Search - Schwarzkopf, Loose, Kraus :: Lehar: Merry Widow & The Land of (2 CD/CD-ROM)

"To praise the performance, the recording, the production of the opera, as they deserve would soon exhaust the limited stock of laudatory adjectives in our language. Otto Ackermann conducts with complete understanding, and notable sympathy for the singers, and the Philharmonia Orchestra play like angels for him. Each of them sounds like a magnum of champagne!" Synopsis Franz Lehár was the leading light of the so-called Silver Age of Viennese operetta in the early 20th century, and Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow), first seen in 1905, became an international sensation. It takes place in Paris among the expatriate community of the impoverished Balkan state of Pontevedro; at its centre are Hanna Glawari, a wealthy young widow with humble roots, and Count Danilo Danilowitsch, a diplomat who would rather spend time at Maxim's than at the embassy. The plot - with its themes of money, infidelity and past loves - is convoluted, but there are many witty and touching moments, and the music is both sophisticated and entrancing: the insinuating waltz that reunites Hanna and Danilo; Hanna's `Vilja-Lied' (a supposed Pontevedran folksong); the rumbustious `Ja, das Studium der Weiber ist schwer'; the swooning `Komm' in den kleinen Pavillon', and the hedonistic `Ich gehe zu Maxim'. Dating from 1929, Das Land des Lächelns (The Land of Smiles), is a bittersweet tale of cross-cultural love between a Viennese countess and a Chinese prince. Written for the legendary tenor Richard Tauber, it is best known for the expansive `Dein ist mein ganzes Herz', known in English as `You are my heart's delight'.