Customer Reviews

Mozart - Die Zauberflöte / Oelze, Schade, Sieden, Finley, Peeters, English Baroque Soloists, Gardiner

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've heard just about every recording of Zauberflote from Toscanini and Beecham in 1937 (both of whom, for some bizarre reason, use the heavy dramatic tenor Helge Roswaenge as Tamino) to the present, and have had different favorites at different times, most notably the first Solti version with Deutekom, Burrows, Prey and Talvela and the Armin Jordan version with Jo, Orgonasova, Winbergh and Hagegard, but all have had faults either in pacing, the casting of certain key roles (the dreadful Pilar Lorengar as Pamina with Solti), etc. In recent years I've acquired a video version from German TV circa 1974 with a wonderful cast, Edith Mathis, Cristina Deutekom, Nicolai Gedda, William Workman and Hans Sotin, conducted by Horst Stein. Yet none of these performances quite prepared me for what I heard on this Gardiner recording: perfect tempi, superb orchestral texture, a forward momentum that helps keep the second act moving, and a cast of light-voiced but superb singers who follow all of Mozart's written instructions and, by doing so, bring their roles--and the opera--to life in a way I have never heard before. From first note to last, this "Flute" is conducted like a long, detailed, multi-movement symphony in which all the disparate elements congeal with perfect harmony. Even the Three Ladies, who usually bore me to death, sing with a rhythmic liveliness and perfect vocal blend that absolutely astonished me. This is all the more surprising to me since I usually don't like Gardiner's Mozart: I often find it rushed but not detailed, with singers sometimes inadequate for their roles. Here, however, he scores a perfect 10. My only quibble, and it is a small one, is that bass Harry Peeters has a pronounced vibrato in places, especially in the final scene where he sounds as if he is running out of voice; but that is a small price to pay for a performance that totally avoids the "romantic" crust that big-voiced singers and power conductors have brought to Zauberflote over the years. This recording was as great a revelation to me as the Colin Davis "Idomeneo," which I also highly recommend.

I usually prefer Abbados reading of Mozart instead of Gardiner but here is one Abbado hast done yet and I dont think that matter because even if Gardiner not ALWAYS pick up the strongest cast for his Archiv, Mozart operas are these singers very good indeed (Oelze and Schade is very good on this one and they ARE good singers) and Gardiner has a quick, but not rushed tempi/moving forward flow in Mozarts Die Zauberflöte I admire and find very pleased with.

Sound is excellent on this disc (this is a live recording but without annoying coughing :-) and so is this music -excellent, superb. One of the absolutly best versions -so far.

The only dull thing in this opera is all that talking between arias, songs choirs, music but it is not Gardiners fault (it IS much talk in this opera). If you cant stand that go for a "highlight" version but this is disc is so good so you should by this set anyway.

By it and admire this fun, sometimes whimsy, sometimes very serious opera about becoming a good person. It is a very humanistic opera ( and has a happy ending too :-).

Period instruments sound lively and great here and are well played by English Baroque Soloists orchestra and the Monteverdi choir supports solists at a high level.

I rank this as Gardiners best Mozart disc and the best MODERN version of "Die Zauberflöte" so buy it and enjoy.

This recording is really worthy...
the voices of Christane Oelze (pamina) and Cyndia Sieden (Königin der Nacth) are superb, also the male soloists
(and the rest) are excellent as well as the choir and the musicians.

Almost everything goes swimmingly in Gardiner's 1996 Zauberflote, thanks to two overriding factors. First, the period approach allows for a feather-light fairy-tale mood in which each character is either naive or enchanted. Second, the casting is strong enough to encompass every part successfully. The complete cast list reveals a sprinkling of young singers who went on to big careers:

Christiane Oelze sop Pamina
Cyndia Sieden sop Queen of Night
Constanze Backes sop Papagena
Susan Roberts sop First Lady ; Carola Guber sop Second Lady ; Andreas Dieterich sop First Boy ; Jan Andreas Mendel sop Second Boy ; Maria Jonas mez Third Lady ; Florian Wöller mez Third Boy

Michael Schade ten Tamino
Gerald Finley bar Papageno
Harry Peeters bass Sarastro
Uwe Peper ten Monostatos
Nicholas Robertson ten First Armed Man; Detlef Roth bass Speaker ; Noel Mann bass Second Armed Man

As for the conducting, Claudio Abbado, in his period-flavored version for DG, does a better job of conducting the score -- he displays real finesse, expression, and suppleness. Gardiner, as is his wont, sets a fast tempo and keeps to it, one measure following another. Therefore, he misses half of what Mozart put into the score, the serious, high-minded half. Yet this time around the result isn't too diminished. A one-dimensional Zauberflote works if the singers can pull us into their magical world, and here they do. Gardiner's quick pace makes the slower arias easier to control vocally. And the small period orchestra, which plays quite well, allows the singers to produce less volume, which adds to the easy naturalness of their portrayals.

The two standouts on the male side are Michael Schade's Tamino and Gerald Finley's Papageno. They sound youthful and enthusiastic, and there's no misplaced attempt at folk humor or knockabout farce. It's too bad that Harry Peeters makes for a generic, stiff-voiced Sarastro. On the female side, I am impressed by the sweet, even voice of Cyndia Sieden as the Queen of the Night -- she never became an international star, but in this surrounding she's fine as a rather placid villainess. The Pamina of Cristiane Oelze has been much praised here at Amazon. I find her pleasant and appealing, but she's nowhere near as moving as Barbara Bonney or as gleaming technically as Gundula Janowitz, to name two notable predecessors.

All the minor parts are well cast, and everyone does the recitatives (cut to a minimum) convincingly, again staying away from misplaced mugging. In the history of music, Die Zauberflote became overloaded with symbolic and even religious significance. Here Gardiner returns us to the opera's Singspiel roots, and the results are thoroughly entertaining.

In this 1995 recording Gardiner's conducting is brisk, his orchestral sound is light and bright, and his singers sound young and fresh. Compared with the Klemperer and Boehm recordings, it is rather like an old Italian master painting after the layers of old varnish and dirt have been removed to reveal the startlingly bright colors underneath. If you don't mind the fleet tempi and transparent sound, you will find that his direction is dramatic, well nuanced, with attractive phrasing and good balance. There is lots of dialog. The chorus, various women, armored men, boys, priests etc. are all better than average.
Tamino has been recorded by a number of elegant singers (Wunderlich, Simoneau, Dermota, Haefliger, and Blochwitz). I find Michael Schade's singing in no way inferior to theirs. He has an attractive voice, and sings with feeling, employing nuanced phrasing and pleasant legato. The Papageno, Gerald Finley, has a clear, light voice. He exhibits no notable flaws of technique or style.
Cyndia Seiden (The Queen of the Night) has a reasonably pleasant voice of moderate size; her enunciation could be better. She sounds undervoiced in the dramatics of "Der Hoelle Rache", but handles the coloratura well. Cristiane Oelze (as Pamina) has an attractive voice and sings beautifully in the ensemble pieces. Her technique in "Ach ich Fuhl's" is fine, but she does not sound emotionally involved.
Harry Peeters is a somewhat understated Sarastro. He does better in the slower paced "Isis und Osiris" than in the quickly paced "In diesem heil'gen Hallen". While his singing is entirely adequate (except for a tendency to aspirate his runs), it fails to leave much of an impression.
The recorded sound is excellent. If, for some reason, you do not find this recording engaging, try Norrington (very fast) or Christie for other good "historically informed" Flutes. If you want a fine German Romantic rendition, look to Klemperer or Boehm II (1955) or III (1964). If you want a "not too romantic, not too historically informed" but very fine recording, try Abbado's.

This set is worth hearing just for the part of Pamina, sung by Christiane Oelze. A golden-tonsiled soprano, whose tone is as clear as a bell, with a subtle vibrato. All around a great performance, and great sound.

Actually, I would give this recording 3 1/2 stars. I am a fan of Gardiner's work, especially his Bach recordings, and I even like his recording of The Marriage of Figaro, but this recording wasn't quite as good as other recordings of The Magic Flute. I think that the results are uneven; some arias and ensembles (such as Papageno's "Ein Madchen Oder Weibchen") are good, but others are lacking. The singers are generally good, although none of them particularly stand out, in my opinion.

One of my objections to this recording, however, is Gardiner's interpretation. He claims to give us an authentic rendering of the opera, as he believes it was performed in 1791 (or as close as he can get, I suppose). I don't doubt that he is a meticulous and thorough scholar, but I think that in his attempt to give us the "authentic" Mozart, he sacrifices feeling and makes some decisions which grate on the ears. His tempos are far too fast on several occasions, and the orchestra often does not sound as majestic as I think it should. (Perhaps the latter is the fault of the recording (it is a live performance) or some other factor; I cannot really say.) Another example of sacrificing quality for authenticity is his use of boys for the roles of the three guide boys, which in many modern recordings are sung by women. As a matter of personal taste, I don't care for boys' voices, but I can understand using them for the sake of authenticity. However, the voices that Gardiner uses don't seem to work here and detract from the recording. Little things like that, I find, make the recording less spectacular than it could have been.

But a more serious complaint is that in the many moments in this opera where Mozart's music sends the listener into heavenly bliss (Mozart fans know that I am not exaggerating), I think that this effect is because of Mozart and not because of Gardiner. The little glimpses of heaven that I get when listening to, say, the "Bald Prangt, Den Morgen Zu Verkunden" quartet in Act II is not due to Gardiner's efforts, but Mozart's score alone, and that makes a great difference in my estimation of the recording. It seems almost trite to say that a recording becomes great due to the efforts of the conductor as well as the genius of the composer, but listening to this recording, I saw the truth of that statement, to my disappointment.

Another serious complaint is the price. It's simply unjustifiable for a record company to charge $42.00 (or more) for an opera, no matter how good. No recording of any opera is so fantastic that I would be willing to pay that much, and the fact that there are better recordings of this opera out there for less does not help. My personal favorite, which I consider the gold standard of Magic Flute recordings (and the competition is stiff), is EMI's 1962 recording made by Otto Klemperer, which you can find used or new for considerably less than what Deutsche Grammophon wants for the Gardiner version. It's not "authentic," by any means, but it's full of feeling and, unlike the Gardiner recording, I find it a joy to listen to from beginning to end, and that's what counts.

If you like this opera , I think this is one of the best performances and recordings that you can find. (By the way the recording type is not DDD ; but , 4D which is more advanced!)

Gardiner is great. But I think Ostman (Decca) is even better. One drawback about Gardiner is that all his recordings are super expensive. Ostman would be a better bet. Now Decca has released all 4 Mozart operas (Zauberflote & the 3 Da Ponte operas) in a budget box set, I would get the budget box set from Decca, and then supplement it with one Gardiner, which isno longer competitive because the quality is the same but the price is more than double!!!!! Ridiculous!!

Great performance, really brings the music alive. Terrific sound quality. You just can't turn it off.