Customer Reviews

Hilde Gueden Sings Operetta Evergreens

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'll have to admit, when it comes to re-releases of classical music, I am usually an easy target, but when the CD that is re-released from LP to CD format has a retro cover, I'm almost always a sucker. All I need to do to prove this point is show people the RCA Red Seal releases I have in my collection. Why do these recordings have such an appeal? Many of them I listened to when growing up and many are the very recordings that introduced me to classical music and started me on a lifelong appreciation of wonderful sounds performed by the world's foremost performers. When it has an original cover, I am transported back in time, albeit without scratches thanks to digital re-mastering. That being said, when I saw a vintage re-release of a Prima Donna with a French poodle (it dates back to 1961, would she be pictured any other way?), my curiosity was piqued. I was naturally drawn to Decca's re-release of a Hilde Gueden recording of operetta favorites. After listening, I realized I struck gold with this collection.

When performing, Hilde Gueden's repertoire tended toward Mozart roles and some Germans works, although she had success in a wide variety of roles including Gilda and Musetta. Her voice is light yet disciplined which makes her a natural for operetta arias. It is evident from listening that Ms. Gueden not only is a capable performer, but enjoys the music she is performing. This recording contains many of the standard favorites such as "Hore ich Zigeurnergeigen" from GRAFIN MARIZA, Straus' Wiener Blut, and the Nuns' Chorus from Casanova to name a few. She performs as a soloist in many of the tracks though in some she is accompanied by the wonderful Vienna Operetta Choir. Robert Stolz does a wonderful job conducting the Vienna Staatsoper Orchestra.

As I mentioned earlier, the recording is packaged nostalgically which Decca hopes will give it a retro appeal. The only drawback is that the liner notes are in very small, almost unreadable font. Perhaps with a magnifying glass, the text can be read, but at a legendary recording at a discount price is a bargain any day, even with a few slight packaging flaws.

Two pieces from this CD are jewels: The rarely heard and hard to find Nun's Chorus from Casanova by Strauss, which has an extraordinarily lush and unforgettable melody, and Vienna Blood, on which Ms. Gueden, whose voice is quite lovely, does a beautiful job.

The rest of the CD is nice but not all that special. I bought it for the Nun's Chorus, and am very happy with it. Her rendition of both the aforementioned pieces is exquisite.

The above review from 2004 sums up this Cd very well. Here we have everything right - great operetta singing by one of the most charming lyric sopranos of moden times; fabulous sound; and wonderful sumptious orchestra playing. Most of the selections are the cream of the repetoire.
And so what happens? A mere two years after release the CD is deleted!
Marketing of course is behind this obscenity. Agents want their rising stars pushed, not old-timers. Reissues come and go, but as time goes on segments of classical music, no longer popular, disappear. A generation obsessed with rap doesn't want Viennese waltzes. (And doesn't deserve them, either.) Gueden and this music is out - instead we have young photogenic beauties singing very nicely on NEW recordings. Oddly enough, much of what these new singers record can be pretty esoteric stuff - a further indication that main stream America no longer listens to classical music as they did forty or fifty years ago. The days when you could hear Doug Pledger playing Oscar Strauss tunes on San Francisco's main classical radio station have gone forever. For the iPod generation Hilde is not so much yesterdays news as simply antideluvian, suitable for people like their grandparents who listen to Lawrence Welk.
Pick it up if you can find it. The notes, by the way, are microscopic: hopefully it will be reissued with decent size print.
But don't count on it.

This CD, which has enraptured the other reviewers here, features Hilde Gueden, one of the stalwarts of the Vienna State Opera in the Fifties, singing operetta chestnuts as well as two numbers by the last composer in the operetta tradition, Robert Stoltz, who also conducts. Gueden is thoroughly idiomatic, but Schwarzkopf and Rita Streich are more billiant and inspired. A couple of numbers, such as the entrance song from Kalman's countess Maritza, are too heavy for Gueden's light coloratura, especially in the lower range. By 1961, when this recording was made, the soprano was 44, not in freshest voice but sitll quite good.

In all, this vivacious recital will thrill die-hard operetta lovers, and I enjoyed it, too, just not to the point of rapture.