11 Oct 2009
Johann Strauss: Das Spitzentuch der Königin
Dear non-German speaking Opera Today reader — what's your first guess as to the meaning of the biggest word in the title of this obscure Johann Strauss operetta?
Recently in Reviews
Diary of a Redneck Opera Zinger
Heldentenor Jay Hunter Morris tells us about the lean times when the phone did not ring, as well as those thrilling moments when companies entrusted him with the most important roles in opera.
Fat Knight in Los Angeles
In its ongoing celebration of Verdi’s centennial year, the Los Angeles Opera offered a new production of Falstaff, the composer’s last and most brilliant opera — brilliant in every scintillating, sparkling sense of the word.
Weber’s Euryanthe, London
Poor Weber: opera companies, especially in England, do him anything but proud.
Early Opera Company: Acis and Galatea
Acis and Galatea was one of Handel’s most popular works, frequently revived in his life time and beyond.
Werner Güra Lieder recital, Wigmore Hall
German tenor Werner Güra, who has made a speciality of the German lieder repertoire, opened this recital at the Wigmore Hall with Beethoven’s An Die Ferne Geliebte, the composer’s only song cycle and the first significant example of the form.
Porgy and Bess in San Francisco
It’s been renamed “The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess,” it hails itself as “The American Musical” and further qualifies itself as “The Porgy and Bess for the Twenty-First Century.”
Arizona Opera Presents a Fine Flying Dutchman
Richard Wagner wrote: "The voyage through the Norwegian reefs made a wonderful impression on my imagination; the legend of the Flying Dutchman, which the sailors verified, took on a distinctive, strange coloring that only my sea adventures could have given it.”
The Rape of Lucretia, Glyndebourne Touring Opera
‘If she is adulterous, why is she praised? If chaste, why was she put to death?’
The Barber of Seville in San Francisco
San Francisco Opera wraps up its fall season of five operas with what it insists is a new production of Rossini’s comic masterpiece.
Britten’s Atmospheric War Requiem, London
On Remembrance Sunday, Semyon Bychkov conducted Benjamin Britten's War Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall with Roderick Williams, Allan Clayton, Sabrina Cvilak, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Chorus, Crouch End Festival Chorus and choristers of Westminster Abbey.
Barbican Britten
The mantle of tenor Peter Pears’ legacy hung heavily over his immediate ‘successors’, as they performed music that had been composed by Benjamin Britten for the man to whom he avowed, ‘I write every note with your heavenly voice in my head’.
Exaudi: O tenebroso giorno — Gesualdo then and now
One year since the launch of their project to create a contemporary book of Italians madrigals, vocal ensemble Exaudi returned to the Wigmore Hall to present an intermingling of old and new madrigals which was typically inventive, virtuosic and compelling.
The Magic Flute, ENO, London
Mozart’s The Magic Flute at the Coliseum could give the ENO a welcome boost.
Madama Butterfly, Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago’s current new production of Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, an effort shared with Houston Grand Opera and the Grand Théâtre de Genève, tends to emphasize emotional involvements against a backdrop of spare sets.
The (Amazing) Nose
Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera, The Nose, based on Gogol’s short story of the same name, was a smash hit for the Metropolitan Opera company in 2010 and once again, this season.
Death in Venice, Festival of Britten
There might not be much ‘Serenissima’ about Yoshi Oida’s 2007 production of Death in Venice — it’s more Japanese minimalism than Venetian splendour — but there is still plenty to admire, as this excellent revival by Opera North as part of its centennial celebration, Festival of Britten, underlines.
“T” as in “Terrific Toronto”
With an absorbing production of Peter Grimes and a freshly spontaneous La bohème, Canadian Opera Company has set the bar very high indeed for its current season.
Two Boys at the Brave New Met
Whatever you think of some of the Metropolitan Opera’s recent productions, you cannot fault the Gelb administration for fearing to take risks.
Wozzeck, Royal Opera
The lustreless white tiles of the laboratory which forms the set of Keith Warner’s pitiless staging of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck offer little respite — cold, hard, rigid and severe, they are a material embodiment of the bleakness and barrenness of the tragic events which will be played out within the workshop walls (sets by Stefanos Lazaridis).
Wexford Festival 2013
At this year’s Wexford Festival — the 62nd operatic gathering in this small south-eastern Irish town - the trio of operas on show present many a wretched battle between duty and desire.
OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »
Reviews
Wrong! The “spitzentuch” of Das Spitzentuch der Königin turns out to be a lace handkerchief, which belongs to a queen. The plot synopsis relates a tale of dubious complexity, built around not only the spitzentuch but a truffle pastry that sabotages a honeymoon, as well as Miguel Cervantes in disguise as an innkeeper. Even with dialogue the two CDs in this CPO set don’t reach 95 minutes in length, and how all the story gets told in that time prompts more curiosity than the tale itself.
So CPO would have done just as well to cut the dialogue and produce a one-CD set of the music, because this is Strauss at his best — ridiculously tuneful and irresistibly toe-tapping. The booklet essays by Ernst Theis (who also conducts the Staatsoperette Dresden) and André Meyer, while stuffed with background detail, make unwarranted and extravagant claims. This is no “forgotten masterpiece.” If, as they both suggest, the libretto let the work down when it first premiered, it continues to do so. But the music! Strauss built one of his most famous pieces, “Roses from the South,” from the score, but there are many delights. Just program your player to omit the dialogue and get ready to kick up your heels.
Ernst Theis obviously loves this music, but he respects it as well — the performance dances, of course, but it also finds the sweetness in the occasional lyric moment. The cast come off as experienced operetta performers, if not the finest singers imaginable. Jessica Glatte sings the Königin of the title. By her booklet photograph she looks the part. The voice, however, tends to warble and lose color at the top. The König is a pants role, and mezzo Nadja Stefanoff gets one of Strauss’s great tunes, which she delivers with more enthusiasm than flair. Tenor Ralf Simon gets another instantly familiar tune in the romanze of Cervantes in act two. He does just well enough to make one wish one could hear a recording of Fritz Wunderlich in the same number.
Some less than ideal vocalizing, however, cannot seriously dampen the charm of the piece. Grab onto this Königin’s spitzentuch for a very pleasant hour — minus the dialogue.
Chris Mullins