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Mozart: Die Zauberflöte (CD)
"Gerald Finley's gorgeously sung and amusingly characterised Papageno." The Telegraph
Composor: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Conductor: John Eliot Gardiner
Performers:
· Tamino: Michael Schade
· Pamina: Christiane Oelze
· Papageno: Gerald Finley
· Königen der Nacht: Cyndia Sieden
· Sarastro: Harry Peeters
· Papagena: Constanze Backes
· Sprecher: Detlef Roth
· Monastatos: Uwe Peper
· 3 Damen: Susan Roberts, Carola Gruber, Maria Jonas
· 3 Knaben: Andreas dieterich, Jan Andreas Mendel, Florian Wöller
· The Monteverdi Choir
· The English Baroque Soloists
Audio CD (September 17, 1996)
Recorded: Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele 1995
Number of Discs: 2
Label: Polygram Records / Deutsche Grammophon 449 166-2
ASIN: B0000057FN
Click track titles below to hear music samples
First Act - Nr. 2 Arie: Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja
First Act - He! Du da!
Second Act - Nr. 20. Arie: Ein Madchen oder Weibchen wünscht Papageno sich
Second Act - Papagena! Weibchen! Taubchen! Pa-Pa-gena! Pa-pa-geno!
What the critics say
From The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/1996/10/26/bmreck26.xml
John Eliot Gardiner's Mozart opera recordings with original instruments have a big following. The mixture of sublimity and naive comedy, unrivalled in any opera, is most appealingly blended by the conductor, working with a cast which seems to have completely absorbed his delightfully unportentous approach.
This cast is headed by a well-matched Tamino and Pamina in Michael Schade and Christiane Oelze, fresh and young voices ideally complemented by Gerald Finley's gorgeously sung and amusingly characterised Papageno. Cyndia Sieden's Queen of the Night sails imperturbably through her two arias, Harry Peeters is an imposing Sarastro and Constanze Backes a pert Papagena. Everyone has ideas what Die Zauberflöte is 'about'; the pleasure of this recording is that it is about wonderful music.
From The Rough Guide to Opera, 3rd edition, Matthew Boyden, 2002
As usual with Gardiner, the approach is crisp and vital, and this Zauberf/Ote skips along with an irrepressible energy - occasionally at the expense of the work's innate generosity of feeling. Gerald Finley's Papageno and Constanze Backes's Papagena are lightly voiced but wonderfully spirited and articulate; Cynthia Sieden is an acrobatic, but slightly characterless, Queen of the Night; Christiane Oelze makes an outstanding Pamina in a beautifully judged performance and Michael Schade's Tamino warrants comparison with the finest of his predecessors. The period band and small chorus perform with their customary precision, but overall this account lacks the flexibility and theatricality of the Christie account.
Barrymore Laurence Scherer for Opera News
This recording, based on performances at the 1995 Ludwigsburg Festival, represents the final installment of John Eliot Gardiner's series of Mozart operas. As with much of his work, it is controversial but never dull. The main point of contention concerns his tempos. The overture rattles along so quickly that it is almost reduced to caricature, and the speed is maintained throughout the opera, though not without flexibility. Cadences and important phrase climaxes do receive a bit of breathing space.
Nevertheless, Gardiner gets his singers to perform with noteworthy artistry. The various delicate vocal ornaments don't call attention to themselves for their own sake but form part of the complete musical fabric. Michael Schade and Christiane Oelze make a winning pair of lovers, blending beautifully and creating a genuine sense of empathy for their situation. Cyndia Sieden's Queen of the Night evokes cool silver and etches some finely delineated textures out of Mozart's fiendish coloratura. Gerald Finley's dark baritone lends unexpected weight to Papageno, and Harry Peeters is a Sarastro of some distinction.
The English Baroque Soloists are in fine fettle, following Gardiner's hell-for-leather lead with gusto. Gardiner by now has proved himself a conductor and stage director for whom drama is essential to interpretation, not merely a hurdle to be gotten over as easily as possible. Whether this persuasive performance ultimately convinces you, however, is a matter of taste.
Pamela Margles, The Whole Note
http://thewholenote.com/wholenote/back_issue_main.html
A comparison with…
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Magic Flute
Rosa Mannion, Natalie Dessay, Hans Peter Blochwitz, Anton Scharinger. William Christie, conductor. Les Arts Florissants
Erato 0630-122705-2 (2 CDs, Full Price)
In recent years, two of the best recordings to appear of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's beloved opera The Magic Flute are based on period performance practices. Their conductors, William Christie and John Eliot Gardiner are both pioneering masters of a performance style that continues to gain mainstream acceptance. Both recordings feature lighter, more flexible voices than we usually hear in opera houses, accompanied by smaller orchestras playing either instruments to Mozart's time, or accurate copies: violins and cellos with gut strings, wooden flutes and valveless horns. Vibrato is used more sparingly, and ornamentation more broadly. Tempos are faster, and rhythms more articulated. How close these recordings come to sounding like what Mozart would have heard is ultimately hard to say, but they certainly make for irresistibly enjoyable listening.
Christie takes a more intimate approach, creating a theatrical, responsive ensemble. He is freer with ornamentation, even reviving, for his delightfully over-the-top Three Ladies, a cadenza that Mozart wrote but later eliminated. His Queen of the Night, Natalie Dessay, achieves intimacy in a role often weighted down by pyrotechnics. With no cost in dramatic heft, she is gloriously light and clear.
Gardiner conducts a sleeker, grander, more serious production. Yet throughout he achieves thrilling momentum. His equally outstanding cast includes two Canadians: Gerald Finley as a colourful, mellifluous Pappageno, and Michael Schade as an ardent Tamino, especially splendid in an extended recitative passage with the Speaker.
These two beautifully produced recordings do not displace earlier versions by Böhm, with Fischer-Dieskau and Wunderlich, or Klemperer, with Janowitz and Gedda, but they certainly hold their own against such classic accounts.
BBC Music Magazine
Performance: Four out of five stars
Sound: Five out of five stars
With stiff competition from Norrington on EMI and Östman on L’Oiseau-Lyre, Gardiner’s Magic Flute enters the period instrument stakes somewhat belatedly. It offers no major musicological revelations – no reinstated numbers or serious reorderings that often come with period Mozart these days. Its only textual novelties are the trumpets and drums at the start of Act I, where in accordance with Mozart’s original manuscript Tamino is pursued by a lion rather than a snake, and a selection of numbers, presented as an appendix, sung to the alternative texts given in the first printed score. As a performance, it’s much as one would expect from Gardiner – the tempi sometimes too brisk for comfort, and featherlight textures on occasion seeming to defy gravity. But on its own terms, and with the dialogue pruned to about half, it makes for an exhilarating and unitary experience. The singers, as usual, are young and light of voice (Harry Peeters’s Sarastro too much so, though, judging from his transgendered appearance in the booklet’s production shot, maybe with good reason), and range from the outstanding – Christiane Oelze’s Pamina, Gerald Finley’s Papageno – to the perfectly adequate and occasionally inspired – Cyndia Sieden’s Queen of the Night and Michael Schade’s Tamino. All in all, those happy with the Norrington or Östman can rest content, but for those loyal to Gardiner’s Mozart series or without a period-instrument Zauberflöte, this won’t seriously disappoint.