Johann Strauss Jr.: Blindekuh. Robert Davidson, Kirsten
C. Kunkle, Martina Bortolotti, Roman Pichler, James Bowers, Andrea Chudak,
Daniel Schliewa, Emily K. Byrne, Julian Rohde; Sofia Philharmonic Chorus and
Orchestra conducted by Dario Salvi. Naxos. $25.99 (2 CDs).
Vivaldi: Concerti per violino VIII (“Il teatro”),
RV 187, 217, 235, 321, 366, and 387. Julien Chauvin, violin and conducting Le Concert
de la Loge. Naïve. $16.99.
Johann Strauss Jr. had the most mundane of
reasons for wanting to write stage works: there was a lot more money to be made
from them than from his world-famous, enormously popular dance concerts in
Vienna and elsewhere. And the idea of stringing together numerous polkas,
waltzes, and other popular forms into a single extended work must have seemed,
on the face of it, a reasonably easy path to greater profitability for what
was, after all, the Strauss family business. All this may explain the notable
lack of success of Strauss’ operettas: they are indeed packed with wonderful
tunes, but Strauss did not have a very good sense of what would engage a
theatrical audience, so he accepted, again and again, libretti that ranged from
the serviceable to the execrable. Even Die
Fledermaus, his most popular work by far, is oddly structured, with a
climactic third act that is almost entirely spoken rather than sung. And Der Zigeunerbaron, his
second-most-popular work, although its libretto is passable, has elements that
do not quite gel and tend to lapse into incoherence. Strauss was by no means
the only 19th-century composer to suffer from subpar libretti, which
have afflicted operas for hundreds of years. But perhaps because the musical
snippets in which he specialized offered no way to overcome the extended
incoherence of the plots, Strauss’ stage works were notable again and again for
their failure to sustain audience interest. And that was the case with Blindekuh (“Blind Cow,” the game known
in English as “Blind Man’s Buff”), a work from 1878 that closed after 16
performances and disappeared until Dario Salvi revived it in a concert version
in January 2019. The overture and five dance works that Strauss drew from Blindekuh have retained some popularity,
indicating that the music here is not the problem – a fact confirmed by the new
Naxos recording made from live performances under Salvi’s direction. The
operetta’s plot is ridiculously over-complicated and difficult to follow, the
libretto having been written by Rudolf Kneisel (1832-1899) based on his own
stage work – a kind of Molière bedroom farce without the bedrooms and without
French witticism. Essentially, there are a series of misunderstandings and
mis-identifications of characters, some engineered and some accidental, until
everybody is happy at the end. Under the circumstances, the fact that Salvi’s
performance contains no dialogue is probably a good thing, since listeners get
a chance to hear an hour and 45 minutes of first-class Strauss tunes, and some
delicious vocal writing, without being encumbered by any attempt to understand
the mishmash of what is going on. All the typical elements of Strauss operettas
are here in abundance: couplets and choruses, dalliances and duets, and some
deceptions that are silly enough to remain funny, such as one character’s
fanciful description of life in America, from which he is pretending to have
come. The game of Blindekuh does not
fit the action in any particularly significant way, but it is used as an
important plot device at the end of Act II, allowing a scene of mass confusion
in which one character suddenly recognizes his wife and a court officer demands
that another character reveal his true identity (which does not happen). More
importantly, the Blindekuh scene
gives Strauss an opportunity to offer one of those wonderful waltzes that
seemed to flow unceasingly from him – a waltz whose tune first appears in the
operetta’s overture, is heard in full as part of the big Act II conclusion, and
then unites the whole work musically when it returns at the end of Act III. Strauss
may have had little ability in choosing libretti for his stage works, but he
consistently produced music that remains worth hearing even though the plots
that the music is designed to further are eminently forgettable. And so it is
with Blindekuh. The singers are all
quite fine and all actually sound as if they are enjoying themselves in
delivering this frothy bit of comedy. And Salvi leads the production with
genuine enthusiasm, pacing all the music sensibly and sensitively and eliciting
fine singing from the chorus and delightfully bouncy playing from the Sofia
Philharmonic Orchestra. It is highly unlikely that Blindekuh will ever become a significant component of the Strauss
stage pantheon, but the overture and five instrumental pieces that the composer
drew from it will likely continue to enchant audiences, as they should from a
strictly musical standpoint. And this very fine recording, by giving audiences
a chance to know the context in which the instrumental material originally
appeared, is worthy of Strauss lovers’ celebration.
There is plenty of digging-up still to be
done among the works of even the best-known composers. Naïve has been doing
this for nearly two decades in a series of presentations of Vivaldi music held
at the National University Library of Turin. The 63rd Vivaldi
Edition release is the eighth to focus on concertos for Vivaldi’s own
instrument, the violin, and as in all the earlier releases, it contains some
wonderful music and some excellent period-instrument playing – here by a
violinist and ensemble not heard before in this long-running series. Julien
Chauvin and Le Concert de la Loge are poised, even elegant in their handling of
the six concertos on this CD – and as always, although the concertos follow
Vivaldi’s familiar three-movement pattern, each has its own unique character
and its own particular pleasures. RV 187, in C, has a strong stop-and-start
opening with judiciously placed rests that give the music an emphatic character
that contrasts well with the ornamental solo part. RV 217, in D, has a slow
movement whose opening has an almost eerie, ghostly sound. RV 235, in D minor,
has a particularly heartfelt slow movement. RV 321, in G minor, opens with
ensemble flourishes that contrast strongly with solo passages, and has a finale
that is more than usually intense. RV 366, in B-flat, has a slow movement that
opens with a plaintive solo that could pass muster in one of Vivaldi’s operas.
And RV 387, in B minor, has a slow movement in which the soloist offers an
extended aria-like presentation as the ensemble provides ostinato-like backup –
after which the stormy finale brings the work to a decidedly dramatic close.
Listeners will discover their own highlights in all these works, and there are
plenty of literally noteworthy elements in all of them. Here as elsewhere in
the Vivaldi Edition, the performers show that historically informed performance
practice need not mean persnickety attention to minor details, or an overly
academic approach to the music in the name of authenticity. Careful attention
to 18th-century style is certainly present, but the overarching
purpose here is to bring forth what Vivaldi wanted his music to communicate to
an audience. The quality of that communication has not diminished over the
centuries, with this recording and its predecessors doing a wonderful job of
giving music lovers the feeling that they are encountering the concertos, if
not necessarily for the first time, then in a new and thoroughly captivating
way.
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