Weill: the Firebrand of Florence.(Sound Recording Review)

[] Fuller, Palmer; Gilfry, Dvorsky, Russell Beak; BBC Symphony, A. Davis. Texts and translations. Capriccio 60 091

The Firebrand of Florence is probably the most European of Kurt Weill's American stage works, an outright operetta, with Jacques Offenbach its model and a Berliozian Benvenuto Cellini its subject. Given its premiere on Broadway in 1944, it was also Weill's only American flop. The score remains a favorite among the composer's devotees. It's blatantly, almost unrecognizably romantic, yet spiked with Weill's trademark irony and with sassy lyrics by Ira Gershwin. (However, Cellini's courtroom defense pales beside Liza's in Weill and Gershwin's Lady in the Dark.) Saddled with a corny book by Edwin Justus Mayer, the show has resisted efforts to resuscitate it, with only one staged revival (Ohio Light Opera, 1999) and an out-of-print recording of excerpts (Kurt Weill on Broadway, EMI Classics 5 55563, featuring Thomas Hampson) to its credit.

That could change, thanks to this recording, from a label that already has preserved performances of many of Weill's neglected treasures. The present album, on two discs, offers the complete Firebrand score, from the work's British premiere, a concert performance in London, from ...