Kayser Thron

In November 2019, an opera sensation was to be experienced at the Leverkusen Erholungshaus: 232 years after its creation, a comic opera was premiered with "Scherz, List und Rache" (Joke, Cunning and Revenge), for which no one less than Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had written the libretto. The music for it came from Goethe's childhood friend Philipp Christoph Kayser (1755-1823). Inspired by the Italian buffo opera, Goethe and Kayser wanted to create a new kind of German opera with "Scherz, List und Rache". The result was a turbulent three-person play about a young married couple who were cheated out of their inheritance by an old money-hungry doctor.In 2019 it was conductor Werner Ehrhardt and his ensemble l'arte del mondo who performed this opera rarity for the first time in its original instrumentation for large orchestra. Annika Boos, Cornel Frey and Florian Götz took over the vocal parts peppered with virtuoso passages. This is the world premiere recording of the singspiel in co-production with WDR and Bayer Arts & Culture