Krauss: Soliman II
Soloists
Royal Opera of Sweden
Philip Brunelle
This was great fun. Krauss was German born but moved to Sweden in his early 20s and build his musical career in Stockholm where he was a composer at the Royal Court and then directory of The Swedish Academy. He was an almost exact contemporary of Mozart and outlived him by only a year.
This is a ‘Turkish opera - ie one which has exotic Eastern tinges, such as the use of percussion and the piccolo. It is a cousin of Mozart’s Die Entfuhrung but only at a superficial level: Krauss uses every cliche in the book but rarely rises above the commonplace. There was one exception - towards the middle of the opera there was some striking music to the words’ “O Mahonet!’ when we are suddenly brought into the word of Sarastro and the priests from The Magic Flute. That is impressive music but the mood soon turns back to the frivolity of the rest of the piece.
This is an opera with spoken dialogue but that is omitted on this recording. While long passages of dialogue (especially in Swedish, a language I have absolutely no knowledge of) would be tiresome, without the dialogue to bring a sense off continuity you do get a series of disjointed musical numbers, some quite short.
A great curiosity. I can’t imagine it being staged, unless somebody was going to send it up completely - but as I said at the outset it was great fun to listen to.
