ABERT: Ekkehard.(Review)

ABERT: Ekkehard [] Van Ingen, Kelling, Fujimura; Kaufmann, Reiter, Gerhaher, Hempel, Bohm; Stuttgart Choristers, South German Radio Orchestra, Falk. German libretto only. Capriccio 60-080 (2)

Among composers of late-Romantic German opera, such names as Engelbert Humperdinck, Hermann Goetz and Siegfried Wagner occasionally come up, but you won't hear much about Johann Joseph Abert (1832-1915). Born in Bohemia, he worked for decades in Stuttgart, but the distinguishing feature of his operas is their absorption of French influence, thanks to a prolonged period of study in Paris. Capriccio's CD revival of Ekkehard (1878) stems from a concert performance aired over South German Radio in 1998 during the Autumn Music Days at Bad Urach. Those who can read German will be ahead of the game, as only the original libretto is supplied, and the English plot outline leaves out a lot. Perseverance is advised, however: this opera is worth hearing.

The story combines warlike monks and an Ortud type of pagan sorceress with a too-good-to-be-true duchess and her chivalric love affair with Ekkehard, a monastic tutor knight (how else to describe him?). Thanks to Abert's genuine gifts as a melodist, the score is more appealing than its subject. In his efforts to emulate Wagner without sounding too modern, Abert wrote page after page of lovely, natural-sounding dialogue to his own stilted, rhymed text. The climactic love duet of Act III, divided in parts like the duet from Un Ballo in Maschera, is a cornucopia of distinctive; generous ...