It’s 33 years since I reviewed the soundtrack of this recording as a Decca album (4/75). I found it then a deeply affectionate performance but one more sedate than its rivals, and I find no need to change that view when hearing it for the first time as soundtrack for a studio television production. The original judgement is confirmed by the opening shots of Böhm carefully shaping the overture, after which we are transported to the television studio. There the singing is all too obviously mimed. Adele may hide her mouth behind her duster or Rosalinde dance a csárdás, but the sound carries on unchanged. It is very much a concert performance with superimposed studio action, and it’s very much of its time – before preservation of stage performances on film was perfected.

At least by comparison with Lehár’s Der Zarewitsch (DG, A/07), the score is accorded the dignity of being recorded without reordering or modernisation. The dialogue has certainly been rewritten, but very much to advantage in making the story far clearer than can be the case in the theatre. In the context of a television staging, too, it’s easy to understand the preference for a tenor Orlofsky. Moreover, the antics of Frank and Frosch in the jail scene are compact and for once genuinely funny. Altogether I respond positively to an agreeably old-fashioned staging free from a modern director’s oppressive touch.

Even while enjoying Eberhard Wächter’s energetic performance I do still find the choice of a baritone Eisenstein fundamentally wrong when the vocal line has to be adjusted and the contrast with the voice of Dr Blind (whom he must impersonate) so pronounced. On the other hand, I am won over by Erich Kunz’s gemütlich Frank as also by Heinz Holecek’s Falke. The greatest glory of the performance, though, remains the ladies – above all Renate Holm’s effervescent Adele – just as it was all those years ago. I don’t feel that this should be a first choice ahead of the Munich version under Carlos Kleiber (DG, 3/05); but as a historical document it is greatly to be enjoyed.