Best Of Operetta, Vol. 1

Soloists

Regular: £11.49

Sale: £11.49
Regular

Out of Stock

Unit Price: per

Cat No: 8550941

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099594127

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: BEST OF OPERETTA, VOL. 1

Description
The Best of Operetta Vol. 1 Operetta developed in the second half of the nineteenth century from very similar antecedents, the opera comique of France and the more light-hearted Singspiel of German-speaking countries. In Paris Offenbach, son of a Cologne synagogue cantor, established himself with his series of operas bouffes and it was initally with performances of these in Vienna that the genre took root there, inspiring work by Suppé and, at the earlier suggestion of Offenbach himself, Johann Strauss. Viennese operetta was in essence coterminous with the Habsburg Empire. After 1918 Berlin assumed the position once held by Vienna in operetta, and as popular musical tastes diverged more and more with the passing of time, the genre became something of the past, displaced by the commercial products of Broadway and its imitators. The first volume of The Best of Operetta includes excerpts from operettas by Johann Strauss, Franz Lehár and Imre Kálmán. Strauss himself had followed his father's example, in spite of the latter's expressed desire, establishing his own dance-orchestra and later recruiting his two younger brothers, Josef and Eduard, into the family enterprise. The Strauss reputation extended far beyond the confines of Vienna and Strauss orchestras appeared in different cities of Europe, providing an entertainment that suited very well the spirit of the time. Johann Strauss first turned his attention to operetta partly at the suggestion of Offenbach and more immediately at the urging of his first wife, the singer Henriette Chaputzky. The first result was Indigo and the Forty Thieves in 1871, its performance relying for its inevitable success on the great popularity of its composer and the political feelings of the time, as Vienna seemed now to prove a match for Paris. Johann Strauss was not always happy in his librettists. Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron), however, was an undoubted success in both music and text. The libretto by Ignaz Schnitzler was derived from a novel by the Hungarian writer Mór Jókai. Set in the middle of the eighteenth century it deals with the return of Sandor Barinkay to his native Temesvár from which his father had been exiled twenty years before. The drama concerns Barinkay's desire to regain his property, with its hidden treasure, and win the hand of the gypsy girl Sáffi, one of the gypsy company that has welcomed him as their lost leader, a true gypsy baron. Barinkay's varied earlier occupations are described in Ais flotter Geist (As a cheerful spirit) [6]. In Wer uns getraut (Who married us) [5] he explains to the unimpressed Royal Commissioner how he has been married to Sáffi in the gypsy manner, the ceremony conducted by a bullfinch and witnessed by two storks, with music provided by a nightingale. The present release opens with the Overture [1], which, at the first performance, was interrupted by the applause of the audience at each theme. The ap
Tracklisting