharina Cornaro had “quite literally become Munich’s hallmark, like the two towers of the Cathedral of Our Lady.”

Just after the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth, CPO are releasing a concert performance of his rarely performed sung poem "Feuersnot" under the baton of Ulf Schirmer. The satirist Ernst von Wolzogen, who wrote the libretto for this "Bavarian burlesque" founded the first literary cabaret in Berlin, the Ueberbrettl.

Shortlisted for the Gramophone Awards!

Normandy in the Années Folles. Romantic encounters, changes of identity and unexpected comic twists: in Passionnément, André Messager places himself at the intersection of café-concert, American popular music and French operetta. The score is swept along with great spirit by Véronique Gens, Étienne Dupuis, Nicole Car and a team of enthusiastic soloists accompanied by the Münchner Rundfunkorchester under Stefan Blunier. As witty as Messager’s music, the libretto, with its flavor of boulevard theatre, offers a genuine manifesto of the French spirit in the years after the First World War.

REVIEW:

Heading the cast is the distinguished soprano Véronique Gens in the role of Ketty, an American, former music-hall star. Gens sings beautifully, displaying her artistry and providing the subtleties to capture each mood. Undoubtedly the best-known aria from Passionnément is the act two waltz-song where Robert is missing being with Ketty (Margaret) and is anxious that his love for her should be reciprocated. Clearly savouring the celebrated waltz-song, Dupuis sings with warmth, successfully creating an entirely captivating mood.

This revival of Passionnément was recorded live during concert performances in 2020 at the Prinzregententheater, Munich and broadcast live. From what I understand to be a tricky live acoustic, the sound engineers have achieved successful results. As usual, the book is a bilingual edition (English and French) and it's hard to find fault with such detailed and extensive notes. Included is the complete libretto both sung and spoken, a synopsis and five interesting and helpful booklet essays. Bringing its 'French opera' series up to volume 28, Bru Zane's release of Messager's feelgood musical comedy Passionnément receives my wholehearted endorsement.

– MusicWeb International

Our Leo Fall cycle continues with Die Rose von Stambul (The Rose of Stamboul). This operetta in three acts offers music that is full of feeling. This highly emotional work celebrated its premiere with great success at the Theater an der Wien in 1916. Die Rose von Stambul’s 422 straight performances made it the most successful operetta in the history of the Theater an der Wien, next to Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow. Within the shortest time performances followed throughout Central Europe. However, like Emmerich Kálmán’s The Csárdás Princess, it did not become an international success – primarily because of World War I, since the theaters of the Allied counties had stopped staging German-language works. Achmed Bey, the son of a Turkish minister, is married to Kondja, “The Rose of Stamboul.” However, she has exchanged letters with a passionate novelist and fallen in love with him. What she does not suspect: none other than her husband is behind this pseudonym –which provides plenty of opportunities for the expression of emotions – rendered in the Viennese waltz mode (“Ein Walzer muss es sein”) or tunes of Oriental flair.

The works of the composer Markus Lehmann-Horn have already won several awards. As a border crosser between the classical and the technical-electronic music world, he also wrote numerous film music compositions for national and international film productions and was for this among others awarded the Franz Grothe Prize 2009. He has received numerous nominations and a Best Film Score Award at the annual Jerry Goldsmith International Award in Spain, as well as a nomination for the International Emmy 2012. Lehmann-Horn's music is played by renowned orchestras, conductors and ensembles, including the Ensemble Triolog, Minguet Quartet, BR Rundfunkorchester, the NDR Radiophilharmonie or the Schleswig Holstein Festival Orchestra. On this album, one will find recordings with the NDR Radiophilharmonie and percussionist Alexej Gerassimez and a song for soprano and orchestra with soprano Sibylla Duffe and the Munich Radio Orchestra.

Edita Gruberova – her very name is melodious. The Slovak soprano is undoubtedly one of today’s most well-known interpreters of coloratura opera singing, and especially of Italian bel canto. She made her debut in 1970 as Queen of the Night in Mozart's "Magic Flute" at the Vienna State Opera and, ever since her performances in the same role at Glyndebourne and Salzburg in 1974, she has been a regular fixture on the world’s leading operatic stages and concert podiums. Flattering epithets such as "the Queen of Coloratura", "the Slovak Nightingale" or "prima donna assoluta" are hardly exaggerated, for they really do represent what Edita Gruberova has embodied for almost half a century. She is celebrated all over the world for her perfect mastery of vocal technique, her astonishing ability to master even the most difficult coloraturas and highest notes, her clear and precise intonation and, most importantly, for something that overshadows and transfigures everything else: the seductive and beguiling timbre of her voice. This album, released by BR-KLASSIK to celebrate her 50th stage anniversary, presents nine recordings made between October 1983 and June 2000 at Bayerischer Rundfunk concerts. In addition to well-known as well as lesser-known arias from operas by Handel, Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini, and also the Couplet of Adele from Johann Strauss' operetta "Die Fledermaus", Edita Gruberova can also be heard in interpretations from Mozart's "Exsultate, jubilate", his “Laudate Dominum” from the “Vesperae solennes de confessore,” and also Michael Haydn’s far too rarely performed Christmas cantata “Lauft, ihr Hirten, allzugleich.” This album is more than a historical portrait – it offers a representative musical cross-section of Edita Gruberova's wide-ranging repertoire, and also includes several surprises that complement and enrich her comprehensive discography.

The conductor Ulf Schirmer has a special knack for the light Muse – as his regular operetta performances with the Munich Radio Orchestra, many of them documented on cpo, have shown over the years. Munich was also the site of the 1906 premiere of Die vier Grobiane / I quatro rusteghi by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, a work answering to the description of a modern comic opera and displaying this composer’s typical combination of marvelously chatty parlando and charming melodicism. There are two sides to the conflict fueling the plot: four curmudgeonly husbands who believe that they can and should exercise absolute rule over their wives and children and female characters who engage in intrigues. The action of the opera is set in Venice and elaborates a source text by Carlo Goldoni (1760). The composer scores his points with a tone of considerable lightness, a small orchestral ensemble entrusted with the presentation of a famous intermezzo, and spirited melodies in part based on folk songs. The wealth of ideas developed in his harmonic scheme remaining within tonal limits is also surprising.

Rarity – German version of Mozart's "Finta gardiniera. 5 years ago, the Munich Radio Orchestra under Andrew Parrott performed Mozart's singspiel "Die verstellte Gärtnerin" - the rarely performed German version of "Finta gardiniera," which can now finally appear on cpo. When this opera was first performed, Mozart was 19 years old - an age at which most composers had not even begun. Wolfgang Amadeus' career as a musician - and as a composer - had been in full swing for several years, however. The work belongs to the genre of opera buffa, within which it follows the type of opera semiseria (half opera) popular at the time. Accordingly, in addition to buffa parts, there are also semi-seria parts and even a pure seria part. The music is of great richness. Mozart shows himself here as a true master of opera buffa. At the same time, the music already points beyond these to masterpieces such as Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni. The first two acts of the opera contain large-scale, effective finales. In the second act, Mozart combines the finale with several preceding arias and recitatives to create a grand scene that transcends the boundaries of contemporary number operas.

Anett Fritsch is dignified as Heinrich’s betrayed wife Catharina, but Julia Sophie Wagner is the pick of a more than passable bunch in the trouser role of the page Eduard. The choral singing has spirit, the recording (in Munich’s Prinzregententheater, though it doesn’t sound live) is nicely balanced, and it’s all swept cheerfully along by conductor Ulf Schirmer. - Gramophone

Emmerich Kálmán: Countess Maritza. “When the evening falls, when the sun sets, when the song of the violin is heard from the puszta …” or “I too was once a fine csárdás cavalier.” The operetta and the Munich Radio Orchestra – now that is a passionate relationship that has grown over many years. Now we are releasing one of the most performed works in German-speaking Europe: Emmerich Kálmán’s successful operetta (with which he rounded off the dozen) Gräfin Mariza (Countess Maritza), which according to the German Music Information Center in 2016 was No. 10 on the operetta hit list. For the conductor’s job the Munich Radio Orchestra once again sought out a proven operetta specialist: Ernst Theis. The work tells the story of a countess who amidst much confusion finds her true love in an impoverished count. The music with hits like “Komm mit nach Varazdin,” “Komm Zigan, spiel mir was vor!,” and “Wo wohnt die Liebe?” made the operetta famous and a favorite with the public.