Lortzing: Der Waffenschmied

Opera no 57

Lortzing: Der Waffenschmied

Soloists

Munich Radio Orchestra

Leopold Hager

This was a complete delight from beginning to end. I was fortunate to be able to conduct performances of Lortzing’s Undine  at University and I have heard Tsar und Zimmerman but this opera was new to me. It is a lighthearted work in the Singspiel tradition - a love story of the rich man disguising himself as a poor blacksmith to win the lady of his love. It gives Lortzing the opportunity to use anvils in a way which prefigures their use in Il trovatore.

The whole opera has a lightness of touch with both looks back to Mozart and Weber but also forward to the lighter operas of Johann Strauss and Lehár. But there are also passages which could have come from the Savoy operas and some which reminded me of Cornelius and Humperdinck. Lortzing has a great melodic gift and a real sense of fun. The whole thing passed by without any longuers and left me wanting to explore the remain Lortzing recordings on my shelves.

Mercadante: Orazi e Curiazi

Opera  no 23

Mercadante: Orazi e Curiazi

Soloists

Philharmonia Orchestra

David Parry

Mercadante didn’t feature in last year’s 365 new pieces project. That’s quite a surprise looking back because he is a good composer and thanks to various compilations on the Opera Rara label I have head quite a few extracts from his opera. I did also listen to his version of La Vestale a few years ago.

I thought that this was a splendid opera. Verdi is the obvious point of comparison and I think that Mercadante comes out of the comparison pretty well. He doesn’t have the melodic gift of Verdi and neither does he have the same mastery of concision. But on its own terms it works very well.  Some of it is pure ‘blood and thunder’ but that is all part of the appeal and Mercadante certainly whips up some impressive energy. He is also a very innovative orchestrator - the score has all sorts of interesting touches. I genuinely think that if this was a Verdi opera it would be performed with some regularity. As it is one has to be grateful to Opera Rara for all its efforts in promoting Mercadante as an important figure in 19th century Italian opera.