Raff opera premieres

[Ilja]

I'll give it a shot tomorrow.

[Alan Howe]

Thanks!

[adriano]

Listening to yesterday's Weimar broadcast of "Samson" was a pleasure. I do not bother to criticise the singers, but the conducting and overall playing was quite excellent.

This will be a great pleasure for all Raff fans - and you will discuss all this more in detail. It's an over 3-hour's, immensly rich and felicitous score!

Disturbing extra stage noises, including, groaning, weeping, coughing, vomiting - and particularly a heavy panting after the opera's very last chords (so the audience has to wait for the final applause) belong, of course, to Mr. Bieito's usual scenic effect's catalogue. Hope the CD recording will take out at least this last rubbish.

As usual, recording from the Radio was an adventure. I have three sources at disposal, two of them were cut out already at 35 minutes and the third was OK, except for a second's fraction break during the final ballet (which I could tentatively repair). Suppose they will produce a podcast or somebody else in here was more lucky.

Deutschlandfunk's online player (with programming and recording facilities) is totally unrealiable, as well as internet Radio and digital cable radio - after all we are in the 21st century!

So let's wait until another download appears... Mine is, except as far as that little "repair" is concerned) excellent, with extra editing, as fade ins and -outs and without all the blablah's in-between the acts.

Incidentally, Mr. Bieito is rehearsing here in Zurich a production of Cavalli's opera "Eliogabalo". No better subject for him, I already imagine what all kind of perverse things are going to happen on stage!

[Alan Howe]

I do not bother to criticise the singers

The tenor was awful. By the end he was virtually hoarse.

This is a symptom of a much broader problem, i.e. that we simply don't have the tenors capable of singing this repertoire. Remember: Raff intended the part of Samson to be sung by the great tenor Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld who created the role of Tristan in Wagner's opera. Today, we would need a Vickers, Domingo or Kaufmann to fill the role adequately. Instead we have provincial tenors who have no business singing this repertoire. Sad.

[adriano]

Yes, Alan! A real, robust (and good) Wagner tenor would have been appropriate!
In the meantime I could find another recording of the 3rd act, which had landed on a different chapter of my Sound Card. In other words, my sound files should be mint now. Those who want to burn CDRs from all this, a break during the first act is necessary, since it goes for 82 minutes...

[BerlinExpat]

Those who want to burn CDRs from all this, a break during the first act is necessary, since it goes for 82 minutes...

I use 90 minute CDs for this kind of thing! I have a copy albeit with mini repairs that are practically unnoticeable. I can't upload as I'm ikn Scotland and only have mobile internet with limited capacity.

Act 3 runs to 38 minutes and acts 4 & 5 to 72 minutes.

[Alan Howe]

The recording of Die Eifersüchtigen (to be issued on CD by Stille Liebe) is mentioned here:
https://stille-liebe.de/rafflieder.html#header13-3s  (click on Projects > title of opera)

[adriano]

Raff's "Samson" in Berne:

https://buehnenbern.ch/spielplan/programm/soko-01-samson/

https://wemakeit.com/projects/opera-samson-by-joachim-raff?locale=de

Mark, will you travel?
They also say it will be published on CD (Label: Schweizer Fonogramm), calling it a "world premier recording" - so what about last year's cpo Weimar production? Do they still intend to issue it in spite of those horrible staged extra noises?

[Justin]

Do they still intend to issue it in spite of those horrible staged extra noises?

I hope not. It was difficult to listen to.

[Mark Thomas]

Mark, will you travel?

Unfortunately not, Adriano, I've way too much going on at home at present. To the best of my knowledge there's no prospect of a commercial release of the broadcast recording of the Weimar premiere, although "horrible staged extra noises" doesn't seem to prevent labels issuing other opera recordings. On the other hand, I have now been lucky enough to hear the recording stitched together from the various Die Eifersüchtigen performances in Switzerland last year and it's first rate, so I do hope that'll be available at some stage, though I've no idea which label might issue it

[Mark Thomas]

Here's a very encouraging review (in German) of last week's concert performance of Samson in Bern featuring the cast of the Swiss Fonogramm recording finished just days before.