LORTZING : DER WILDSCHÜTZ

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 25th of August 2013 at 3.03 - 6 pm

LORTZING: Der Wildschütz, a comic opera in three acts
Count von Eberbach.... Daniel Ochoa
Countess von Eberbach...Alexandra Kloose
Baron Kronthal............ Mirko Roschkowski
Baroness von Freiman...Anja Nina Bahrmann
Baculus........................ Lars Woldt
Gretchen...................... Elisabeth Schwarz
Pancratius.................... Gernot Kranner
Nanette........................ Christine Disak
Alice............................ Claudia Goebl
Berta............................ Sera Gösch
Cäcilie.......................... Manuela Leonhartsberger
A Guest....................... David Busch
Vienna Volksoper Children's Chorus,
Vienna Volksoper Chorus & Orch/Alfred Eschwé
(recorded at Volksoper, Vienna by Austrian Radio)

INTRODUCTION 
SELECTION (with sound) 
REVIEW
SCORE 
WEBSITE http://www.albertlortzing.org/

Der Wildschütz (The Wild Shooter, that is, an illicit huntsman, a poacher) oder Die Stimme der Natur (The voice of Nature) is a German Komische Oper, or comic opera, in three acts by Albert Lortzing (1801-1851) from a libretto by the composer, adapted from the comedy Der Rehbock (The Roebuck), oder Die schuldlosen Schuldbewussten (The guiltless self-confessed guilty one, that is, the innocent man who thought he was guilty, and everybody else thought so, too, but he found out he was not; you see how succinct German can be?!)  by August von Kotzebue.

The voice of Nature brings salvation (including happiness and true love) to those who are tossed about by Fortune and Fate, as was Lortzing himself,  a professional pauper sacrificing his talents to the theatre as actor, singer, wordsmith, and composer of music.  He was a good sympathetic
Mensch, not a misanthrope.

The recording on three one-foot-long DGG Schallplatten with Bernhard Klee conducting the Staatskapelle Berlin ( Hornik, Soffel, Schreier, Mathis, Sotin) came into my possession a few years ago, from the trading-house of Slow Boat Records in Wellington.

It is said that Lortzing, in spite of his theatrical and musical gifts, was marginalised by Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Wagner. However,  Wagner probably learned a few tricks from Lortzing, such as writing one's own libretto for an opera, employing the Leitmotiv [in Undine, 1845], and creating an opera about Hans Sachs [1840]; and in this Wildschütz we meet a noblewoman who is an ardent admirer of Sophokles, as was Wagner; and, by the way, Der Wildschütz is a comical reminder of Weber's Der Freischütz, which influenced Wagner so much). Despite their spite,  Lortzing was the most performed opera-composer in Germany for 150 years. His best-known work is Zar und Zimmermann (Tsar and Carpenter) a comedy of errors with Tsar Peter the Great working in a Dutch shipyard to learn techniques for building his own fleet. Casanova (1841) is another one of his baker's dozen.