Highlights of 4 Viennese Operettas / Vienna Volksoper 2CD

Editorial Reviews
Album Description
Viennese Operetta Highlights -
Count of Luxembourg (Lehár)
Countess Mariza (Kálmán)
A Waltz Dream (O. Straus)
The Merry Widow (Lehár)

Highlights of 4 Viennese Operettas / Vienna Volksoper 2CD, Music, Various, Franz Bauer-Thiessel, Orchestra of Vienna Volksoper, Chorus

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Viennese Operettas

Highlights of 4 Viennese Operettas / Vienna Volksoper 2CD

Manufacturer: Regis Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Operettas | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
General | Classical | Styles | Music
Classical | Indie Music | Stores | Music
ASIN: B0000AOGMY
Release Date: 2003-07-09

Album Description

Viennese Operetta Highlights -
Count of Luxembourg (Lehár)
Countess Mariza (Kálmán)
A Waltz Dream (O. Straus)
The Merry Widow (Lehár)

Customer Reviews:

Viennese Operettas.......2006-04-15

The inroad to this purchase was searching for more recordings by the excellent Vienna Volksoper Orchestra, conducted by Franz Bauer-Thiessel. The waltz CD "The Waltz Kings" was recorded by this orchestra and conductor, and it's quite amazing.

Well, it turns out that this 2-CD set contains highlights from four Viennese operettas.

This CD features the Vienna Volksoper and Franz Bauer-Thiessel and his orchestra playing and singing from The Merry Widow (1905, Franz Lehar), A Waltz Dream (1907, Oscar Strauss), The Count of Luxembourg (1909, Franz Lehar), and Countess Mariza (1924, Emmerich Kalman).

All are delightful. The operettas from before 1910 are the most charming, evoking sunnier times from a century ago. These songs are all sung in German, and being for all ages they use adorable nonsense words (made distinct through repetition) and even though I can understand only a few things ("Dear Brother Dear Sister," "in my arms," "little little melody," and the refrain "And so and so and so!"), the music transcends the language barrier as in regular opera.

These little operas are just as entertaining as the big ones, and have many elements in common, but the Vienna penchant for waltz-time and for precipitous melodies make this popular music distinctive.

I've played The Merry Widow waltz all my life, for violin and in student orchestras and as a child at school, but this is the first time I've heard it in its native form, that is, in German, by Viennese, and it certainly comes alive.

The Merry Widow is very much a "magnificent men in their flying machines" type of operetta, with steep inclines and descents, up and down the scale, with little half-step twists that make the music so distinctive and Viennese.

Lehar was famous for his Gold and Silver waltz from 1903, which is on my waltz CD and is one of the best. Both of his operettas are gems. They do give a sense of Europe at the turn of the century, in all of its comfort and sunniness, for this music was for the middle class, but Kings and Queens also attended.

The Strauss operetta is not without its own sunny charm, although it grows on you more slowly, taking longer to reveal its splendours, or perhaps Strauss was just getting warmed up in the openers. This Oscar Strauss was of no relation to the earlier Strauss brothers.

Even the Countess Mariza, written by the Austro-Hungarian Emmerich Kalman has its moments, though written much later in 1924. This operetta is less charming and more - for lack of a better word - swank. However, Franz Bauer-Thiessel treats the audience to a magnificent pure orchestral rendition of one of the waltz numbers which is breathtaking.

This is a rare and distinctive CD, and I anticipate many hours of enjoyment from this music of one hundred years ago in the weeks to come.

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