SULLIVAN: Die Piraten (The Pirates of Penzance).(Brief Article)(Review)

SULLIVAN: Die Piraten (The Pirates of Penzance) [] Auger, Modl; Nienstedt, Bahrig, Sandner, Malter; Cologne Radio Orchestra, Marszalek. Notes, no libretto, plus bonus oddities. Gala 100566 (2)

The history of Gilbert and Sullivan in German is a long and busy one, arching from Sullivan's training in Leipzig and his friendship with the future Kaiser Bill to Gilbert und Sullivan, a mishmash of a revue at the Wiener Volksoper in the 1980s. Many of the principal operettas were produced in German, often in the estimable translations of Zell & Genee, the leading librettists for Strauss, Millocker and other nineteenth-century masters. The Mikado generally has been the favorite; here, however, is a German broadcast of The Pirates of Penzance from 1968. (The notes claim this was a televised performance, and I'd love to see a videotape.)

Conductor Franz Marszalek was a distinguished operetta-broadcast/recording specialist, and from his pacing and shaping of the overture you know you will be in for a lively time. The translation here is uncredited, but the story line and characters are kept true to the original -- to a point. "I am a pirate king!" becomes, roughly, "I would rather be a pirate," while "Poor wand'ring one" becomes, less awkwardly and more directly, "Armer Pirat" (poor pirate). But during the first-act finale and in Act II, there are some radical changes. Choruses and solos are reassigned, numbers or verses are omitted, and the role of Ruth is ...