Bad Ems is a spa town
near Koblenz, on the river Lahn. Still
thriving, it was at the height of its
popularity in the Nineteenth Century,
when visitors included Tsar Nicholas
I and cultural figures such as Dostoyevsky,
Wagner – and Jacques Offenbach. Offenbach
visited Bad Ems for the sake of his
own health and because a whole series
of his smaller works had their premières
there. These included Les Bavards
(as Bavard et Bavarde) in 1862,
Signor Fagotto (1863), Le
Fifre Enchanté ou Le Soldat magicien
(1864), Jeanne qui pleure et Jean
qui rit (1864), La Leçon
de chant électromagnétique
(1867) – and Coscoletto, first
performed on 24 July 1865. There were
further performances in Berlin, Vienna,
Budapest and Baden-Baden before the
1860s were out. Soon after that it effectively
disappeared until recent times. This
first recording is based on a 2001 production
which was presented at several locations
in Germany, including Bad Ems itself,
which now hosts an Offenbach festival.
The original French
libretto for Coscoletto, by one
of Offenbach’s regular collaborators
Charles Nuitter, has been lost; it is
here performed in the German translation
by Julius Hopp, prepared for the Vienna
production one year after the première.
The plot of Coscoletto is a characteristic
piece of love and intrigue, deception
and confusion, set in Naples - occasional
phrases of Italian sit rather oddly
amidst the German. Events range from
a misdirected letter to an eruption
of Vesuvius! The characters are types
which, as Peter Hawig suggests in his
booklet notes, can be traced back to
the traditions of the commedia dell’arte.
So, for example, Coscoletto (the ‘lazzarone’)
and Delfina the flower-girl are versions
of Arlecchino and Columbine, and the
jealous, elderly husband – Frangipani,
the seller of macaroni – is clearly
derived from Pantalone.
In this recording Coscoletto
makes for an hour and half’s entertaining
listening. In the title role Mojca Erdmann
has a charming, youthful voice and the
ensemble work is generally very sound.
In the first act finale, the interplay
of soloists and chorus is well handled.
Polycarp’s elegy for his recently deceased
dog (poisoned by Arsenico the apothecary)
is amusingly performed by Thomas Dewald.
In the second act the praises of macaroni
are delightfully sung, and the finale’s
mock deaths, when most of the characters
fear themselves accidentally poisoned,
and (actual) reconciliations, provoke
Offenbach to some very characteristic
writing.
Yet, this remains a
minor work, not likely to do anything
to make us revise our views of Offenbach;
it will probably be of enduring interest
only to those with a special interest
in Offenbach. It here receives a good,
competent, but unremarkable recording.
There are quite long stretches of spoken
dialogue and narrative in German. The
documentation includes the full libretto
in German, but no translations.
Glyn Pursglove
Collegium Cantandi Bonn 
for details 
