The Devil's Pleasure Palace
Sat, Aug 18 2012, 1:33AM
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!
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