Schreker - Die Gezeichneten - Theo Adam, Albrecht, RSO Wien (1984) [APE]seeders: 5
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Schreker - Die Gezeichneten - Theo Adam, Albrecht, RSO Wien (1984) [APE] (Size: 641.35 MB)
Description Franz SCHREKER (1878-1934) Die Gezeichneten (1913-15) Opera in three acts to a libretto by the composer Herzog Antoniotto Adorno - Theo Adam (bass-bar) Graf Tamare - Hermann Becht (bar) Podestà - Peter Meven Carlotta, his daughter - Janis Martin (sop) Alviano Salvago - Kenneth Riegel (ten) Guidobald Usodimare - Heiner Hopfner Menaldo Negroni - Thomas Moser Michelotto Cibò - Hans Günter Nöcker Gonsalvo Fieschi - Franz Wyzner Julian Pinelli - Boris Carmeli Paolo Calvi - Tomislav Neralic Der Capitaneo di giustizia - Theo Adam Ginevra Scotti - Regina Sgier Martuccia - Gabriele Schreckenbach Pietro, en bravo - Heinz Hopfner Ein Jungling - Thomas Moser Ein Madchen - Regina Sgier Erster Senator - Thomas Moser Zweiter Senator - Hans Günter Nöcker Dritter Senator - Boris Carmeli Eine Dienerin - Gabriele Schreckenbach ORF-Chor, Wien Arnold-Schönberg-Chor Radio Symphonieorchester Wien/Gerd Albrecht Salzburg Festspieldokumente rec. live, 16 Aug 1984, Felsenreitschule, ADD ORFEO C 584 022 I [2CDs: 141.47] Gramopnone review ‘Die Gezeichneten’ are those marked out by fate: in Schreker’s opera the artist Carlotta has a weak heart, the noble Alviano is physically deformed, and both have the kind of fatalistic impulsiveness that fitted them well for the doom-laden world of late-Romantic opera as it struggled to survive during the 20th century’s second decade. Although the setting for Schreker’s drama (he wrote both words and music) is 16th-century Genoa, the tone is emphatically that of a decadent fin de siècle in which social convention and unbridled passion come into inevitable conflict. Unlike its German operatic contemporaries, Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten and Pfitzner’s Palestrina, Die Gezeichneten has no truck with mythic happy endings or stoical resignation. Instead, Schreker carves out an ultra-melodramatic denouement, foreshadowing the ending of another opera about physical deformity, Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg, written a few years later. As it happens, Die Gezeichneten started out as a libretto for Zemlinsky which Schreker decided to keep for himself. Schreker was no match for Strauss, Pfitzner, or even Zemlinsky when it came to the invention of memorable musical material and strongly shaped musico-dramatic structures. Yet although his forms are relatively inchoate, his music overly generalised in character, it still manages to pack a considerable dramatic punch through the resourcefulness of its orchestral scene-painting and the rhetorical opportunities it offers to singers. This concert performance from the 1984 Salzburg Festival, conducted with unflagging dynamism by Gerd Albrecht, earns high marks for intensity, and it has the additional advantage of two leading singers thoroughly inside their demanding roles. Kenneth Riegel – something of a specialist in deranged protagonists – manages to make Alviano into a figure of Rigoletto-like pathos, while also having the power to project the high-lying lines with conviction and clarity; and Janis Martin captures Carlotta’s mood-swings between affecting vulnerability and manic self-destructiveness with complete assurance. There is also strong support from the ever-authoritative Theo Adam. On the other hand, those stalwarts of the German operatic scene at the time, Peter Meven and Hermann Becht, both sound rather colourless and uninvolved – a particular drawback in Becht’s case, since Tamare is the principal villain of the piece, the character who provokes Alviano’s wrath and finally drives him over the edge. There are further, more substantial drawbacks to this Orfeo release. The analogue recording, though digitally remastered, lacks the focus and depth of its Decca rival, and the score is heavily cut – even more extensively, it would appear, than that used for the 147-minute version from Marco Polo, reducing the 171 minutes of Zagrosek’s complete version to 120 minutes. As often happens, such surgery tends to magnify a work’s formal and stylistic weaknesses rather than to reduce them, and the absence of an English version of the libretto – there’s only a fairly sketchy synopsis – will further limit the appeal of the Orfeo set for many. Admirers of Riegel, Martin and Adam should certainly try it, however. Sharing Widget |