Silvesterkonzert Dresden Das Land des Lächelns Thielemann

Live from the Semperoper, Dresden, this year's Silvesterkonzert : Franz Lehar, extracts from Das Land des Lächelns with Christian Thielemann conducting the Staatskapelle Dresden and soloists Pavol Breslik, Jane Archibald, Erin Morley and Sebastien Kohlhepp.  Core Austro-German repertoire, or rather operetta, good natured and stylish.  Just right for New Year's Eve ! Just because it's party time that doesn't mean dropping standards to fit the fashionable market. Lehar's Das Land des Lächelns (Land of Smiles) is closely associated with Richard Tauber, so it's a star vehicle for a good tenor. In Pavol Bresik we have a singer who not only sing but can create Prince Sou-chong as a believable and human personality.

This makes a difference because the libretto is painfully dated : a part created to showcase white people in yellowface, as if real Asians were no more than caricature.  That genre was normal in the early part of the twentieth century, when imperialism and white supriority went unquestioned.  Implicit in the genre is the idea that races cannot mix, and that exotic aliens, despite their erotic frisson, are dangerous to "normal" people. That is just not acceptable today. Fortunately there's enough in the  operetta that it doesn't have to rely on kitsch stereotype. Bresik's Prince Sou-chong is an ordinary, decent man from a culture which Lisa and her friends don't have a clue about. In "Bei einem Tee à deux", we glimpse for a moment how two people can communicate. He knows more about tea than she ever will, so the balance isn't all in her favour.  Bresik is genuinely sexy : he doesn't need a bucketload of makeup in order to pretend to be what he is not. He comes over as a hunk most people would fancy.  He really does command the stage. That "Dein ist mein ganzes Herz" is more than a Big Tenor Moment. Breslik makes it feel real. In the finale, when the song is repeated, he sings with sincere feeling. Despite the smiles Das Land des Lächelns is human tragedy behind a mask of insouciant good cheer. Smiling through tears, like so much of this genre. Anyone can feel that way, whatever their origins or background. 

Jane Archibald was a good Lisa, beautifully crested, and Erin Morley, (costumed like fake Japanese !) a sympathetic innocent.  Secretly, she loves Graf Gustav von Pottenstein (Sebastien Kohlhepp) but that love is doomed. Thielemann gets lively, animated playing from the Staatskapelle Dresden, bringing out the "orientalism" in the orchestration.  The "Chinesischer Hochzeitszug" is a bit of a gallop, but  then it should be. Lisa's rushing into something she doesn't understand, and Lehar is writing facsimile of music he doesn't understand, either.  But's its fun anyway. When you're sad, don't mope, but get on with things as if everything will turn out right.

Kitsch Pagliacci in English and colour

Pagliacci in English, sort of, if you can get past the theatrical accent and awkward singing translation. Richard Tauber , from the film version of Pagliacci, made in London in 1936, shot partly in colour and partly in B&W.  Not  Leoncavallo's Pagliacci but a hybrid,with music by Austin Coates and Hanns Eisler, and adaptations to the libretto by John Drinkwater, Max Kortner and no less than Bertolt Brecht !   Apparently the most expensive British movie made at the time, using a new colour process in some parts, the film lost so much money the company folded. Many involved weren't paid. Bertolt Brecht got his money tho' he didn't do much apart from letting his name be used in the credits.Richard Tauber stars, mainly as "himself" sincee he was the raison d'etre behind the whole show. Modern listeners may cringe at kitsch crossover, but for Tauber, that was a way of life !

Please also see my post Camping out with Franz Schubert where Tauber screws the composer, and he screws Schubert, and  Forbidden Music where Tauber's co star is JIMMY DURANTE, a much better film than meets the eye and a lot better than mostTauber showcases.

Enjoy clips from the kitsch Pagliacci HERE HERE and HERE  Middle link is the notorious "On with the Motley". Rrrrrrrroll your "r"s

Camping out with Franz Schubert

Before Benjamin Appl's  Schubert recital at the Wigmore Hall tonight, a bit of fun.  Franz Schubert at the movies!  That's Richard Tauber on the left, playing Schubert in "Blossom Time",  a 1934 British musical which bears little relation to what we know about the composer. The film is itself based on an earlier German film (and operetta) with apparently even less factual content.  I haven't seen the notorious Blossom Time since I was a kid but even then I thought it was odd. Tauber, one of the great tenors of his time, loved doing crossover and made many strange quasi-musical movies, including one with Jimmy Durante, which is surprisngly good  (READ MORE HERE).

Because Blossom Time was an English movie, Tauber sings and plays the piano at the same time, like Mrs Mills: the performances, have  camp theatrical final flourishes, and the piano is clearly being played from a distance!  Blossom Time was remade in 1946  apparently with even more liberties taken.

Forbidden Music - Richard Tauber and Jimmy Durante

Richard Tauber and Jimmy Durante? In Forbidden Music (The Land without Music) they join forces to capture the popular market. Crossover sinners and singers have always been with us. Paganini was the Lang Lang of his time. Maria Malibran was a sensation at 16, dead at 26, before most singers even begin these days. The modern obsesssion with hating crossover stars says more about bigotry than about music. No one is forced to read the Daily Mail or watch Britain's Got Talent. That Tauber could really sing only makes his participation in commercial kitsch even more  pointed. But those who find fufilment in hate need to sniff out targets to prove how superior they are. Genuinely secure people aren't threatened by others, so why the frenzy?  It's bullying, mob violence by media. Significantly Forbidden Music was written in 1936. "It could never happen in America" cries Jimmy Durante. Oh yes it could.

The principality of Lucca is bankrupt because the natives spend all their time making music, not money. So Austria threatens to invade. (that Austria is mentioned by name is significant too on other levels). So Lucca goes for Lucre and music is banned. Lucca's Economic Miracle attracts International Attention, so a reporter from New York arrives. Jimmy Durante's trademark proboscis looks even funnier when he's wearing early 18th costume. "My giant trunk!" he says, meaning his luggage. Durante's character "Whistler" (pun) pronounces Lucca as "Luck-AH" and mangles local names. But he's no buffoon. He's incensed by repression and supports the locals who want music, even though he's not a musician himself.

Richard Tauber is opera singer Mario Carlini, Lucca's Greatest Export, feted in Vienna. But when he comes home, he's threatened with prison. So concerts have to be organized in secret, through the underground. "There's Revolution in the air!" Even the military are upset. "How can we march without marches?". So Tauber heads a procession of trumpeters, fiddlers and singers who march on the palace. "Let's make music a national industry!" So the Princess (played by Tauber's wife, Diana Napier) reverses the anti-music decree. As if it were so easy in real life. The little opera house opens again and Tauber sings an aria. It's in English, but the sound's so bad and his diction is kaput, so you can't make out the words, but who cares? He does it with a flourish.

Forbidden Music is pretty hammy, certainly not "great art" and no-one had illusions. But as a parable it's a lot sharper than it seems.  It was directed by Walter Forde with music by Oscar Straus (one "s"). Enjoy it here:

Richard Tauber's camp Pagliacci

Made in the exotic alpine environs of Denham Studios, London,  in 1936/7, Richard Tauber's English language Pagliacci ! Apparently the most expensive British movie made at the time, using a new colour process in some parts, the film lost so much money the company folded. Many involved weren't paid. Bertolt Brecht was although he didn't do anything apart from agree to help. Leoncavallo, Tauber, Hanns Eisler, Brecht and Albert Coates conducting the Boyd Neel Orchestra? The mind boggles. You can see part of the movie on a playlist  HERE.