Der Evangelimann (''The Evangelist''; 1895) is the work by which Wilhelm Kienzl is now almost exclusively remembered. Its original success in Germany was comparable: with that of Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel, produced less than two years earlier by a composer less than three years older than Kienzl (1857–1941). The subsequent difference in fortunes of the two operas may be put down partly to the greater melodic approachability of Humperdinck's opera, but more particularly to the latter's altogether lighter-handed treatment and more obviously- popular subject matter.
None of this is to suggest that Kienzl's opera does not contain charming strands of melody and delightful atmospheric passages. However, the story of the reconciliation after 30 years of the evangelist Mathias Freudhofer, denied the woman he loves, and his brother Johannes, who started a monastery fire for which his brother took the blame, is not the sort to excite an audience's moral fervour nowadays in the way it once must have. Though there is undeniably powerful writing and some comic momerits (especially for the tailor Xaver Zitterbart and gunsmith Schnappauf in Act 1 and for a boys' chorus in Act 2), there is also a good deal of somewhat self-conscious religious music and much static action that Kienzl scarcely has the power to bring off entirely convincingly. Kienzl owed a good deal to Wagner's influence, of course, but his music fits well into the broader German romantic tradition touched by verismo.
In Siegfried Jerusalem the recording has the ideal singer for the title role—firm-voiced, ardent sympathetic. His villainous brother, Johannes, is likewise sung with vocal strength and character by Roland Hermann, and Helen Donath is ardent, if vocally less secure, as the lover who by Act 2 has thrown herself in the Danube. In her place in Act 2 we have her friend Magdalena with one of the opera's two 'hit' numbers, ''O schone Jugendtage'?, for which Ortrun Wenkel has not quite the rich contralto one might like. Kurt Moll is impressive in a relatively minor role, and Lothar Zagrosek conducts with obvious conviction. The recording offers a good balance between singers and orchestra, and words and instrumental details alike come across with clarity. The Acts fit, most conveniently, on a single, generous CD apiece.
No more, I suspect, than JBS, who reviewed the original 3-LP release (Electrola, 4/82), do I find this a work I would wish to sit through too often. At the same time it is undoubtedly one with significant attractions and one I am most grateful to have had the opportunity to hear—especially in a recording as good as this.'