It is only once in
a while one comes across a genuine bargain
in the shape of a good work, slightly
known and the only recording available.
At a sale in a large HMV music store
this two CD set (along with others)
priced at £9 has been offered for sale
at a mere £3.
Marschner’s The
Vampyr may be remembered from
the excellent BBC TV production in 1992
and issued on Virgin VC 759 294-2. In
that experimental production, sumptuously
recorded by the way (by the BBC Philharmonic,
Manchester, England), the Janet Street
Porter production had brought the libretto
up to date and the Vampyr character
passed off as a city tycoon, Ripley.
At the time nothing was known about
any BBC modification of the score and
so sight of this original German recording
was greeted with interest.
Marschner wrote The
Vampyr in 1827. It was the first
of his operas to win him recognition.
The libretto had its beginnings in a
book by Polidori’s The Vampyr,
published eight years earlier. For such
a plot to be composed as a romantic
opera sounds unusual, but the music
is exactly that — melodious and yet
fitting.
So what of this production,
taken live at a performance in Italy,
sung and spoken in German?
The cast are all strong
and the orchestra plays well through
both acts. I have reservations about
the overture: it is stodgy, lacks flow
and seems to be short of emotional feeling.
The acoustic, particularly in the overture,
is slightly boxy and at times sections
of the orchestra are somewhat unbalanced
for a recording made in the 1980s. This
kind of difficulty shouldn’t have been
a problem. After the overture, the orchestra
and conductor warm up considerably and
there is some excellent material to
listen to. The boxiness also seems to
disappear. Could it be my conditioning
to the acoustic or were adjustments
made?
So with such a good
recording, why so cheap? Is there a
catch? Well yes, the problem lies with
the booklet. This contains the libretto
(in German and Italian only) and lacks
any mention of the composer, or work
or date. The libretto items are numbered
as Marschner’s score but these do not
relate to track numbers. Extraordinarily,
there is no track-listing when there
are two blank pages to be found at the
back and there are 11/12 tracks on the
discs.
After careful scrutiny
I find that the libretto only gives
Act I. Providing track details would
have given the game away. English reading
listeners would not persevere with following
the libretto it seems. However, since
there are many budget releases that
have only a four page leaflet, this
36 page booklet looks respectable and
the whole still represents a considerable
bargain.
Raymond Walker
Chorus and Orchestra Sinfonica of Radio Italiana/Günter
Neuhold 
