Pfitzner: Die Rose vom Liebesgarten (complete opera recorded in 2009)

Following its rediscoveries of Meyerbeer's Vasco da Gama and Nicolai's Il templario, the Chemnitz Opera House has now made yet another valuable contribution to stage history with its revival of Hans Pfitzner's Die Rose vom Liebesgarten (The Rose from the Garden of Love). At long last we in turn now have the opportunity to fill a significant discographic gap with a new complete recording of this work. Although Palestrina is doubtless Pfitzner's most highly effective and enduring stage work, the romantic opera Die Rose vom Liebesgarten (1901) also occupies a special place in his oeuvre: as an impressionistic rendering of a text charged with symbolism, it holds a unique place in the annals of German music theater. The work was inspired by pictorial motifs by Hans Thoma, a painter who supported the young composer. The action of the opera is based on romantic topoi and fairy-tale set pieces and was developed from the bucolic and chivalric scenes in Thoma's cycle of paintings. Extraordinarily, the Rose maintains its distance from the program of the nascent veristic opera of the Franco-Italian repertoire and offers more than mere romantic sumptuousness. The critics of those times had enthusiastic praise for the composer's naturalistic tone paintings and the rich character of his gripping music.