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Kalman: Csardasfurstin (Die) (The Gypsy Princess)

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Kalman: Csardasfurstin (Die) (The Gypsy Princess)

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Emmerich Kalman (1882-1953) The Gypsy Princess Emmerich Kalman was born on 24th October 1882 in the Hungarian town of Siofok. His father was a well-todo...

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Emmerich Kalman (1882-1953)

The Gypsy Princess

Emmerich Kalman was born on 24th October 1882 in the Hungarian town of Siofok. His father was a well-todo businessman but was reduced to bankruptcy during Kalman's childhood, an experience which left a lasting mark on young Kalman's imagination. The family moved to Budapest, then one of the twin capitals of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and despite his father's determination that Kalman should make a career in law it soon became evident that the call of music was too strong to be ignored. Originally Kalman's ambition was to be a concert pianist, but this was thwarted by an affliction to his arm-muscles. In Kalman's own words "I was as one who had fallen from the clouds, a very serious and very sad young man". Indeed, according to that great historian of Viennese operetta, Bernard Grun, Kalman remained that way inclined all his life. "Even at times of his greatest triumphs", wrote Grun, "the stocky man with the friendly blue eyes generally looked very serious and very sad. Rapture and high spirits were as foreign to his nature as bad manners and uncouthness.

The Csardas-cavalier was a sober and careful citizen who did his work, kept his finances in order and quietly went on his way." But to return to Kalman's youth. He studied composition in Budapest with Professor Koessler, who also taught Bartok and Kodaly. In 1907 his serious compositions won him the prestigious Franz-Joseph Prize of the City of Budapest, but within a year he had registered his first outstanding success as an operetta composer. This was Herbstmanover (Autumn Manoeuvres), which not only brought him to the attention of the operetta moguls in Vienna, but even reached the stages of London and New York. Within a couple of years Kalman had moved to Vienna, a city which, since the rebirth of operetta with Lehar's irresistible Merry Widow in 1905, had been gripped by a positive epidemic of operetta fever. With Der Zigeunerprimas (1912) Kalman achieved what he himself always regarded as his finest score, and it moved the authoritative critic Richard Specht to write: "If, after the experiences of the past season, I were to choose one of the operetta-maestri as the man for whose talents I had the highest hopes, that man would be Kalman." Specht's hopes were not betrayed when, in 1915, Kalman produced what was to remain his greatest popular success, Die Csardasf�rstin (The Gypsy Princess). Outstanding among his later works were the enchanting Grafin Maritza (Countess Maritza) (1924) and Die Zirkusprinzessin (The Circus Princess) (1926), and at least four of his other operettas were a great deal more than merely passing successes. In 1938 Kalman sought refuge from the Nazis in the United States. After the war he returned to Europe and died in Paris on 30th October 1953.

Kalman's great contribution to the musical language of Viennese operetta was to bring to it the brilliant colours, the heady rhythms and the dynamic energy of his native Hungary - not just as an imitator, like so many other composers, but as one who was speaking his own musical mother tongue. By the time he wrote Die Csardasf�rstin he was achieving an ideal blend of Hungarian soul, Viennese elegance and international sophistication. For the audiences which packed the Johann Strauss Theater for a record-breaking run during the dark days of the First World War it mirrored and preserved a way of life which they were beginning to realise had vanished for ever. They left the theatre feeling better than they had when they went into it, a quality which the piece still pre-eminently possesses.

Apart from a marvellously varied score, one which does not contain a single weak number, Die Csardasf�rstin benefits from an expertly constructed libretto by Leo Stein and Bela Jenbach. The characters are vividly etched, the comic dialogue is still genuinely funny, and the volte face which transforms doom and gloom into a happy ending is a classic of its kind. The mainspring of the plot, a mesalliance between aristocrat and showgirl, may seem today like something which could only exist in the pages of operetta, but that is far from true; in London society, for instance, many an eyebrow was raised when the Marquis of Headfort took as his bride a delectable Gaiety Girl named Rosie Boote The basic ambience of The Gypsy Princess is the world of what in London were called the Stage Door Johnnies, and though it may be tempting today to dismiss them as a bunch of idle wastrels it is worth remembering how many of them, whether from London, Vienna or Budapest, had, by November 1918, sacrificed their lives.

Nigel Douglas

Disc 1

Die Csardasfurstin (The Gypsy Princess)

(more info)

Performed by: Budapest Symphony Orchestra Hungarian Operetta Orchestra Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra Schwanen Salon Orchestra Morbisch Festival Orchestra Linz Bruckner Orchestra Cologne West German Radio Orchestra
Composed by: Emmerich Kalman
Conducted by: Richard Bonynge Georg Huber Peter Guth Michail Jurowski Laszlo Kovacs Rudolf Bibl Jan Schultsz
Eva Marton, soprano
Janos Berkes, tenor
Edith Lienbacher, soprano
Marian Vach, choirmaster
Yvonne Kenny, soprano
Ingrid Kertesi, soprano
Adrian Erod, baritone
Herbert Lippert, tenor
Martina Serafin, soprano
Michael Roider, tenor
Mirjana Irosch, mezzo-soprano
Ferdinand von Bothmer, tenor
Kerstin Grotrian, soprano
Harald Serafin, baritone
Frigyes Harsanyi, baritone
Michael Gampe, bass
Gottfried Falkenstein, baritone
Mojca Erdmann, soprano
Marko Kathol, tenor
Karl-Michael Ebner, tenor
Heinz Holecek, bass
Yvonne Kalman,
Hellmuth Klumpp,
Noemi Nadelmann, soprano
Jyrki Niskanen, tenor
Recording date: 9-17 December 2002

Vorspiel - 2:53
Act I: Lied: Heia, heia, in den Bergen ist mein Heimatland (Sylva, Boni, Feri and Chorus) - 3:14
Act I: Marsch: Alle sind wir Sunder (Boni, Feri, 8 men) - 4:11
Act I: Duett: Sylva, ich will nur dich (Sylva, Edwin) - 5:06
Act I: Lied: Aus ist's mit der Liebe (Boni, 8 women) - 3:16
Act I: Lied: O, jag' dem Gluck nicht nach (Sylva, Edwin, Boni, Feri) - 5:17
Act I: Finale I: Ich, Edwin Ronald - 16:11
Act II: Entr'akt - 1:58
Act II: Tanzwalzer: Erstrahlen die Lichter (Chorus) - 3:12
Act II: Schwalbenduett: Ich warte auf das grosse Wunder (Stasi, Edwin) - 4:32
Act II: Duett: Heller Jubel (Sylva, Edwin) - 6:26

Disc 2

Die Csardasfurstin (The Gypsy Princess)

(more info)

Act II: Quartett: Liebchen, mich reisst es (Sylva, Stasi, Edwin, Boni) - 4:22
Act II: Duett: Madel, guck (Stasi, Boni) - 2:38
Act II: Duett: Tanzen mochte ich (Sylva, Edwin) - 3:33
Act II: Finale II: Das Gluck wohnt uberall - 9:34
Act III: Intermezzo - 2:27
Act III: Terzett: Nimm, Zigeuner, deine Geige (Sylva, Boni, Feri) - 3:59
Act III: Duett-Reminiszenz: Madel, guck (Stasi, Boni) - 1:28
Act III: Schlussgesang: Tausend kleine Engel (Sylva, Stasi, Edwin, Boni) - 0:56

Der Zigeunerprimas, "Sari"

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Performed by: Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Emmerich Kalman
Conducted by: Richard Bonynge
Recording date: 22-23 September 2003

Der Ziguenerprimas: Dorfkinder - 6:56
Der Zigeunerprimas: Vive le roi - 4:48

Die Faschingsfee

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Performed by: Chandos Concert Orchestra Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Emmerich Kalman
Conducted by: Richard Bonynge Barry Knight
Marilyn Hill Smith, soprano
Recording date: 22-23 September 2003

Die Faschingsfee: Hollaho, hollaho, wir kommen zurecht - 5:29

Das Hollandweibchen (A Little Dutch Girl)

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Das Hollandweibchen: Lockend soll ertonen Dir ein feurig Lied - 4:10

Der Teufelsreiter

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Performed by: Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Composed by: Emmerich Kalman
Conducted by: Richard Bonynge
Recording date: 22-23 September 2003

Der Teufelsreiter: Grand Palotas de la Reine - 6:51

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Composer(s):
Kalman, Emmerich

Conductor(s):
Bonynge, Richard

Orchestra(s):
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra

Artist(s):
Ebner, Karl-Michael; Erdmann, Mojca; Holecek, Heinz; Kalman, Yvonne; Kathol, Marko; Kenny, Yvonne; Klumpp, Hellmuth; Roider, Michael; Vach, Marian

Label: Naxos DVD Audio
UPC: 747313107568
Item Number: 6110075-76
Release Date: Jan 18, 2005