SUPPE: Die Schone Galathee.(Review)

OPERA AND ORATORIO

SUPPE: Die Schone Galathee

[] Bogner, Heyn; Rickenbacher, Kupfer; Koblenz City Theater Chorus, Rhine Philharmonic State Orchestra, Eitler. Text and translation. CPO 999 726

Franz von Suppe (1819-95) is on the shortlist of overture specialists. The trouble is that we seldom get to hear what originally followed these preludes. Suppe was responsible for the inception of Viennese operetta, taking the Viennese vaudeville (or Posse mit Gesang) and crossing it with the Offenbach boufonneries that were sweeping Europe in the 1850s and early '60s. A staff conductor-composer at several theaters, Suppe could furnish the score for a domestic farce with songs quickly, as well as produce something similar to the French imports (and do so for less money). Like his contemporary Johann Strauss II, Suppe was able to imbue his Parisian models with a distinctly Viennese lilt and coziness.

Die Schone Galathee (1865) was a direct answer to the immense Viennese popularity of Offenbach's La Belle Helene (1864; it reached Vienna in 1865 as Die Schone Helena). Suppe and his librettist Poly Henrion, who also must have seen or heard Victor Masses popular opera-comique Galathee (1852), took the basic Greek myth and added, with considerable piquancy, a travesti Ganymede and King Midas. First seen in Berlin, it became a great success in Vienna.

Today, Die Schone Galathee is often blown up like a balloon with extra material. In its original, brisk and bubbly one-act format, the Suppe operetta holds an honorable ...