Franz Lehár composed
Der Graf von Luxemburg in three weeks in
1909 and didn’t think very highly of it. It turned out to be, however, his
first success since
Die lustige Witwe four years earlier and there
are parallels between the two works. The action takes place in Paris and a
central theme is how the promise of wealth affects love and marriage.
Musically they are also reminiscent of each other and both are miles away
from the more serious operettas Lehár created in the 1920s and 1930s. The
libretto had been used before, by Johann Strauss II no less, for his
unsuccessful
Die Göttin der Vernunft, but it was reworked quite
extensively.
The story in short: A Russian prince has fallen in love with a French
opera singer, Angčle but he can’t marry her since she is a commoner. He
offers René, The Count of Luxemburg, who is destitute, 500,000 francs to
marry his beloved and then divorce her three months later. That way Angčle
will become a Countess and the prince can marry her. René and Angčle must
not see each other during the wedding ceremony and René has to go abroad
until it’s time for divorce. When he comes back he goes to the Opera and
sees Angčle on stage and is attracted to her. At a party afterwards they
meet and fall in love at once – without knowing that they are already
married to each other. Well, that’s a nice start for an operetta.
The lack of libretto in this set makes it a bit difficult to follow the
proceedings properly and the synopsis is only of limited help. There are no
link-references to the musical numbers. As in
Die lustige Witwe
there is a string of pearls of nice melodies. Lehár as well as his
near-contemporary compatriot Kálmán, were marvellous tunesmiths and even
though the operetta genre nowadays seems out of phase with general taste no
one can deny that here are melodies galore that immediately stick. Take
almost any modern musical comedy and there is, at best, one tune that tells
often because it pops up over and over again.
In
Der Graf von Luxemburg there are enough hit songs for more
than a half-dozen musical comedies. Take Juliette’s chanson (CD 1 tr. 5) for
instance. It is one of Lehár’s great songs. Go then to the Act I finale,
where we first get
Sie geht links, er geht rechts followed in due
time by the lovely waltz
Bist Du’s, lachendes Glück CD 1 tr. 16).
In Act II there are more hits. Juliette and Brissard sing
Mädel klein,
Mädel fein (CD 1 tr. 20) and Angčle and René sing
Lieber Freund,
man greift nicht nach den Sternen (CD 1 tr. 22), and there is a lot
more to come on CD 2.
The Osnabrück Symphony Orchestra play well under Daniel Inbal and the
chorus, who are quite busy in the first act make honourable contributions.
Of the soloists the secondary couple Juliette and Armand Brissard are very
agreeably sung by Marie-Christine Haase and Daniel Wagner. Both are equipped
with beautiful lyrical voices. Marco Vassalli’s high lyric baritone is also
a pleasure to hear.
In the title role Astrid Kessler has star quality as the prima donna
Angčle. Mark Hamman is an excellent character singer and creates a
three-dimensional portrait of Prince Basilowitsch. Eva Schneidereit sings
Countess Stasa Kokozow’s couplets with great expression - albeit a bit
blowsily.
There have been several recordings of this operetta. As early as 1909
Deutsche Grammophon released nine 78 rpm records with excerpts sung by the
original cast and conducted by Lehár. After that a great number of excerpts
or complete recordings in various languages were issued. The classic
recording in the original German is Willy Mattes' EMI version from
1968 with the stellar cast of Nicolai Gedda, Lucia Popp, Renate Holm, Willi
Brokmeier and Kurt Böhme. That set is hardly surpassed by this new one but
in their own right Inbal and his soloists present a wholly attractive
recording.
Göran Forsling
