“The music is incomparably fine”, wrote Mozart of Ignaz Holzbauer’s Gunther von Schwarzburg – and he was just about the severest music critic of all time. He went on to add that it was not only very beautiful but had remarkable fire: better than the text deserved. Mozart heard it in Mannheim, where Holzbauer (1711-83) was Kapellmeister, at the end of 1777, the year of its premiere, and surely had it in his ears when, just three years later, he was composing Idomeneo for the same orchestra and the same court (now transposed to Munich). The end of the opening recitative there has a precise precedent in Holzbauer’s opera, for example, and so too do the repeated chords in the overture of Die Zauberflote. Those are not the only echoes, but more significant is the general influence in style and feeling.
Gunther was a novel opera, an early attempt to compose serious German opera along broadly similar lines to Italian opera seria. The Mannheim court was in some degree a centre of operatic reform: operas had been written there by various of the more progressive Italians, and by J. C. Bach, to librettos that went beyond the Metastasian model in Gluckian directions. Holzbauer had composed Italian opera up to this point, and resumed it afterwards, but Gunther came at a time of German nationalist feeling and is patriotic not only in its language but also in its theme. The story relates events around the election of the Holy Roman Emperor in 1349, when (at least in this version) the German hero Gunther is named but dies as a result of a plot by Asberta, mother of another candidate for the office: it’s a feeble story, with little variety of situation or character development but plenty of opportunity for the expression of pious sentiment, especially about German heroism. Musically its chief interest lies in the exploitation of the fine Mannheim orchestra – the scoring is rich, colourful and frequently intricate – and in the abundance of accompanied recitative, with numbers often interlinked to avoid the traditional breaks. There are many lengthy sections of dramatically declaimed text, some of them run through with thematic reference but for the most part just highly illustrative of the expression of the words. In both these features Mozart’s Idomeneo makes an obvious comparison, and one by which Holzbauer is not, of course, favoured; yet the ideas themselves are often rewarding and there is some fine, stormy music as well as several beautiful arias, most of all graceful ones in which his fluent melodic gift serves well.
The opera is quite strongly cast. Much of the most appealing music goes to Anna, betrothed of Karl (King of Bohemia, the aspirant Emperor); Claron McFadden sings the role in a suitably elevated manner, with a pure, bright tone for her arias, which include a remarkable coloratura one (going to Queen of Night heights) with obbligato oboe, a stormy outburst in Act 2 and an appealing expression of joy in the final act. Clarry Bartha, who sings Asberta, mother of Karl, has an elaborate, richly scored aria in Act 1, which she copes with very adequately. Karl himself is gracefully sung by Christoph Pregardien, in the best traditions of German lyric tenors, true and focused; he and Anna have an ecstatic duet in Act 3 when Asberta’s plot is exposed and they are united. Gunther himself, who dies as the opera ends, disappointed in his imperial hopes yet nobly magnanimous, is gently and sympathetically sung by Robert Worle. His dying aria, with rich textures on muted strings, is a very beautiful piece. As Rudolf, the Elector and Palsgrave, Anna’s father, Michael Schopper shows a warm, forward bass-baritone, though his intonation in his final aria, a touching minor-key lament, is not quite secure. There are only two ensembles, the duet I have mentioned and a trio, besides some choruses, but the presence of so much orchestral recitative rescues the work from the pattern of alternating recitative and aria that modern listeners find so hard to take.
I am not quite sure whether Michael Schneider paces it all ideally, or manages the level of intensity effectively: but the opera, of course, is no Orfeo or Idomeneo and it does pose problems of its own. It also has an atmosphere very much its own: very Germanic, self-consciously serious and exalted. I am grateful to have heard it and am sure that many readers would find it fascinating and edifying.'