5.0 out of 5 stars
The easiest way to become an Offenbach convert, June 9, 2011
This review is from: Offenbach Festival (Audio CD)
German-born Parisian cellist, composer and theater owner Jacques Offenbach (1819-80) is among the least-known of classical music's great melodists even though his gift is more the equal of Schubert, Mendelssohn and Dvorak. Like Richard Strauss, Offenbach often wrote for money and -- as in the case of his wonderful
Gaîté Parisienne -- he often allowed or directed arrangers to fit his melodies into scores. Anyone that only knows the composer through Manuel Rosenthal's arrangement has an idea what to expect but has also just scratched the surface of the delights that await them here.
Capriccio put together this two-disk set of selections from about a half-dozen of his operettas (including Orpheus in the Underwold, Parisian Life and Tales of Hoffman) and a generous sampling of overtures, slices from his ballet score La Papillon and other music to give any beginner a boisterous introduction to Offenbach's glorious and tuneful music. A relative rarity represented herein is five delicious moments from the operetta Jeanne qui pleure et Jean qui rit, which rougly translates to Jean who cries and John who laughs. This little known work is amusing from beginning to end.
Pinchas Steinberg does much of the conducting with the WDR Radio Orchestra and chorus from Cologne and the soloists selected from that company include baritone Wolfgang Schoene and soprano Ulrike Steinsky, among many others. While these (mostly) Germans lack of elan the French bring to the music of their adopted native son and impressario, the troupe is consistently delightful and engaging. Anyone that enjoys a night of amusement and merriment at the theater s going to like this recording very much. I found myself playing it over and over again when I first acquired it. Its lasting value is good, too.
The early 1990s recording won't be confused with a 2011 super audio issue but the sound is not much of a detriment to anyone but an audiophile. The performances are consistently enjoyable and even an Offenbach veteran is bound to find something they like here. The downsides are the packaging, or lack of same: the two CDs come in individual cases packed in a box rather than in a more convenient twofer; there are few notes, no text or libretti, no bios and only a couple pages of generalized notes. In addition, the track listings are German without English or French translation. The singers perform in German.
These deficits take little away from the enjoyment you will receive night after night by purchasing this regrettably out of print disk set or downloading the contents. While none of the current classical music books lists or recommends this collection, one of the better musiciological guides -- the
All Music Guide to Classical Music -- recommends the first of these CDs in its Offenbach section. To me, that's a signature for both this collection and the All Music Guide, which I find a consistently more reliable guide to good recordings on disk and download than either the
The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music or
The Gramophone Classical Music Guide 2011.
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