Customer Reviews

Johann Strauss - Simplicius / Welser-Most, Volle, Zysset, Zurich Opera House

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

 

 

The Opernhaus Zurich can well be proud of it's magnificent revival of Johann Strauss' lost operetta Simplicius. The performance on DVD here was the first revival of this work in 113 years since it's recent rediscovery. Strauss seems to have been aiming to make operetta more sreious and in line with mainstream opera. This one has the usual tangled love story set amid the Thirty years war with some unusally dark commentary about the horrors of war mixed in with the customary froth. His music is quite delightful as always, pieces such as Tilly's schnaps song or the love duets are very grateful on the ear.There is the usual quota of waltzes and marching songs. The wonderful ensemble cast never puts a foot wrong in David Poutney's magnificent production. The sets by Johann Engels are an inspired achievment. They seem to be a living, moving,almost breathing thing with a striking resemblance to one of the more fantastic paintings of Bosch or Breughel.The sets and costumes alone look like they would have bankrupted most opera companies. The DVD itself is beautifully produced with Leterbox picture and 5.1 sound well nigh perfect. there are english subtitles but unfortunately they have been placed within the viewing area instead of below the letterbox as it should have been. My sole complaint about a most desirable dvd for any opera lovers collection. Highest reccomendation!

At first glance, I was a little intimidated by the plot synopsis of Simplicius, but it turned out to be a delightful love story filled with beautiful Strauss waltz music.

Before a word is spoken, you will hear the lovely melodic theme of the operetta, which translates loosely as, "Now I like to go back in time, to that blissful distant past." It is a hauntingly beautiful melody, which has too long been neglected by the music world. You will recognize it as it turns up again and again during the story--but you will not tire of it! It also appears at the finale, as a grand finish to a happy-ending love story, which Strauss himself preferred to his better-known Gypsy Baron. (Perhaps it's just the romantic in me, but I think I hear Strauss, looking back on his long, successful life as a composer of beautiful waltzes.)

There are many other delightful songs adding spice throughout the story, but my favorite part of the operetta is the growing love between Tilly and "Simple." Martina Jankova as Tilly is irresitible, both in her singing and her acting skills. You'll love her fitful frustration at trying to get "Simple" to realize he loves her. I predict that we will see much more of Jankova in the future--she has all the skills to delight audiences.

The costumes and scenery are as close to perfection as the singing and acting. It is hard to believe that such a wonderful musical work has lain untouched for more than a century. This troupe has done justice to Simplicius, as the operetta has proclaimed Strauss' brilliance. And we happy few who have seen it, reap the delicious harvest.

When I purchased this DVD, I expected little. What I received was a great deal. The production is imaginatively staged. The singing - even the acting - is top shelf. Some expressionist touches bring life to the scenery. While this is a tale of romance, one is never far from the horrors of the mass murdering of the Thirty Years War. I will not spoil the surprises, but the juxtaposition of the final act's romantic denouement, family reunion, and imperial forgiveness with that tree with its special "fruit" could not be more effective in keeping this from becoming late Nineteenth Century Viennese schlag, all air and little substance. To be sure, Simplicius is a rogue but he is delightful rogue.

Someone not interested in another Die Fledermaus (if such a soul lives) need have no fear. Nor will one find Wozzeck. How this wonderful work could have been ignored for so long is incomprehensible although the difficulty of categorization may play a part.

It has quickly become a personal favorite.

I can't improve upon the first reviewer but I must wholeheartedly agree that this operetta/opera...whatever you wish to call it...is quite the visual experience in addition to Strauss' typically enchanting music. I too was absolutely amazed with the quality of the sets. How could they make money on this I kept wondering. I suppose some might find a few scenes offensive but I loved it from beginning to end.

If you love Strauss' music then you must own it.

This Operetta by Johann Strauss can almost be classified as an Opera. This operetta by Strauss is one filled with delightful music. The staging is somewhat wierd, maybe because thats how it suppose to be but other than that, we have very good singers singing duets and waltzes. A few scences almost resembles an opera rather than an operetta. I think this rare operetta by Strauss is very good and I recommend it to all Strauss fans. I really hope this rare Operetta survives and hope to see more performances around the world with top tenors and sopranos. Now, that will spice this operetta even more.

Just how wide is the gap between Richard Wagner (1813-1883) and Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)? They were, after all, near contemporaries in the same business of musical theater. Devotees of Wagner will probably scoff at any comparison, but if you listen to the gorgeously brooding music associated with the Hermit Wendelin in this odd operetta by the "the Waltz King", you may hear more similarity of musical craft than you ever suspected. Don't get your hopes up, however, for another 'Tannhäuser' or 'Lohengrin' in waltz tempo! Most of the score of Strauss's 'Simplicius' is engaging musical froth at best. Those few moments of dark complexity, those spiritualized scenes in the forest with Wendelin, are just a hint that Strauss could have composed opera seria of a high order ... and chose not to.

Not that 'operetta' is unworthy! It's all entertainment (as Barry Bonds said about baseball) and the best of Offenbach or Humperdinck, Hansel and Gretel for instance, is very fine music per se. "Simplicius" is not an operetta of that quality. Most of the music is decidedly unmemorable. The best of it is sung by Liliana Nikiteanu, in the role of the spy Ebba. It's the tomfoolery on stage, the acting more than the singing, that makes this operetta charming, and the comedic skills of Oliver Widmer, as the astrologer Melchior, and Louise Widmer, as Schnapslotte, amply compensate for the mediocrity of their music. In fact, this is an operetta made enjoyable by its clever staging and theatrics more than by any intrinsic musical merit. I should say, I suppose, that the singing of this cast in excellent throughout, with extra plaudits to be given to Martina Jankova in the role of Tilly and Elizabeth Magnusen as Hildegarde, the contrasted "love interests' of the tale.

The 17th C German picaresque novel Simplicius Simplicissimus, by Johann Jakob Cristoffel von Grimmelhausen, is one of the greatest masterworks of 'baroque' literature in any language, a tale of inexhaustible energy, pathos, and humor. Strauss's libretto, by Victor Leon, bears scarcely any resemblance to its source except for the cast of characters. Honestly, I had hoped for more of Grimmelhausen's acerbic wit in this musical drama. The surreal staging, with its gallows birds dangling above the love scenes, actually captures more of the atmosphere of the novel than the music; Germany's "Thirty Years War" was the grandest, grimmest commedia dell'arte of European History. The Zurich Opera House is often the locus of intelligent, insightful stagings; their production of Mozart's "The Magic Flute", also conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, comes the closest of any on DVD to making sense of that Singspiele/Operetta.

But back we go to Wagner! In no way is 'Simplicius' as earnest or ambitious as any of Wagner's massive glorifications of Germanic myth. Strauss and his librettist have turned their German historical tragedy into a goofy fairy tale. Even so, the gap between Wagner's ardent mythos and Strauss's frivolity isn't so wide; it's bridged by Romantic Nationalism.

This is a very enjoyable operetta. The Strauss music is great and it is very well sung and played. However, the plot is rather silly (even more so than most operas) and the staging, scenery, and costumes are weird. For example, the general rides around in a giant boot on wheels (I suppose this is justified by the fact the there is a song in the operetta about how important maintaining his boots is to a soldier). Although these departures from conventional staging are not completely inappropriate, if you prefer to see an opera as the composer had intended it to be seen, you may not like the staging.

Lovely music, but the subject is so far from what you would expect from Strauss.
I am stil looking forward for DVD productions of his well known operettas, beside the Fledermaus.