German Operatic Choruses

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Cat No: 8550507

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099550727

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: German Operatic Choruses

Description
German Opera Choruses German opera came into its own in the nineteenth century,notably with the first great romantic German opera of Weber, Der Freischutz. In the previous century there had, in German-speakingcountries, been a preference for opera in Italian. The Emperor Joseph II in Viennamade attempts to establish comparable German opera, distinct from the earlierless elevated traditions of popular operatic comedy in the vernacular. Anotable product of this was Mozart's German opera, a Singspiel including spokendialogue rather than the sung recitative of the Italian genre, Die Entfuhrungaus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio). Written in 1782, thistreated a fashionableTurkish subject, in which the noble Pasha Selim proves amodel of paternal benevolence, forgiving his Christian prisoner Constanze andher lover Belmonte, who has tried to engineer her escape from captivity. Thesubject allowed Mozart to explore the possibilities of so-called Turkish music,principally with piccolo, additional percussion and static harmonies. The Pashais greeted in the final chorus by Janissaries, the crack soldiers of theSultan, who sing his praise. The last of Mozart's operas to be staged and thepenultimate in order of composition was Die Zauberflote (The MagicFlute), which was running at a suburban Vienna theatre at the time of thecomposer's death in the winter of 1791. With a libretto by the actor-managerEmanuel Schikaneder, the German opera, strongly in fluenced by masonic ideas,deals with the ordeals to be endured by the hero Tamino before he is admittedinto the company of the enlightened, under their priest Sarastro, and unitedwith his beloved Pamina, in spite of the machinations of her mother, the wickedQueen of the Night. The chorus of priests O, Isis und Osiris, welche Wonne(O, Isis and Osiris, what delight) marks the sacred rites of the enlightenedwhile the final chorus hymns the triumph of good over evil. Beethoven, in 1805, took the Singspiel into newterritory. In 1791 Mozart hadexplored the current genre of magic opera in Die Zauberflote(The Magic Flute), where he made use of earlier Viennese comic traditions. In Fidelio,his only opera, Beethoven attempted a subject that was in essence political andrevolutionary, with a debt to French examples of the form. The opera is set in aprison, from which Leonora sets out to rescue her husband, a political prisoner,disguising herself as a boy and entering the service of the gaoler, Rocco, agood enough hearted man, who nevertheless obeys orders, however unjust thesemay be. One of the most moving scenes in the opera is the moment in the firstact when the prisoners are allowed, at Leonora's request, to leave for a momenttheir dungeons and see again the light of day. Der Freischutz (The Marksman), first staged in Berlinin 1821, has all the characteristics of developing romanticism. The story, setin the German forest, concerns the marksman of the title, Max, induced to seekthe help of
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