Cornelius: Der Cid

Opera no 63

Cornelius: Der Cid

Soloists

Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra

Gustav Kuhn

I was particularly looking forward to this. Cornelius’ Barber of Baghdad is one of my favourite operas and certainly one of the greatest comic operas of the mid 19th century. So I was keen to discover what a more serious opera by Cornelius might be like. To be honest it took me quite a time to get on its wavelength - I couldn’t quite understand what Cornelius was doing in the first part of the work. Yes there were some attractive melodies and moments of harmonic piquancy, but it did all seem rather shapeless. But as the work continued, and perhaps as my focus improved, I really started to appreciate the piece. There was some remarkable music here - an intense love duet and then a big ensemble which really had an impact with energy and rhythmic drive. By the end I was captivated - perhaps I need to go back sometime and listen again to the first part of the opera - perhaps I was just not quite in the right mood to appreciate it.

Schumann: Genoveva

Opera no 62

Schumann: Genoveva

Soloists

Chamber orchestra of Europe

Nicholas Harnoncourt

Schumann is one of the composers I turn to a lot - his song cycles have been a central part of my musical experience since my student days. Yet rather to my surprise I have never heard Genoveva, his only opera, before. 

It was well worth the wait. There was some superb music here. Much of it was unmistakably Schumann, but there were some elements which reminded me of Mendelssohn, a few moments of Marschner-like gothic excitement and more than a hint of middle period Wagner. The opera is largely through-composed with a fairly fluid structure without obvious distinction between aria and recitative. The musical langue is sophisticated with some really piquant chromatic harmony that is so characteristic of Schumann’s musical language.

So why it this such a rarity? I think that it is partly because this style of opera got superseded by Wagner, but also because in many ways it has the feel of an oratorio or other concert work rather than a work for the stage. Schumann gives himself the luxury of long postludes to arias and highly developed choral writing - things which sound wonderful but probably feel overlong on the stage. Ultimately I missed the spell of the greasepaint which you get in some of the other works in the selection of German operas I have been listening for this blog - even though in purely musical terms they are not on the save level of invention as Schumann’s work. The comparison between what works on the stage and purely musical values is a fascinating one.

Wagner: Die Feen

Opera no 61

Wagner Die Feen

Soloists

Munich Opera

Wolfgang Sawallisch

This was Wagner’s first complete opera, though it was not given its first performance until after his death. I knew the overture and I think that I heard at least some of the opera when it was revived on Radio 3 in the 1970s as a part of a series of uncut performances of the early Wagner operas.

For a 20 year old with only a modest musical education this was an astonishing achievement. It is assured and full of drama. Weber is the most obvious influence and you can also hear passages reminiscent of the choral music of Schubert and Mendelssohn. But already Wagner had a distinct voice and I am sure that parts of this could have been incorporated into Lohengrin or Tannhauser without anybody noticing anything amiss. You get some moment of comic relief amid the drama - there is a long duet for the subsidiary characters in act 2 - which reminds us that Wagner’s next opera Das Liebesverbot was a comic opera. Who knows - had Die Feen been performances and Das Liebesverbot been given more than a single disastrous performance the whole direction of Wagner’s career might have been quite different.

The high point in this opera is probably the big soprano aria in Act 2 - which can best be described as Weber on steroids. It is a real tour de force of the early romantic style. It is perhaps too long, but then even in this cut performance of the opera there were several moments where one wanted Wagner not to dwell quite so long in the moment and get on to the next bit of action. But overall this was a really good experience and I think that it is only the sheer weight of the impact of Wagner’s mature operas that has led Die Feen to be only of curiosity value. It deserves more than that.

Flotow: Alessandro Stradella

Opera no 60

Flotow: Alessandro Stredella

Soloists

Bavarian Radio Orchestra and Chorus

Heinz Walberg

Flotow is known almost exclusively for Martha, although that opera has now itself virtually faded from view. Alessandro Stradella is the only other of his operas to have any lasting success - it was performed quite extensively in the decades after its first production.

I didn’t know what to expect. From the opening I imagined that we were going to get something in the German romantic tradition of Weber and early Wagner, with horns very much to the fore. But after a while it settled down into a rather lighter style which , like several of the operas in this part of the project, shows just how strong the influence of Singspiel still was in German at the time. But there was also more than an hint of Italian Buffo , particularly in the ensembles. The music was pleasant enough without being particularly memorable but some of the harmony was fairly crude and there were some awkward gear changes in places. So a real curiosity this time and I can’t imagine that this opera will ever be staged again.

Lachner: Catharina Cornaro

Opera no 59

Lachner: Catharina Cornaro

Soloists

München Rundfunkorchestra

Ralf Weikert

Lachner is now remembered, if at all, for writing the recitatives for the version of Cherubini's Medea that until recently was the only version of the opera that was ever hear - the famous Callas recordings of the work all use Lachner's recitatives.

This opera is a fascinating example of the way that opera was developing in Germany in the middle part third of the century. It is a curious mixture of styles both forward and backward looking. Some of it could would not have been out of place in Lohengrin whereas other parts were reminiscent of some of the cruder and noises moments in the operas of Spontini. There were episodes that could have come from Singspiel, some parts which were dangerously near to kitch and an apotheosis which seemed like a pre-echo of the end of Faust. Altogether a curious mixture which was certainly did not amount to more than a sum of its parts. There was some pleasing music here in places as well as some very ordinary material. Grove is pretty dismissive of Lachner,  saying' contemporary opinion undoubtedly overestimated Lachner as a composer, misled by his abilities as a conductor and above all as the trainer and developer of an orchestra without whose preparation Wagner's works could not have been fully realised in Munich'. On the basis of this opera I couldn't disagree with that verdict.

Loewe: Die Drei Wünsche

Opera no 58

Loewe: Die Drei Wünsche

Soloists

Rundfunkorchester des SWF

Peter Falk

I enjoyed the Loewe ballads in last year’s project https://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/2025/12/blog-post.html . I know that he was a prolific song composer but I hadn’t realised that he had also written operas. In fact he wrote 5 but this was the only one which was ever performed. In reality is more like a Singspiel than an opera - essentially it is a series of individual numbers connected by dialogue. I wasn’t expecting anything too serious but in fact this is a very light-weight piece which for its time must have seen rather old-fashioned. There is little here that couldn’t have been written a generation earlier. That’s not a criticism of course- on its own terms the piece works well. One senses that Loewe was happiest with the song form rather than anything more symphonic and there is nothing here which looks forward to the development of German opera into the middle years of the 19th century. An enjoyable listen but I didn’t think that it had the characterfulness of the Lortzing opera which preceded it in this series.

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.