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Tiefland is
one of those operas more read about
than heard. It defies easy category
though post-Wagnerian quasi-verismo
may well do as shorthand. Originally
cast in three movements and trimmed
to two following the Prague premiere
in 1903 (the revision of 1905 was first
performed in Magdeburg) it’s held a
tentative place in the German repertoire
in the century since its composition.
It’s been an infrequent visitor to turntable
and disc. Rudolf Moralt and his Viennese
forces recorded it for Philips back
in 1957 with a fine cast headed by Gré
Brouwenstijn, Paul Schöffler, Eberhard
Waechter and Hans Hopf but that was
cut. I’ve not been able to hear it for
comparison purposes but it is certainly
less complete than this Arts and I’m
assuming that the dialogue took the
brunt of the losses. The difference
is some twenty minutes [Philips CD 434
781 2PM2]. [see also Walhall
recording]
Set in Spain and embedding
Spanish rhythms as well as Viennese
ones this splendidly upholstered score
owes much, it’s true, to Wagner and
not a little to Richard Strauss. From
the mournful mountain top descending
clarinet call the playing out of passion
– love, duplicity, murder – is set between
the mountain and the village. There
are numerous highlights, from Moll’s
oak cask voice and the casting of Kollo
as Pedro, the hero peasant through Weikl’s
villainous turn as the landowner Sebastiano.
As the heroine Eva Marton is inclined
to be just a shade shrill though her
theatrical powers of projection are
strong as ever. D’Albert fuses Wagnerian
span with moments of Mendelssohnian
and Grieg-like lightness – try the Midsummer
Night’s Dream meets Peer Gynt passage
of the fourth scene of the Prologue
(beginning Hast du’s gehört?)
Wagner is the most adamantine influence
at such moments as Act I Scene IV –
Sein bin ich, sein! – and the
verismo aspect is compelling in the
chorus’s cry in Scene VI from the same
Act – maybe Puccini as an influence
in the orchestral warmth of Scene IX
(Er will kein Stutzer sein).
There are longeurs
and moments of relative crudity – I
happen to find Act II Scene III unsuccessful
– but the Iberian melancholy so splendidly
evoked throughout is beguiling. You
should certainly hear the slow Spanish
dance that courses through Das Essen
ist da (Scene VI). There are in
fact many things to savour, from love
duets to bigger ensemble numbers; plenty
of local colour and a high level of
orchestration. Janowski enjoys the more
spun-line episodes I suspect rather
more than the more hectic moments of
melodrama but if one could wish him
to hurry the action along he certainly
provides rich incidental pickings along
the way. Much of the orchestration is
a delight.
Good radio broadcast
sound is augmented by a full booklet
but non-polyglots should note that the
libretto is in German only. As the man
almost said - Brush up your Goethe.
Jonathan Woolf
Choir of Bavarian Radio and Munich Radio Symphony
Orchestra/Marek Janowski 
