The Devil's Pleasure Palace
Sat, Aug 18 2012, 2:33AM
Is there an expert on this forum who could enlighten me to the existence of a full recording of Schubert's so called "natural magic" opera The Devil's Pleasure Palace (Des Teufels Lustschloss)? I have been looking for this for quite some time; does it even exist on LP? I know there are recordings of the overture, but I am looking for the whole thing, wierd as the libretto may be.
Is it the case I will have to wait for a Schubert "revival" before I ever see this?
Thanks so much for your help!
Fri, Feb 15 2013, 9:14PM
#2
RE: The Devil's Pleasure Palace
Xerxes - have just stumbled across your post, and sorry you haven't returned. Should you do so: there's an "unofficial" CD recording out there, available from several sources, that won't take much digging up. It's from a broadcast of a 1995 Zürich production conducted by Harnoncourt, who of course has a way with Schubert's operas and has expressed interest in recording DTL. The sound is what you'd expect, but the cast - Robert Holl, the late Inga Nielsen, Eva Mei - isn't bad.
The piece is being revived right now (premiering tomorrow, in fact) in Würzburg, directed by the indefatigable Peter P. Pachl. It's the sort of piece CPO might record, or Marco Polo if it were doing as much as it used to do.
Sat, Feb 16 2013, 6:12PM
#3
RE: The Devil's Pleasure Palace
I’m afraid, Singende Teufel, that Xerxes has already been lost to this forum, but who can blame him considering Professor Parla’s customary condescending response? I’m nonetheless grateful you’ve
revived this thread, if only to show that His Lordships views on “Des Teufels Lustschloss” once again prove His love affair with Wikipedia (although the labeling of Potsdam as marginal of course is vintage Parla). If someone is interested in reliable information on the piece it’s easy to trace some via Hyperion’s website (its “Schubert Opera Arias”-recording with Oliver Widmer contains a charming aria and the, as usual with Hyperion, thoroughly researched booklet is viewable in pdf). I’ve always been fond of the Kertész-recording of the overture, but then again: I’m hardly in the same leage as Parla. (Who knows: perhaps Gramophone’s webmaster hasn’t put Barbirolli’s passionately argued “The musical
highbrow menace” not for nothing on the front page of its website?)
Sat, Feb 16 2013, 6:28PM
#4
RE: The Devil's Pleasure Palace
Hi!
I don't know the music at all, except for the overture, but the Harnoncourt performance mentioned above can be found on CD at:
http://www.operaaddiction.com/cd10349.html
Hope this is of use!
Chris
Sun, Feb 17 2013, 3:09AM
#5
RE: The Devil's Pleasure Palace
Good to see both of these, though sorry about Xerxes. The piece also gets some radio outings in a couple of recordings of concert performances - an Austrian Radio broadcast under Bruno Weil from 1986, and a 1997 one by the Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Janowski. The Janowski surfaced last year on Radio 3.
Sun, Feb 17 2013, 6:10AM
#6
RE: The Devil's Pleasure Palace
Before I leave this, should note some strong singers were involved: Josef Protschka and Edith Mathis in the Vienna performance, Ruth Ziesak, Donald Kaasch and Hans Sotin in Janowski's. We sometimes get to hear more than the lovely overture lilianeruhe mentions (and thanks for mentioning Widmer's Hyperion disc, LR - I'll look it up). Chris J, that is indeed the CD recording I know, from another source. All best.
You may have to wait for some more "revivals", X, to find any recording or much more a live performance of a work that could barely be called even a footnote of Schubert's vast opus.
Out of more than 20 works for the stage, which almost none managed to made a name, except perhaps for the incidental music to Rosamunde (which had been performed in his lifetime, in 1823), only two other works managed to see the light of the actual stage during his lifetime, the short "Posse mit Gesang" Die Zwillingsbrueder and the "melodrama" Die Zauberharfe, both composed and performed in 1820. For all these three works along with a dozen of other minor, more or less, stageworks one can find some recordings of some interest.
The work you are interested in, X, is a very early work, composed around 1813 and performed for the first time only in 1978 (in the marginal Potsdam). Apparently, the "weird" libretto didn't attract any attention of the audience or any potential producer or even performer.
There is plenty of the "core" Schubert compositions that you need a lifetime to explore rather than you try to find the weird footnotes of his output. If you like strange stuff, give a shot to Menotti's The Medium. It may give you some thrills.
Parla