Strauss, (J.): Die Fledermaus (Complete Operetta) (Rec 1950)

"In Naxos' new transfer this 1950 recording sounds as if it were recorded 10 years later; of course it's mono, but it's clean and clear and it's most welcome. The cast's pedigree is undeniable, with Strauss expert Clemens Krauss in the pit, bringing out the composer's rhythms--both obvious and hidden--and leading the wonderful VPO with a lilt that's absolutely right."
- Robert Levine classicstoday.com 19 April 2002

Ira Gershwin was right of course; of all operettas composed during the second half of the nineteenth century, it is Die Fledermaus that has best kept its place in the affections of the public and in the repertories of the lyric theatres of the world.

Among its close coevals are the great satires of Offenbach, a German-born composer, adopted with real frenzy by the French, and the operettas of Arthur Sullivan, which have generally travelled less well in Europe than French and Austrian music has travelled to Britain. Of these three supreme melodists, however, it is the younger Johann Strauss, and most notably his Fledermaus, that epitomizes the style of those opulent times. This is due in part to the intriguing plot, which uses a contemporary, rather than classical or historical setting and takes place around the very Vienna of the work's première. In its own time it allowed the Viennese audience to recognise itself on stage and laugh at its own antics, in a way that La Belle Hélène or The Gondoliers could not quite match.

Die Fledermaus was not Strauss's first venture for the stage, but its two predecessors, Indigo und die vierzig Räuber (Indigo and the Forty Thieves) of 1871 and Der Karneval in Rom (Carnival in Rome) of 1873, are barely remembered today. Some of its successors are better known, and most memorably Eine Nacht in Venedig (A Night in Venice) (1883) and Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron) (1885) also display the charm and style that was first evinced in Fledermaus. After its brilliant early run in Vienna, the operetta was soon staged in New York, and in London at the Alhambra Theatre. It reached the Metropolitan Opera in 1905 but was not heard at Covent Garden until 1930, where it has, from time to time, been revived. Indeed, the recent successful production there provided a vehicle for Dame Joan Sutherland's final stage performance, as she sang Home Sweet Home as part of the second act gala. Clearly equally popular with singers as with audiences, Die Fledermaus seems to hold a special magic. In dozens of productions over the last 125 years, many of the world's great prime donne, leading tenors and baritones, more familiar in Mozart, Wagner and Verdi, have enjoyed an opportunity to let their musical hair down and revel in its hilarious deceptions, misunderstandings and sheer tuneful verve.

Surprisingly, in view of the operetta's popularity, there had been only one virtually complete commercial recording of Die Fledermaus, made acoustically in 1907, before this classic version, conducted by Clemens Krauss. There was no shortage of fine singers who would surely have been delighted to participate in such a recording during the 1920s or 1930s - for instance, the superb cast that included Lotte Lehmann and Elisabeth Schumann, conducted by Bruno Walter, might have been ideal. Nevertheless, these and many other singers recorded solos and ensemble extracts from the earliest days of the twentieth century. The present recording was made during September 1950 in the Musikvereinsaal in Vienna, not so very far from the theatre where the première had taken place 76 years earlier, and it boasts three principals and a conductor who were natives of Vienna itself. Surely Gueden, Lipp, Patzak and, most memorably, Krauss were born with the Straussian style in their very Wiener Blut. The sheer exhilaration and lilt that Krauss brings to the music has never been equalled and the performance offers the finest ensemble work of any Fledermaus on disc. The singers all appeared together on stage at different times in this and other works, they knew each others' strengths and could play to them. Probably they were friends offstage too, and it shows.

Wilma Lipp was born in 1925 in Vienna, where she studied, later working in Milan with Toti dal Monte; Rosina was her 1943 début rôle. She sang with the Vienna State Opera from 1945, her exceptional coloratura being heard as Queen of the Night, Adele and Blonde. Lipp first appeared at Covent Garden in 1951 in the rôle of Gilda and was a guest in Brussels, Hamburg, and Munich, at Glyndebourne, Salzburg and Bayreuth. In 1962 she sang in San Francisco and toured throughout the Americas. In 1982 Lipp became Voice Professor at the Salzburg Mozarteum, having made many recordings of her extensive soprano repertory.

Sieglinde Wagner was born in Linz, Austria in 1921 and trained at the Conservatoire there. Following further study in Munich, she made her début in Linz Landestheater in 1942, as Erda in Das Rheingold, and from 1947 sang regularly at the Volksoper and other Viennese theatres. Guest appearances in Berlin, Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome and La Scala soon followed, and from 1949 Wagner appeared frequently at the Salzburg Festival. Much admired there in Richard Strauss, as Leda in Die Liebe der Danaë in 1952, and in Wagner at Bayreuth, with eight seasons from 1962, she was also a fine interpreter of J.S.Bach.