Holmès: La Montange Noire

 Opera no 176

Opera no 176

Holmès: La Montagne Noire

Soloists

This is a real curiosity. Augusta Holmes had Irish routes but settled in France , where she acquired the accent on her name. She was one of the very few women composers whose operas reached the stage in the 19th century, although it has to be acknowledged that she wrote three others which were never performed.

This was a big full-blooded work on a large scale. To start with I felt that it was rather stiff and old fashioned, looking back perhaps 50 years to the work of Auber and Meyerbeer. But as the work progressed I sense that Holmès found her own voice and the idiom became much more akin to the works of the late 19th century. Part of it could have passed for Massenet and Saïnt-Saens and I suspect that Carmen was never far way from the composer’s mind. Some of the impassioned writing for the main female character was very disincentive and leapt off the page in this performance. Although it was an uneven work - rather like the symphonic poem of her’s that I included last year, at its best this was an opera of real distinction and certainly was worthy of performance at the Paris Opèra.

This recording is rather odd. It is on a private label and has never been issued commercially. It stems from a recent revival (the first in over 100 years) where the director, for some reason that I can’t fathom, decided that it needed a framing reference, so the performance starts with dialogue in Japanese with accompaniment by a tradition Japanese instrument. That recurs later in the opera. Fortunately it is no superimposed on the music of the opera so it doesn’t detract from the performance, but it threw me completely when I started listening to the opera. People so such strange things - the opera in perfectly capable of standing on its own two feet.

Suppé: Pique Dame

 Opera no 175

Suppé: Pique Dame

Soloists

WDR Radio Orchestra

Michail Jurowski

Suppé’s requiem was one of the unexpected discoveries in last year’s project. it showed him to be a composer who could tackle serious music in the mainstream German tradition with real distinction. But it is of course his comic operas, or more particularly their overtures, which have kept his name alive. 

This opera has one of those very familiar overtures, so I was intrigued to explore what the rest of the piece is like. I enjoyed it hugely. There are some elements of that Austro-Hungarian tradition which a reminiscent of the Strauss in opera no 174, but this is piece is from a generation earlier and clearly has ties with Offenbach. The whole opera had a great sense of style and of dynamism with some first-rate ensemble. The big tunes familiar from the overture are heard in the opera itself and make a really strong impression in context. All in all this was one of the most purely enjoyable works I have come across in this year’s project.

Strauss (J): Eine Nacht in Venedig

Opera no 174 

Strauss (Johann II): Eine Nacht in Venedig

Soloists

Philharmonia Orchestra

Otto Ackermann

I enjoy teasing my orchestral colleagues when the are talking about their favourite works of Strauss by saying the Emperor Waltz!  I usually get looks of complete incomprehension. It is true that orchestral players generally dislike playing Strauss Waltzes and I sympathise. Unless you are playing the tune they are not that interesting to play and dealing with all of the repeats and da capos can be tricky, But that says nothing of Johann Struass II’s genius as a composer. His melodic gift is second to none and he is able to shape phrases beautifully. He is also a master of introductions and codas. I spend some time in last year’s project listening to music by several members of the Strauss family.

The only one of his operas that I know is Die Fledermaus so I was pleased to get to know this piece. I didn’t even begin to follow the plot - it seems completely impossible to understand - but who cares. The music is what matters. This had a bit of everyting. Great melodies, sentimentality, vigorous ensembles and a real sense of style.  This is a famous old recording and the notes say that it is an an edition by Korngold. I don’t know what he actually did as an editor and how much of what we hear on the recording has untouched Strauss but whatever the details this was a performance to sit back and enjoy. Many great composers admired Johann Strauss II: it is not difficult to see why.

Bretón: La Dolores

Opera no 173

Bretón: La Dolores

Soloists

Barcelona Symphony Orchestra

Antoni Ros Marbà

From Portugal we move across the border (and forward a century) to a Spanish opera. The only thing I knew about opera in Spain was the tradition of Zarzuela, which is form of light opera with song and spoken dialogue. I thought that this night an example of that form, but in fact this is a fully-composed opera of some dramatic weight.

The obvious attraction is the many overtly Spanish elements - in particular the jota in the first act finale, which is straight out of the world of Chabrier’s España - I did wonder whether Chabrier had taken the idea for his work from this opera but the dates don’t work - España predated it by several years. Perhaps the influence went the other way - after it is often said that the best Spanish music was written by French composers.

But there is more to the opera than this Spanish colouring. It belongs to same world as Carmen but also of Cav and Pag and the early verismo operas. It packs quite a punch, particularly in the big duet near the end for the Soprano and Tenor - that really leapt off the page. I can imagine that opera would work very well on the stage - it has a freshness and attractiveness which would go down well with contemporary audiences, though I suspect that few opera companies would want to take on the risk of a work by a completely unknown composer.

Portugal: Le donne combiate

 Opera no 172

Portugal: Le Somme cambiate

Soloists

City of London Sinfonia

Alvaro Cassuto

I’m really getting into unknown territory now. Portugal was one of the first Portuguese composers to write an opera - though the text is is Italian. I expected this to be a fairly simple work, really little more than a collection of songs, but I was quite wrong. This is a fully worked out opera which shows a composer able to work at a highly sophisticated level. The idiom obviously owes a lot to Mozart and I don’t think that you would notice is one or two pieces from this opera were quietly inserted into one of Mozart’s lesser known operas. But what is interesting is how forward looking the work is. The ensembles in particular do have a distinctly Rossinian quality about them even through Rossini was only 5 when this opera was first performed. Rossini was undoubtedly the undisputed master of the buffo style (and much more beyond that) but he didn’t spring from nowhere and operas like this show that his music was the natural development of what was happening in opera round the turn of the 19th century. So a very enjoyable discovery. It makes the point, which I have made many times already, that the operatic repertory is narrow and there are many people on the fringes (in the case of Portugal hardly even on the fringes) whose work is very worth exploring. But then that has been the whole purpos of this project.

Bretan: Golem

 Opera no 171

Bretan: Golem

Soloists

Moldava Philharmonic Orchestra

Christian Mandeal

I purchased this blind knowing nothing about the composer, not even his nationality or when he lived. He was a Romanian composer who lived from 1887-1968. He was a singer and administrator as well as a composer and was caught up in the history of 20th century Europe. His Jewish wife’s family were murdered at Auschwitz and he was declared a non-person by the communist government in Romania.

He wrote six operas: this one is a short piece lasting about 40 mins. If you heard it cold you would never think that it dated from the 1920s: it feels like a nationalist opera from the 1870s - indeed parts of it sounded like Meyerbeer and French Grand opera. I suppose that it is a good illustration that the not all composers were at the forefront of musical development and that there was plenty of music being written which harked back rather than forward.

I quite enjoyed this. It is a bit creaky in places but it had vigour, some good tunes and some effective ensemble writing. It will never be a repertory piece but as a one off is was well worth listening to. I don’t regret buying the recording.

Poulenc: Les Mamelles de Tiresias

 Opera no 170

Poulenc: Les Mamelles de Tiresias

Soloists

Saito Kinen Orchestra

Seiji Ozawa

Last year’s project included Poulenc’s superb Figure Humaine https://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/2025/03/poulenc-figure-humaine.html which was a reminder that he was not just a composer of fripperies but was capable of the most profound and serious expression. But I have to say that I do adore the lighter side of his music and this little (40 mins) opera is a lovely example of Poulenc at his most witty and charming. It was an absolute delight. The opening narration by the ringmaster was more serious than I expected but after the curtain went up it was all great fun. Poulenc had a great melodic gift and an ability to inflect simply melodies with quite delicious twists and turns and unexpectedly piquant harmony. The whole thing was real fun and at times left me laughing out loud with the sheer exuberance of the invention. A lovely start to this final segment of the project.

MacMillan: The Sacrifce

Opera no 169

MacMillan: The Sacrifice 

Soloists

Welsh National Opera

James MacMillan’s Confessions of Isobel Gowdie https://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/2025/12/macmillan-confessions-of-isobel-gowdie.html was one of the standout pieces from last year’s project so I was keen to hear an opera of his as part of this year’s project. It didn’t have quite the same impact on me as the Confessions. Partly that might be because my listening was a bit interrupted and spread over several sessions. The ghost of Britten haunts the piece. There were many passages which could have been by Britten and the use of interludes to separate out the scenes is very reminiscent of Peter Grimes. Indeed just as Britten made a concert piece out of the four sea interludes MacMillan has turned some of the interludes here into a concert piece.

I felt that MacMillan’s main interest was with the orchestra - there are some fabulous orchestral sounds in the score - rather than in the voices. Parts of the vocal writing were, I thought, uncomfortable and in the loud sections tended to be a bit ‘shouty’. Perhaps the best part of the opera was the final ensemble after the death of the main protagonist where everybody comes together with a plea for peace - that really did make quite a strong impression. As I say I perhaps didn’t give this opera the full chance that it deserves - perhaps I will go back to it sometime and give it another try.

That ends this exploration of some contemporary (and near contemporary) operas. It is not really my area of expertise and I found some of it hard going. But I am glad that I persisted because if would have been quite wrong for this project not to to beyond the 1970s, which is more of less where the cut off point had been. And it did introduce me to Benjamin’s Written on Skin, which I think will make it into the list of most memorable operas when I come to sum up this year’s project.

I set out to listen to 100 operas this year but as the year has gone on I have found myself more and more drawn into the project and now, with a week to go before the end of October I am up to opera 169, which means that I should double my target. For the year of the year I am not going to follow any particular theme but just try and fill in as many gaps as I can. There is still plenty to go at!

Heggie: Great Scott

Opera no 168

Heggie: Great Scott

Soloists

Dallas Opera

Patrick Summers

Jake Heggie is a name that I have seen a lot recently as a prolific composer whose works have been widely recorded. But as far as I know I haven’t heard any of his music.

I put the recording on before doing any research on the piece and was more than a little surprised to find an introduction based on a Rossinian crescendo. It turns out that this opera is about the background to a revival of a (invented) 19th century opera put on by a struggling American opera company as a vehicle for its start singer. So we move between the world of the pastiche opera and the modern world. The libretto is very witty and the way that the composer gently parodies Rossini , Bellini and Donizetti is done with great charm and no little skill. There is also near the end an ensemble which is an affectionate nod to the final trio in Der Rosenkavalier. When he is writing in his own voice Heggie’s sound world reminds me of the Bernstein of Candide and there are some hints of Britten. Nothing too challenging and a real contrast with the other late 20th/early 21st century operas I have been listening to in this part of the project.  

So this was great fun and full of good in jokes for the opera enthusiast. I don’t know what Heggie’s might be like when he is not in a light-hearted mood. There are several operas to try out and I think that I will see if I can cover one of them next year. 

Benjamin: Written on Skin

Opera no 167

Benjamin: Written on Skin

Soloists

Mahler Chamber Orchestra

George Benjamin 

This was a genuinely impressive opera - one of the most notable in this part of the project. I don’t think that I have heard any of George Benjamin’s music before. Somehow he got overlooked in last year’s project but I am sure that I will now want to explore more of his work.

What impressed me particularly was the very idiomatic vocal writing. There has been a tendency in late 20th century and beyond opera to think of voices in almost instrumental terms and to treat them as an adjunct to the orchestral texture. That can produce some remarkable effects of course, as I have commented on several times in the project, but it can also created some ugliness and insensitivity to the words. Here by contrast I felt that that opera was really about the voices and the text. That’s not to say that there weren’t some remarkable orchestral effects - the use of the viola da gamba and glass harmonica were particularly notable, but it was the voices that mattered. Benjamin was happy to write real melodic shapes and to allow the use of voices in genuine ensembles. The duet between the soprano and counter tenor at the end of Act 1 was sensuous and absolutely gorgeous. It reminded me, perhaps unexpectedly, of Purcell. Not that it sounded anything like Purcell, but the setting of English speech and the pure beauty of the vocal line did seem to stretch right back to Purcell.

This was a real discovery. Nothing about it seemed forced or done purely for effect. It was a work of great depth and invention yet at the same time seemed completely simple and straightforward. The ability to do that is a sign of a composer at the very top of his game.  

Maconchy: The Sofa

 Opera no 166

Maconchy: The Sofa

Soloists

Independent opera

Dominic Wheeler

This is one of a trio of short operas by Elizabeth Maconchy. The only other peice of hers that I have heard is the overture Proud Thames https://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/search/label/Maconchy which I quite enjoyed in last year’s project.

The obvious influence here is Britten- It was written about 15 years after Peter Grimes had given huge impetus to the development of English opera. I found the opera quite diverting without it making much of a lasting impression on me. There were some delightful parodic passages at several points recalling the spirit of Rossini and Offenbach but much of it seemed a little run of the mill. The plot is quite racy for the 1950s - the leading man is turned into a sofa because of his bad behaviour and can only be resurrected when a couple make love on the sofa!  I suspect that it is quite fun on stage and will make a greater impression than it did purely as an aural experience.

Turnage: Greek

 Opera no 165

Turnage: Greek

Soloists

The Greek Ensemble

Richard Bernas

I found this hard going and not really to my taste. Turnage has a reputation for writing harsh hard-edged music with lots of percussion and saxophones. To some extent it is Birtwistle taken to another degree. But there are also strong roots in popular culture, from rock to musical hall.  I have to say that I found the more lyrical music much easier to digest than the relentless heavy passages.

But I didn’t find it easy to get into the right frame to appreciate the opera. I think that is was the overdone mock cockney accents and faux working class accents (complete with copious four-letter words) which seemed to me quite false - especially performed with singers who, it seemed to me, were putting on an act rather than genuinely being part of that milieu. To me the whole thing seemed rather dated, which is odd for one of the most recently operas in the project . Perhaps it works well on stage as a piece of music theatre, but as a listening experience is was not for me.

Birtwistle: The Mask of Orpheus

Opera no 164

Birtwistle: The Mask of Orpheus

Soloists

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Andrew Davis

I’ve wanted to listen to this opera for a long time so I put aside some time to listen to it an act at a time with a score to follow.  It is an extraordinary work - certainly the most complex opera I have ever heard and probably one of the most complex of all time. 

it is difficult to know where to begin. The opera is on a vast scale with a big cast, several of whom share roles of the characters in different incarnations. The orchestra has no bowed strings but a huge complement of wind (3 contrabassons!) percussion and plucked strings, including electric guitars. The vocal and choral parts are virtuosic and goodness knows how people went about learning them to perform the work live on stage. Bittwistle’s music is famous for its hard-edged very aggressive sound and while there is plenty of that there are also many quieter passages with quite fascinating vocal and orchestral textures. Overlying all of this are the very important electronic effects which at times merge with the orchestral sounds but in several places are heard on their own for several minutes.  There is some controversy over the extent to which Birtwistle was wholly responsible for the electronic music , which was realised by other collaborators at IRCAM in Paris.  I found the passages where the electronics were integrated into the orchestra fascinating but I couldn’t really make much of the purely electronic interludes.

For a vast and complex piece like this a single hearing can only scratch the surface. I am certainly very glad to have heard it but I need to hear it several times to really start to get into Birtwistle’s sound world. That won’t happen this year - lots more composers to cover before the year is out - but perhaps next year. I’v very glad that I finally got the chance to listen to it property.

Weir: Blond Eckbert

Opera no 163

Weir: Blond Eckbert

Soloists

English National Opera

Sian Edwards

Judith Weir is a composer that I much admire. I’ve been lucky enough to play in several of her orchestral works and her opera A night at the Chinese Opera https://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/2025/11/weir-night-at-chinese-opera.html was one of the highlights of last year’s project. This opera didn’t make quite such a strong impression but I certainly thoroughly enjoyed it. Weir has a real mastery of the orchestra and has a  clear, clear sound world which is very distinctive. Even if I had heard this opera blind I think that I would have identified the composer without too much difficult. The opera is broadly conversational in style though with some very lyrical music for the bird, who appears from time to time. The end of the opera was particularly striking with long repeated melismatic phrases in the voice forming a background to the final wind down.

Weir is clearly in the operatic tradition of Britten and Tippett - how could a late 20th century English composer not be - but Stravinsky is certainly an important influence. She is a important voice in the development of late 20th century opera and I am pleased to be able get to know more of her work.

Adès: The Tempest

 Opera no 162

Adès: The Tempest

Soloists

Royal Opera House Orchestra

Thomas Adès

This is now the start of the next phase in this project - some near contemporary operas.

I don’t think that I have heard any of Adès’ music before so this was a new experience. It took a while for me to ‘tune in’ to the style but once I got into the piece I really enjoyed it. The style is broadly tonal and it clearly by somebody who grew up in the world of Britten and Tippett. What is most impressive is the lyric writing - particularly the long scene for Caliban in Act two and the quintet in the third Act - the courage of a contemporary composer in being prepared to write in traditional forms - such as a love duet complete with the characters at one point singing in octaves - in the 21st century. I was also impressed with the rhythmic energy of much of the piece. There is a tendency in post war opera for the vocal lines to get bogged down in rather sterile and shapeless arioso but Adès largely avoids this and this does help in driving the drama forward. The orchestral writing is constantly inventive with some wonderful evocations of the spirit world. I can’t leave the opera without commenting on the stratospheric coloratura writing for Ariel - the setting of Full Fathom Five (Shakespeare’s words are glossed rather than quoted directly) is one of the most extraordinary things that I have heard in a very long time. I just wonder what on earth the singer must have thought when she saw the music for the first time. 

Shostakovich: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

 Opera no 161

Shostakovich: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensky

Soloists

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Mstislav Rostropovich

This is an astonishing work. It has a very troubled history. Initially it was highly successful, being performed in several Russian opera houses and abroad, but then disaster struck when Stalin heard a performance. He hated the work and caused an editorial to be published denouncing the work. This meant that there were no further performances. A toned down version under the name Katerina Izmailova was eventually allowed to be performers but the opera was not performed again in its original form until after the composer’s death.

The opera packs a real punch. Katerina, the Lady Macbeth of the title, is a dramatic role in the tradition of Tosca and Electra with some extremely powerful music - Galina Vishnevyskaya was born to play the role - her performance on this recording is qutte terrifying. But much of the music is deeply ironic and has almost a cartoonish quality to it at times. It is some of the most graphically suggestive music in all opera - the notorious post-coital trombone glissandi are at the same time gross and comic. 

I’ve not always responded well to Shostakovich. Sometimes his music seems stuck in the same few tropes, but this is something very different - the blazing intensity of the invention hits you right from the start and never lets up. The denunciation of the piece more or less brought his operatic career to an end: he attempted several more works but didn’t finish most of them. All that he completed was a short satirical operetta.

Shostakovich is a fascinating example of the dichotomy between a composer’s personality and music style. By all accounts he was self-effacing, nervous and diffident. Yet this music is the most extrovert confident and explosive that you could ever imagine. The mysteries of the creative process are unfathomable.

Rachmaninov: Aleko

Opera no 160

Rachmaninov: Aleko

Soloists

Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra

Neeme Järvi

We think of Rachmaninov as very much a composer of the 20th century (I’m sure in part because of his significant recorded legacy going right through the to late 1930s) but of course he has his roots firmly in the 19th century. This one act opera was his graduation piece from the Moscow conservatory where it was admired by Tchaikovsky. Even in his late teens Rachmaninov was part of the Russian musical establishment. 

This is a remarkable work for a teenage student. It is clearly in the tradition of Borodin and Tchaikovsky with some delightful folk-style music for the gypsy element as well as some exciting dramatic passages. The style is assured and one would never guess the age of the composer if you heard it cold. Only a fairly brief fugal choral section hinted at the fact that this was a student work: Rachmaninov presumably included it to show his teachers his mastery of academic forms.

This is the piece that first brought Rachmaninov fame. It is such an assured piece that one regrets that he did not develop into a full-fledged opera composer. There are a couple of other one act operas from a few years later but after that he left the form behind. I suppose that the life of an international piano virtuous just left him no time to devote to opera. Based on this piece that is a great loss. 

Stravinsky: The Nightingale

Opera no 159

Stravinsky: The Nightingale

Soloists

Philharmonia Orchestra

Robert Craft

I think that I might have heard this opera before  - some of it seemed vaguely familiar but it is certainly not a piece that I know well.

It has an important place in Stravinsky development. He started the work, finishing the first act before writing the three early Diagalev ballets that secured his international reputation but then put it aside and did not return to it until after the first performance of The Rite of Spring. The development of his style during those critical ears does mean that the opera is a work of two halves. Act one belongs to the world of Rimsky Korsakov where as Acts two and three belong in the post-Rite world and in many ways look forward to works like Les Noces.

But it is possible to make too much of this disjunct history: on its own terms the opera works very well and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The nightingale has some stratospheric coloratura passages and the orchestration is consistently inventive - Stravinsky is very good at evoking the sounds of the forest. It is rhythmically inventive (any work which followed The Rite couldn’t not be) and lyrically attractive in a way which evokes memories of Russian folk song. All in all a very attractive work and I am surprised that it has taken me so long to really get to know the work.

Prokofiev: War and Peace

 Opera no 158

Prokofiev: War and Peace

Soloists

Marinisky Theatre

Valery Gergiev 

As I said after opera 157 I am making a detour into Russia to pick up a few important early 20th century peices before moving on to some more contemporary works. I’ve started with one of the most ambitious of all Russian operas. 

Prokofiev is a composer that I have mixed views about. I love the Classical Symphony and Peter and the Wolf but on the other hand his second piano concerto made it onto the list of pieces I didn’t ever want to hear again in last year’s project! I played in a performance of the 5th symphony last year and had a similar mixed reaction - some it it was thrilling and some of it seemed very tedious.  So I wasn’t sure what I would make of War and Peace. 

I had anticipated that it would be an epic work to match the big nationalist Russian operas of Mussorgsky. Rimsky and others. It certainly is a long work and has perhaps the biggest cast list I have ever seen in an opera, but it was far less overwhelming than I expected. In fact much of it was conversational and almost matter of fact. It was only on a few occasions that Prokofiev pulled out all of the stops. Even then I have to say that some of the musical gestures seems a little hollow, as if this was Soviet realism rather than the traditional voice of Mother Russia.  Somehow to me the opera never quite caught fire and it left me feeling rather indifferent towards it - something that I certainly did not expect before I put the recording on. The opera belongs to the lyrical world of Romeo and Juliet rather than the earlier more abrasive works of the composer - perhaps a dash more of that early vinegar would have helped.  Still I am glad that I heard the opera, even though it was nothing like I thought it would be.

Zemlinksy: Eine Florentinische Tragödie

 Opera no 157

Zemlinksy: Eine Florentinische Tragödie

Soloists

ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra

Bertrand de Billy

Last year I included Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony in my 365 project https://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/2025/02/zemlinsky-lyric-symphony.html . My overall reaction was that I didn’t warm to it. Unfortunately my reaction to this opera was exactly the same. I found it rather hard going. The style was broadly Straussian with perhaps a hint of  early Schoenberg and like much of those composers works it was (at any rate to me) overblown and relentless. Only towards the end did we get sort of relief from the bombardment of the full orchestra and overstretched voices. This was definitely not one for me.

This ends this particular part of the project looking at post-Wagnerian German opera. It has been an interesting exercise to hear the worlds of some composers who I only knew by name, but equally it has not persuaded me that I have being missing out for years by not exploring this repertory. That said there were certainly some parts of most of these works which grabbed my attention and of course Der Ferne Klang was a major discovery. Was it perhaps no coincidence that this was the least overtly Germanic of all of the operas in his sequence.

Next I am going to cover a few operas by important Russian composers before then turning to something which I have hardly touched on - operas written at the end of the 20th century and into the 21st. 

Schreker: Der ferne Klang

Opera no 156

Schreker: Der ferne Klang

Soloists

Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra

Gerd Albrecht

This was an absolutely stunning work. Schreker was little more than a name to me - I think that I had heard a couple of preludes from other operas but that was about it. Nothing quite prepared me for what a superb piece this is. I was expecting some rather overheated German late romantic/early expressionist music a al Strauss but this was much more interesting. Though the work is clearly that of a German composer it draws on a wide range of elements. There are moments of almost Puccinian lyricism as well as passages which seem to belong to the world of French symbolist opera. The orchestration is often transparent with fascinating textures involving the harps and celesta and although the work does require large forces Schreker reserves them for special moment and doesn’t overdo the big effects in a way that can become so tiresome in Strauss.

The choral effects are highly distinctive. Off stage choral music is a frequent trope of late romantic operas but here the voices are used almost instrumentally to weave into the texture - such as in the opening scene of the second act. The setting is a dance theatre and there is much ‘gypsy’ music playing in the background. This has hints of Léhar but the music is presented in a way which is almost dreamlike and out of focus. The effect is like nothing that I have come across before.

Schreker produces music of extraordinary beauty - the passage near the end of the first act where the heroine dreams of love while walking though the forest was quite gorgeous and there were several other places where Schreker produced quite hauntingly lyrical possages. 

So this was a hugely enjoyable and fulfilling experience - the opera will go right to the top of my list of operatic discoveries.

Schoeck: Penthesilea

 Opera 155

Schoeck: Penthelisea

Soloists

Stuttgard States Orchestra

Ferdinand Leitner

This was a huge surprise. I don’t think that I had heard any of Schoeck’s music but I was aware that he was a a prolific songwriter in a late romantic idiom. So I was expecting something along the lines of a milder Richard Strauss. So it was a shock to hear a very violent percussive opening with as much speaking as singing. The orchestra includes 2 pianos and 8 clarinets and a big percussion section but only 4 violins. I couldn’t find a score or even a translation of the libretto so I can’t say that I really knew what was happening but it was a compelling experience which held my attention throughout the single 70 minute act.  

This was a live recording from a performance in 1957 and although the sound was rather constricted it gave a good impression of the piece. I can imagine that in a live performance the effects could be quite overwhelming. Schoeck was of course Swiss but he was closely associated with German culture and like others in the part of the project had an ambivalent relationship with the Nazi authorities. 

Next year’s project will concentrate on the song repertoire - I am sure that Schoeck will feature in that.

Schillings: Mona Lisa

Opera 154

Schillings: Mona Lisa

Soloists

Schillings is another of those early 20th century composers whose name I recognise but about whose music I knew nothing. The only thing that I did know about the composers was that he was somehow associated with the Nazi regime - although like many of the German composers of the time the evidence is far from clear and somewhat contradictory.

I was impressed by the opera. It was very much in the post-Wagnerian style and on an innocent hearing would probably pass for Richard Strauss. The musical language is largely post-romantic but there are some passages which  have an almost Puccinian lyricism. But it does have some of the rhythmic stoginess that one does associate with German opera. There are many of the typical tropes of post-Romantic opera including offstage choirs, an organ part, a very large orchestra (including a heckelphone and two tubas) but unusually the opera has a ‘distancing’ prologue and epilogue in which tourists are told the story of Mona Lisa by one of the monks. It foreshows the way in which Britten uses a similar technique so effectively.   

Renznicek: Ritter Blaubart

Opera no 153

Reznicek: Ritter Blaubart

Soloists

Munich Radio Symphony Orchestra

Michail Jurowski

Reznicek’s Donna Dianna was a major discovery of last year’s project and since then I have started to explore some of his orchestral music. But I wanted to include one of his other operas in this project and fortunately this recording was available. It is a version of the story of Bluebeard’s castle made famous by, among others, Bartok and Dukas. I thought that this operas was quite worthy to be included in the same company as those two great works. Reznicek has a real sense of the dramatic and there were some thrilling passages in this opera as well as some lyrical music and some very effective supernatural moments. There were also moments of grim humour, when the two grave robbers attempt to take away the body of one of Bluebeard’s wives only to find that the hear as been removed.

The style is a mixture of Strauss and Wagner but with some passages which were reminiscent of the fairy tale operas of Humperdinck and others where the music seemed nearer to the Schoenberg of piece like Erwartung. The fire music near the end of the opera when the castle catches fire, taking Bluebeard with it, was very reminiscent of the Magic Fire Music from Die Walküre. This can’t be co-incidence. The composer must have his tongue at least slightly in his cheek when wrote it.

Reznicek’s reputation rests on one short overture. Lovely as the overture is it give a quite false picture of his output. The two operas of his I have now heard make a very strong impression and show that he was a serious composer of real standing. Heresy to say it of course, but he seems to me to be at least the equal of Richard Strauss!

Schmidt: Notre Dame

Opera no 152

Schmidt: Notre Dame

Soloists

Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra

Christof Perick

Schmidt's 4th symphony was one of the stand out pieces from last year's project so I wanted into include something by him in this year's project. Although the opera itself is a great rarity its name remains familiar because the intermezzo in Act 1 is a favourite orchestral showpiece. Karajan recorded it among many others.

The work is very much in a post Wagnerian style with some Straussian elements but it is not as heavyweight or harmonically advanced as the Strauss operas of the period. Indeed there is a little f the Hungarian/gypsy element in some of the music. The opera has a curious back story. Apparently Schmidt wrote most of the music instrumentally (basing some of it on an earlier work for piano and orchestra). He wrote indications in the score showing where the voices would go but didn't actually write the vocal parts until the orchestral score was finished. This is thus very much operas as extended symphonic poem. If you didn't know the back story you might not have detected that the vocal parts were written later but you would probably feel that the voices played a secondary part in much of the opera - Schmidt really seems to have put his heart into the various extended orchestral passages. I enjoyed the opera but this recording (the only one other some very old off air performances) suffers from having the main parts (tenor and soprano) sung by singers at the ends of the careers. They don't convince as young lovers and this definitely got in the way of a full appreciation of the opera. The plot is based on the hunchback of Notre Dame - i.e the phantom of the opera - but Quasimodo himself is very much a secondary character and the opera is centred up on the lovers. There are as you would expect some melodramatic moments, including use of the organ, which seems almost obligatory when demonic forces are unleashed in opera.

This was an early work and doesn't have the depth of the 4th symphony (written 25 years or so later) but it is impressive in its own right. You can see why the intermezzo was such a hit - Schmidt obviously thought so himself because the main melody keeps coming back later in the opera.

Strauss (R): Die Frau Ohne Schatten

 Opera no 151

Strauss (R): Die Frau Ohne Schatten 

Soloists

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Georg Solti

Richard Strauss is a composer I struggle with. There are some wonderful moments in his music - he was particularly good at openings - but I find a lot of it is manufactured by the yard and is almost musical wallpaper. Sometimes his harmonic language, with the moving up the keys a step at a time, is almost nauseous - yet at the same time his is capable of moments of pure bliss, such as in the four last songs. Last year I included Daphne in my 365 project and it ended up in the list of works I never wanted to hear again! https://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/2025/09/strauss-daphne.html

I wanted to give Strauss another good airing in this project so I chose this opera, which many commentators rank as his finest work. It is a very large scale work lasting well over three hours and uses an enormous orchestra and complex vocal resources.  I made sure that I gave it my full attention - I listened on headphones following the music with the full score and listened to an act at a time to ensure that I came fresh to the music each time.

I was left with a very mixed reaction. There were some tremendous ensembles here with the full vocal and orchestral forces driving the music forward in a quite extraordinary way, Equally there were some moments of pure repose. The orchestration was constantly inventive - Strauss uses all of the resources at his disposal including parts for 2 celestas, 2 harps, a huge variety of percussion instruments and even a glass harmonica. These are often used in the most delicate and imaginative way. 

But at other times I found the music very hard to take. Page after page seems to go nowhere, and there was far too many times where the singers were almost shouting at the top of their voices it what seemed to me to be be an incoherent way. The Emperor is played by a solo tenor (on this recording Placido Domingo): this is a very odd part. He comes on only a few times - sings at the top of his voice in very ungrateful music and then disappears. But then Strauss will give the soprano the most meltingly beautiful phrases to sing almost out of nowhere.

The harmonic language is complex and, as I have alluded to above, can be quite difficult or ever off putting. But again sometimes Strauss pulls of the most gorgeous effects, often with very simple harmonic with just a touch of chromatic inflection.

There is no doubt that the work is something of a monster. The story, which is essentially a fairy tale, is almost impossible to follow and puts great demands on the staging - what other operas includes a chorus of unborn children! The orchestral forces are huge - you suddenly find Strauss calling for 6 onstage trombones or an organ just for a single effect -and the textures are often extremely complex in a way that is typical of Strauss’ orchestral writing - you sense that he simple loved the physical act of filling a page with music. 

I’m glad that I listened to this properly - I can’t imagine that I will want to listen to it again very often but is was an intriguing experience - it certainly will not go on the list of the worst operas in this project.