Customer Reviews

Kálmán: Die Herzogin von Chicago (The Duchess Of Chicago)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Let me start of by saying I rarely pay attention to Five Star reviews because people tend to give anything they like Five Stars- however- this is fully deserving of Five Stars- it's simply incredible.

Like the previous reviewer I bought it out of curiousity, and cannot stop listening to it. I was up until 2am the night I bought it because it is fantastic!

The score is incredible. Very lush, very romantic at times, and just plain FUN! FUN! FUN! all of the time! It has the Fox Trot, Charleston, tons of choral numbers- and there's even music during some of the dialogue.

Three years ago I bought; The Abduction from the Seraglio, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte, and finally The Magic Flute. They were among my first ten operas- well I have not liked anything as much as Die Herzogin Von Chicago since I bought those Mozart operas.

Bonyage assembled a spectacular cast and the orchestra plays with power, grace, and brilliance.

To me- music is first and foremost to entertain-and Die Herzogin Von Chicago never lets up. It's one great "number" after another.

If you want GREAT ENTERTAINMENT through INCREDIBLE music- I highly suggest purchasing this- you won't regret it.

I just can't stop listening to it.

I bought this CD out of curiosity and can't seem to bring myself to remove it from my CD player. The music is wonderful - Viennese Waltzes and Czardas and American Foxtrots and Charlestons (yes, really). The quality of the recording is top-notch; the orchestra, conductor, and singers seem to love the music. The sound is big and wholly authentic for the period of the work. The plot is absurd, but who really cares (it's mostly in German anyway)? A few other Kalman operettas have been recorded (e.g. The Gypsy Princess and Countess Maritza), but not this lavishly. 'Die Herzogin von Chicago' is filled with tunes you simply can't get out of your head (and probably won't want to). I haven't heard music this fun in years - it had me from the Overture. We have enough recordings of Johann Strauss to last us to Y3K - lets start giving Kalman the attention he deserves.

The plot of this funny operetta is a "love story" featuring a rich, modern, billion-dollar American-girl who arrives Europe in the 1920s and falls in love with an old fashioned European Prince, whose country including the Prince and his Castle, the oil wells, railways, etc. are bought by this young "Lady from the new World" Miss Mary Lloyd, who also is accompanied by her billionaire friends of the Young Ladies' American Eccentric Club of New York (Miss Astor, Miss Carnegie, Miss Rockefeller, Miss Ford, among other high society girls) and a crowd of Charleston and Fox-trot dancers. The struggle between the New and the Old (way of dancing and music) is emphasized by making use of the most melodic and finest "American Jazz and Fox-Trots" and the best "contemporary" and richly orchestrated classical operetta music (waltz and czardas) I have listened in my life. This work was composed in 1928 by the gifted German-Hungarian Emmerich Kalman, whose compositions were smashing hits after the 1st World War, and which I had not the opportunity to listen until I bought this recording based on the "five star" recommendations of prior Amazon buyers comments. Kalman's music is not so well-known today (as of J. Strauss or Lehar or Berstein`s) since it was almost suppressed by the nazis during the Third Reich, who considered it as degenerated ("Entartete") not for its quality but due to Jewish origins of Mr. Kalman, who refused to hide, even with the help of the Nazis who admired his music, his origins and fortunately emigrated with his family to the USA. This terrible fact also helped to "hide" and avoid the "over-play" the sparkling music of Kalman, and keep his legacy until its re-discovery by the young audiences of the "New World" in the Y2K and forever thanks to the DECCA Team in charge of this huge recopilation of the music that was suppressed during the Third Reich. If you expect to buy a two CD-Recording with one hit after the other, beautifully sung (in German) accompanied with refined music, singing and choruses, featuring a symphonic orchestra alternating with jazz-bands, which also dare to play an excerpt of Beethoven's Fifth "Fox-Trot", this is a must-buy for you. Very Important Warning! This work is a masterpiece if you approach to it expecting to enjoy a modern fully melodic "light" composition which is somewhere between the operetta and the best Broadway/Hollywood musicals (such as the compositions of Berstein's West Side Story, Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, and Roger & Hammerstein's Sound of Music and the King and I). After listening twice to this excellent "operetta", masterly conducted by the first-class Maestro Bonynge and wonderful singers/actors, the music will sound so familiar to you that the Waltzes of Kalman (such as the beautiful "Wiener Music" sung first by the Prince and later superbly by the American protagonist Mary Lloyd) and his Orchestral Fox and Slow-Trots (among others "Ladies from America", "A Little Slow-fox with Mary", "In Chicago do you know what is what?"), and the wonderful love duet "Rose of the Prairie") will be part of your musical life, and will sound later to you very familiar, since this music and its orchestral arrangements had strong influence in several "contemporary" compositions, thanks to german-jewish composers (such as Weill, Kern, Krenek, Korngold, Kalman) and several other talented American composers (Bernstein, Rogers, among several others) who created some of the Best Broadway's Musicals and Hollywood's soundtracks of the 40s, 50s, 60s. If you speak and understand some German, which is not a pre-requisite to enjoy this recording (since the libretto has also an English and French translation), you will love even more this work, since the excellent singers, who are also great actors, make you believe you are within the play, and keep you most of the time smiling and laughing with the sparkling plot and due to the funny "American-German" and "Slave-German" pronunciation of the Americans and Eastern-Europeans, respectively.

In Die Fledermaus, Johann Strauss penned the world's greatest operetta. But most of Strauss's other stage works are pretty unremarkable stuff -- apart from the waltzes that thrive quite well in the concert hall on their own. In Kalman, we have the most consistently strong operetta composer -- yes, better even than Strauss, Lehar, and certainly superior to the bevy of musical has-beens (Friml, Abraham, Stolz, Romberg, etc., etc.). While Kalman is far more famous for Die Czardasfurstin and Grafin Mariza, Die Herzogin von Chicago is also a great work, from first note to last. It's choc-a-bloc full of memorable songs, tunes, leitmotivs, and action. Once you put it on your CD player, you won't be able to take it off! I count five or six numbers that could easily exist on their own, completely apart from the operetta -- they're just that good. The mix of Jazz, Viennese and Hungarian Czardas styles really works, and the musical inspiration is uniformly inspired throughout. If you like Central European light opera fare -- or even if your thing is Gilbert & Sullivan -- you owe it to yourself to get to know this work in a first-class performance: Bonynge & Co. have the thing aced. Sumptuous packaging, interesting program notes and a fascinating historical perspective are also part of the set, in one of Decca's more noteworthy operatic releases of the past decade ...

This is one of the greatest operettas ever written not only by Kalman but in general. The recording is outstanding, the music brilliant (a fascinating mixture of old central European styles with jazz) and the plot very witty (although, as is often the case with operettas, not very plausible...). This production leaves one wondering where this pearl has disappeared to all these years.

What a joy this recording is. Wonderful lush tunes well played and sung to sparkling orchestratons. Includes dialogue but this is mostly at the end of tracks so can be easily disposed of if desired. Congratulations to Mr Bonynge and his team.

Richard Bonynge really deserves credit for all the disinterments he has directed in opera and, here, operetta. He always seems to know what forgotten work has wonderful music--Massenet's Esclarmonde and Le Roi de Lahore, for instance--and he revives them with style and panache. It is generally agreed among opera buffs that the lead tenor has an unappealing voice, but everyone else is fine and the music itself is really tuneful. It's also over-orchestrated, a Kalman flaw in his later work, but at least it gives Bonynge and his band something to bite into.

Finally, a discovery that actually is fun to listen to! HERZOGIN isn't terribly well-known, but there's no reason it shouldn't be quickly performed in many companies: the music is terrific, and the sheer range of Kalman's repertoire just in this opera alone (csardas, waltzes, lieder, and foxtrots galore--not to mention a Charleston or two) make this new recording worth buying. The conflict between operetta and jazz music throughout the plot and the work itself is not only musically but historically interesting, and there are times when Kalman really seems to be on the verge of discovering something important about the ways in which 20th-century music would go (The great bars of the Charleston-jazz number reiterated throughout the score are not only ingenious but almost shocking in their difference from what other operetta writers were doing at the time).
The recording itself is terrific. Bonynge, the orchestra and chorus acquit themselves admirably, as do most of the cast. The real star is the singer in the title role, however, Deborah Reigel--she's not only got a marvelous voice but she's deeply funny in her (intentionally and deftly-handled) Chicago-inflected German. When she made her first appearance in the recording, proclaiming "America Forever!" in fervent tones, I almost fell out of my chair laughing. She's really a marvel.

The plot of this funny operetta is a "love story"featuring a rich, modern, billion-dollar American-girl who arrivesEurope in the 1920s and falls in love with an old fashioned European Prince, whose country including the Prince itself and his Castle is almost totally bought by this young "Lady from the New World", the "rich and beatiful" Miss Mary Lloyd, who also is accompanied by her "billionare" friends of the Young Ladies American Club of New York (among others Miss Astor, Miss Carnegie and Miss Rockefeller) and a crowd of Charleston and Fox-trot dancers. The struggle between the New and the Old (way of dancing and music) is emphasized by making use of the most melodic and finest "American Jazz and Fox-Trots" and the best "contemporary" and richly orchestrated classical music I have listened to in my life, composed in 1928 by the gifted German-Hungarian Emmerich Kalman, whose works were smashing hits after the 1st World War, and which I had not the opportunity to listen until I bought this recording based on the "five star" recommendations of prior Amazon buyers'comments. Kalman's music is not so well-known today (as of Strauss or Lehar or Berstein`s) since it was almost suppressed by the nazis during the Third Reich, who considered it as degenerated ("Entartete") not for its quality but due to Jewish origins of Mr. Kalman, who refused to hide his origins, even with the help of the Nazis who admired his music, and who finally and fortunately emigrated with his family to the USA. This terrible fact also helped to "hide" and avoid the "over-playing" this outstanding music and rythms of Kalman, and keep his legacy until its re-discovery (thanks to this recording) by the young audiences of the "New World" in the Y2K and forever. If you expect to buy a two CD-Recording with one hit after the other, beautifully sung (in German) accompanied with refined music and choruses, featuring a symphonic orchestra alternating with jazz-bands, which dare to play an excerpt of Beethoven's Fith "Fox-Trot", this is a must-buy for you, and an excellent gift for your very best musical friends. Very Important Tip! This work is a masterpiece if you approach to it expecting to enjoy not a Wagnerian or Verdian opera but a modern "fully melodic" fine composition of Gershwin's which is somewhere between the operetta and the best Broadway/Hollywood musicals (such as the compositions of Berstein's West Side Story and Roger & Hammerstein's Sound of Music and the King and I). After listening twice to this excellent "operetta", masterly conducted by the first-class Maestro Bonynge, the music will sound so familiar to you that the Waltzes of Kalman (such as the beautiful "Wiener Music" sung first by the Prince and later superbly by Mary Lloyd) and his Orchestral Fox and Slow-Trots (among others "Ladies from America", "A little slow-fox with Mary", "In Chicago do you know what is what?"), and the wonderful love duet "Rose of the Prairie", will be part of your musical life, and will sound later to you very familiar, since this music, rythms and orchestral arrangements is embedded in several "contemporary" compositions, thanks to Weill, Kern, Kalman and to other several other talented American composers (Berstein, Rogers, among several others) who created the Best Broadway's Musicals and Hollywood's soundtracks of the 50s and 60s. If you speak and understand some German, which is not a pre-requisite to enjoy this recording (since the libretto has an English and French translation), you will love even more this work, since the singers, who are also great actors, make you believe you are within the play, and keep you most of the time smiling and laughing with this sparkling plot and because of the funny "American-German" and "Slave-German" pronunciation of the Americans and the people from the Kingdom of Sylvaria, respectively.

The operetta is presented in a lavish package with much detailed background information on the operetta itself and on the historic period it arose in. It appears to contain much more of the incidental and background music than is usual in these versions.

The music isn't up to the level of that in Kalman's Csardasfuerstin or Graefin Maritza but it is interesting to hear and richly and well presented.

What is most noteworthy is the sound you hear of Weill's Dreigroschenoper - before Weill composed it - and the Gershwin/Grofe sounds that often appear in the background of the orchestral arrangements.

One minor negative aspect is that some of the choral numbers which are supposed to be in the "American" style have a chorus that performs much too rigidly and not in the style of the "jazz" music.

But there is, unfortunately, a major problem that I personally find overwhelming, making this recording difficult to recommend: the male lead, Prinz Sandor/Endrik Wottrich.

His vocal presentation is narrow and pinched and - the overriding problem - his style has the sound that was used in the past to parody and ridicule male operetta singers. I haven't heard him in any of his other recordings and it is possible that he was directed to perform this way in this recording. Anyone who has never heard an operetta, would come away with a negative impression of the genre after hearing this voice.

I am very glad the operetta has been preserved / resucitated. But this version, as lavish and complete and exact as it is, is not one to attract new operetta listeners. It is certainly worthwhile, however, for those who are operetta completists.