Strauss Fledermaus

Performances from Pamela Coburn, Brigitte Fassbaender, Janet Perry, Eberhard Wachter, the Choir und Ballet der Bayerischen Staatsoper, and the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Rosalinde, wife of Eisenstein, is having an affair with Alfred. Eisenstein is due to begin a prison sentence the next morning, and the prison governor, Frank, is expected to collect him at any moment. However, Eisenstein allows himself to be talked into attending a fancy dress ball by Dr Falke, and when Frank arrives to find Alfred with Rosalinde, he assumes him to be Eisenstein and carts him off to prison.

“A glittering account of the most perfect of all operettas, with an incredibly starry cast, all in peak condition. Karl Böhm's conducting is relaxed but sparkling.” (BBC Music Magazine)

Willi Boskovsky was born and trained in Vienna and served as concertmaster of the great Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra for forty years. The outstanding performances of Viennese waltzes and other music by Johann Strauss II – The Waltz King – as well as by his father Johann I, and his brothers Josef and Eduard which are presented on these CDs make clear that Boskovsky thoroughly mastered the essence of this delightful musical idiom. This is beautiful music superbly conducted and played by people who understand and love it. All of the Strauss favorites and many delightful lesser-known works are included. Very highly recommended.

Seit der Gründung im Jahr 1981 ist es der Wunsch des Ensembles, dem Publikum mit kontrastreichen Programmen die vielfältigen Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten der Bläserbesetzung näherzubringen.
Mit brillanten Arrangements Strauß'scher Kompositionen knüpft "Art of Brass" an die im 19. Jahrhundert übliche Praxis an, bekannte Kompositionen für die damals sehr beliebten Freiluftkonzerte mit Militärmusiken zu bearbeiten. Die Werke von Johann Strauß Sohn und seiner Zeit, sowie die Weiterentwicklung der wienerischen Musik bis hin zu Fritz Kreisler werden hier in unprätentiösen, kammermusikalischen Bearbeitungen realisiert, die auf bodenständigen Traditionen beruhen.

Johann Strauss Junior’s second operetta, Der Carneval in Rom, premiered in 1873 only one year before Die Fledermaus, and while the music is enjoyable enough, with several nice tunes, there is little in the score to presage the gorilla blockbuster soon to come. For one thing, Strauss wrote the music in the more romantic style of light opera because the work was originally scheduled to be mounted at the Vienna court opera, a place of more serious mien than the Theater an der Wien, then the home of the comic-oriented Viennese operetta.