Lehar: Tatjana.(Sound Recording Review)

* Schellenberger, Fischer; Lippert, Mewes, Schubert; Berlin Radio Symphony and Chorus, M. Jurowski. Text and translation. CPO 999 762-2 (Naxos, dist.)

CPO is to be congratulated for releasing a true oddity, a glistening recording of Franz Lehar's grand opera Kukuschka, first performed in Leipzig with success in 1896, and later retitled Tatjana. Composed long before Die Lustige Witwe and Lehar's other operetta successes, it is an impressive score for a twenty-five-year-old basically trained in the regimental bands of the Austro-Hungarian empire. A contemporary critic called the opera one that the listener "immediately wants to hear again."

Will contemporary listeners want to hear it more than once? A fair question. The libretto, based on a travel book entitled Tent Life in Siberia, has a certain melodramatic appeal. Set in Russia, ca. 1840, the story moves from a Volga fishing village to a Siberian gold mine to the arid steppes, first in burning heat, then in a sudden, blinding snowstorm--the scenic requirements are vast. Alexis and Tatjana, the hero and heroine, meet briefly in Act I, are separated by a prison sentence and freeze together at the finale, allowing for at least two extended love scenes. These are impassioned, if not terribly striking. More interesting are the large choral ensembles, with references to Slavic operas and choruses in the fishermen's anthem to their patron saint; the gold miners' escape scene; and the elaborate convoys of ...