Search - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Alfons Rischner, Carl Schuricht :: Mozart: Zaide

A live broadcast from Stuttgart in 1956 of one of Mozart's least-known stage works. Although it was never finished, Zaide contains one of Mozart's most exquisite soprano arias, "Ruhe sanft," quite the equal of anything in his later masterpieces and alone worth the price of admission. The other music is often very good also, especially Gomatz's first aria, Allazim's appeal "Ihr Mächtigen," and the final quartet. For this 1956 revival, celebrating the 200th anniversary of Mozart's birth, conductor Alfons Rischner employed an adaptation by Anton Rudolf that fills out some of the missing parts and changes some of the text to make it less stilted to a modern audience. Of special interest in this performance is the singing of the now-legendary tenor Fritz Wunderlich, whose exemplary diction, perfect pitch, intelligence, and polished technique, allied with an instrument of exceptional agility and beauty, has enshrined him as one of the great German singers of the twentieth century. Wunderlich's tragic early death at age thirty-five shocked the musical world, and connoisseurs ever since have treasured his relatively limited discography. This CD is rounded off with a bonus track of Wunderlich singing Tamino's serenade from Mozart's The Magic Flute.