Korngold Die Tote Stadt
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Genre:
Opera
Label: Opera Series
Magazine Review Date: 11/1989
Media Format: Cassette
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
ADD
Catalogue Number: GK87767

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
(Die) tote Stadt |
Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Composer
Anton de Ridder, Gaston, Victorin, Tenor Bavarian Radio Chorus Benjamin Luxon, Frank, Tenor Carol Neblett, Marietta, Soprano Erich Leinsdorf, Conductor Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Composer Gabriele Fuchs, Juliette, Soprano Hermann Prey, Fritz, Tenor Munich Radio Orchestra Patricia Clark, Lucienne René Kollo, Paul, Tenor Rose Wagemann, Brigitta Tölz Boys' Choir Willi Brokmeier, Count Albert, Tenor |
Composer or Director: Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Genre:
Opera
Label: Opera Series
Magazine Review Date: 11/1989
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 137
Mastering:
ADD
Catalogue Number: GD87767

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
(Die) tote Stadt |
Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Composer
Anton de Ridder, Gaston, Victorin, Tenor Bavarian Radio Chorus Benjamin Luxon, Frank, Tenor Carol Neblett, Marietta, Soprano Erich Leinsdorf, Conductor Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Composer Gabriele Fuchs, Juliette, Soprano Hermann Prey, Fritz, Tenor Munich Radio Orchestra Patricia Clark, Lucienne René Kollo, Paul, Tenor Rose Wagemann, Brigitta Tölz Boys' Choir Willi Brokmeier, Count Albert, Tenor |
Author: Michael Oliver
To me the disappointing thing is that the quality of ''Gluck, das mir verblieb'' is its simplicity its directly touching, almost folk-like plainness, which is at war with Korngold's amazingly sophisticated resource. Several times in the opera he hints at that quality again: early on, in a little exchange between the hero Paul and his devoted old servant Brigitta, again in Act 2 when Brigitta almost wordlessly reproaches him for his relationship, to her a blasphemy, with an actress who is the double of his dead wife. There is just a shadow of that directness to Paul's infatuated duet, later in the same act, with the double herself, Marietta and it fleetingly but more strongly returns in the last act, where shadow and substance, living Marietta and ghostly Marie, are in direct confrontation. But time and again it is buried in strenuously melodramatic declamation, in orchestral overkill, and in a plethora of far more trivial ideas which Korngold seems unable to distinguish from the real thing. The opera's 'big scenes' (the interruption of a wild masquerade by an apparation of ghostly nuns; a half-real, half-nightmarish religious procession) are splendiferously noisy but dismayingly empty and insubstantial.
Still, in a performance like this the undoubted allure of Korngold's surfaces is maximized, and perhaps the gulf between the real thing and the false is thus less painful. Kollo neighs a bit in his declamatory passages, and Neblett has a touch of squalliness in hers, but both can float the high phrases of the tune quite beautifully. Prey is in honeyed voice for the other song that survived independently, a toothsome little Viennese bonbon of a Serenade in Act 2; Wagemann and Luxon add touches of distinction to their roles. Leinsdorf brings a great deal of energy to Korngold's noiser pages and yards and yards of multi-coloured plush to the luxuriant ones. The recording is bright and clear.'
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