Albeniz: Merlin.(Sound Recording Review)

ALBENIZ: Merlin

Marton, Vaness; Wilson-Johnson, Skelton; Coro y Orquestra Titular del Teatro Real de Madrid; de Eusebio. BBC/Opus Arte OA0888 D (Naxos, dist.), 184 mins.

In the 1890s, the banker and amateur poet Francis Burdett Money-Coutts approached composer Isaac Albeniz with a commission for a trilogy of operas based on Sir Thomas Mallory's version of the Arthurian legends, with Money-Courts himself as the (English-language) librettist. From its inception, the project seems to have been an ill-starred endeavor. Initially, Money-Coutts complained that anothcr composer/librettist team had stolen his idea, causing a delay in the production of the libretto. The libretto he ultimately produced is very weak, bordering at times on the incomprehensible, and it is no match for the wonderful, dramatic music Albeniz gave it. Later on, Albeniz had a great deal of trouble with his printer, anti ultimately a significant portion of the composer's manuscript for Merlin was lost, only resurfacing decades after Albeniz's death. Mere fragments of the second opera, Lancelot, exist, and there is no evidence that Albeniz ever got around to working on the final opera, Guenevere. Other than some of the dance sequences, Merlin was not performed during Albeniz's lifetime. In 1950, a Spanish soccer club sponsored a bastardized staging of the opera, in a performance that must have left the composer whirling in his grave.

This DVD set captures the world-premiere production of the complete version of Merlin, a work that owes its revival to conductor-musicologist Jose ...