Customer Reviews

Oberon

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Oberon, an opera of Weber, is the result of the collaboration of quite all Western Europe. Oberon, king of elfs, is the same than Alberich, with a clearly French phonetic treatment (Alb > Aub > Ob-). At the origin of the story, there is a French epic "Huon of Bordeaux", already with fairy character, in which Huon is perhaps Odon or Eudes, king of Aquitaine who was the first Christian sovereign to beat the Muslims (battle of Toulouse, in June 9th or 10th 721), thus an Aquitain, almost an Occitan, which had Charles Martel's Francs for enemies, while in the song he is a knight of Charlemagne, the grandson of Charles Martel! After intervened Shakespeare (A Midsummer's Night Dream), then Wieland ("Oberon"). The English libretto of James Robinson Planché is inspired by the poem of Wieland and the work was represented at first in London, a little bit before the death of Weber, which was not satisfied of the work; The libretto was then translated into German. You can also find Oberon in English Weber: Oberon.

As Euryanthe, Oberon is an opera of Weber which does not match Der Freischütz, but I prefer it to Euryanthe. We find good passages there which evoke clearly the generous melodism and the feeling of merry expectation of Freischütz. It is a Singspiel, and the non-germanist listener can be bored by the spoken passages. But the wonderful and mysterious moments, the magnificient and dificult arias, " Ozean, du Ungeheuer! " are frequent enough to make the interest be reborn. The story is complicated and the characters are numerous, but the intrigue can amount so: Oberon tests the loyalty of the love of Hüon and Rezia, doubled by that of the servant of the one, Scherasmin, and of the confident of the other one, Fatime (the presence of Moslem characters makes us find to a certain extent the real history of my king-duke of Aquitaine).

This recording was made for the radio in 1937, but in the presence of the public. The sound is what we can expect for it, but Koch Schwann works very well. We shall consider nevertheless the "DDD" registered on CDs as result of a joke. Circumstances explain that the spoken passages were profoundly reshaped, to explain the story to the listeners, with at the beginning of every act a presentation partially made by a child whose diction is very nice. Even the sung part was abbreviated and modified, and so the first aria of Fatime " Arabiens einsam Kind " was moved by the second in the first act. The third act was already the most abbreviated, but in more the end is lost. The publisher tried to console us with the addition of 25 minutes of arias by Margarete Teschemacher, recorded in 1940, of which "Dich teure Halle", "Die Kraft versagt" (Hermann Goetz) and " Per pietà, bell' idol mio ", of Così, and " Son giunta - Madre, pietosa vergine ", of Forza del Destino, all sung in German. I would prefer Walther Ludwig or Helge Roswaenge.

The young Joseph Keilberth - 29 years old - conducts the Choir and the Radio Orchestra of Reich (Reichssenders Berlin) with more life and energy than in his maturity, with a kind of tenderness, but a sense of the fairy rather uneven, according to moments. We can hear he already has the conception that the duty of the conductor is to support the singers. These are young people, generally around twenty-five or forty years old, and thus at the top of their vocal means. Margarete Teschemacher has all the means of the part of Rezia, but the leaflet prevents us that the way she sings was considered as a little bit pedestrian, and therefore we feel quite excused for having found so before reading the passage which was dedicated to her. The poetry and the intelligence, with a voice so captivating, although less powerful, than the one of Wunderlich, we find them with the lyric tenor Walter Ludwig (Oberon); Helge Roswaenge is a wonderful, an extraordinary Hüon; his wife Ilonka Holndonner, mezzo, is less completed in the role of Fatime, because she needs the conductor's help to control her line of singing, but she can delight by graceful inflections. Scherasmin is Kavalierbariton Karl Schmitt-Walter, a stylist as Walter Ludwig. You have also the good Puck of Marie Luise Schilp, the good Meermädchen of Carla Spletter. Some of these singers are little informed, it is also the interest of these records.

There is no libretto, nor even a summary of the action, but an excellent leaflet which contains solid and detailed explanations on the story of Oberon, on Joseph Keilberth and the main singers, finally on the circumstances of the recording and the changes in the work. We shall thus find the libretto on Web, but with the modifications made in this recording, there will be a little complicated to understand where you are in the act. Sure it is not with this recording that you will begin to know Oberon, but in German you can do it with Kubelik Weber: Oberon (with summary), Weber: Oberon (this with libretto, I suppose), and others. Please see the first product link for a good English recording.