This classic set wears
its age with amazing grace and dignity.
Although there have been subsequent
recordings of Humperdinck’s evergreen
opera few have captured the work as
successfully as Pritchard and company
do here.
From the first Pritchard
paces the work with care and obvious
affection for the music. His efforts
are responded to with charmingly unforced
playing from the Gürzenich Orchestra,
though they also bring a knowing incisiveness
to interpreting the musical idiom. In
the overture, perhaps more than elsewhere,
one becomes aware of the close influence
of Wagner’s orchestral idiom upon Humperdinck,
though the Witch also carries some inference
of this. The significance of the Wagner
influence does not escape Pritchard’s
keen ear, and through incorporating
it he adds depth to this Feenoper
- no Wagnerian pun intended. The recorded
sound has a slight bloom to it in the
brass and strings particularly and this
heightens the Wagnerian sensation, whilst
Humperdinck is also his own man too.
The undoubted strengths
of the set continue when it comes to
the voices too. Were I to think of two
singers active in the late 1970s to
assume the title roles, the pairing
of von Stade and Cotrubaş would
be hard to beat. Individually and in
their extensive passages together they
succeed in bringing a sense of wide-eyed
wonder to their roles. In terms of vocal
size and timbre they fit each
other ideally, with von Stade sounding
convincingly boyish too. In contrast,
the opera’s other pair, Mother and Father,
make their presence felt through more
mature - and conventionally operatic
sounding - use of their voices. Christa
Ludwig one can imagine in the role of
mother, and Siegmund Nimsgern provides
an apt foil to her slightly blowsy assumption
of the role.
The four singers so
far considered bring style and intelligence
to their roles, but were one to look
for sheer beauty of singing - whilst
not foregoing any of the aforementioned
style and intelligence - then the contributions
of Kiri Te Kanawa and Ruth Welting would
surely be prime for your attention.
For me Ruth Welting’s well nigh matchless
Dew Fairy would almost be enough reason
in itself to consider the set.
But then there’s the
wicked witch. Elisabeth Söderström,
ever one to assume a character role
with gusto in her own inimitable style,
doesn’t hold back and really goes for
it. I’d steer clear of gingerbread houses
if I were you, children.
It’s a shame to be
even slightly curmudgeonly when there’s
such fun to be had, but I found the
documentation (track listing and synopsis)
to be serviceable, though I almost missed
the thin booklet tucked in between the
card of the case’s front flap. The biggest
drawback for some might be the PDF file
of the libretto on CD 2, which can be
accessed via your PC or Mac’s CD-ROM
drive. The presentation means that one
can only view and print off the original
text and the three full translations
simultaneously, all of which run to
52 printed pages. Surely giving users
a choice of available translations from
a menu to begin with would be more user-friendly
and economical with paper too. In an
age when record companies make the consumer
shoulder the printing of support material
such concerns have to be considered.
When it comes to the
music however, this is a set without
a weak link and it provides continual
pleasure.
Evan Dickerson
Children’s chorus of the Cologne Opera 
