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Opera News/November 2005 |
STEPHEN MUDGE |
Humperdick: Königskinder, Montpellier, 27 July 2005
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Montpellier
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For many festival goers the concert performance
of Die Königskinder was the highlight of this year’s operatic offerings, and
fortunately the evening has been recorded for future CD release.
Humperdinck’s work has never achieved the popularity of his Hänsel und
Gretel. The work is both long and wordy, but the music is rich and
expressive. Armin Jordan conducted an uncut version of the Expressionistic
score to the manner born, and the evening took on a majestic sweep that
fully justified Puccini’s reported enthusiasm for the Met premiere in 1910,
with Geraldine Farrar as the Gänsemagd — a first night that followed the
debut of the Italian composer’s own La Fanciulla del West by just fifteen
days. In addition to the magnificent conducting of Jordan and the vibrant
playing of the Orchestre National de Montpellier, the evening benefited from
outstanding singing from the two main principals: Jonas Kaufmann as the
Königssohn and Ofelia Sala as the Gänsemagd.
Kaufmann showed himself to be the finest of young German lyric tenors,
with broad, muscular phrasing and clear, unflaggingly resonant tone,
while Sala rose magnificently to the moving final scene, where the two
“Königskinder” find love and royal status, but die poisoned by the loaf of
bread baked up in Act I by the heavily pregnant, spitefully malicious witch
of mezzo Nora Gubisch. (Armchair analysts might care to consider just why
Humperdinck had it in for children in both of his best known operas.) There
was also great singing from an experienced line-up of artists in secondary
roles especially baritone Detlev Roth as the Spielmann, the ever faithful
Lithuanian Radio chorus and the delightful Töchterchen of the young Nelly
Lawson. |
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