BaL 24.09.22 - Strauss, J II: Die Fledermaus

[CallMePaul]

So is Kleiber: https://www.amazon.co.uk/J-Strauss-D...ar%2C59&sr=1-2

Bizzarely, this is £5 cheaper on Amazon with the Blu-Ray Audio disc than without! I am unable to hear this BAL in real time due to being on holiday but may consider on my return.

[Mal]

Anyone watched: "Oh Rosalinda!" Film 1955?

Any good?

"Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger revisit the world of music once more in their comedy adaptation of Johan Strauss's Die Fledermaus, updated to post-war Vienna. A scintillating, light-hearted musical, it features memorable performances from Michael Redgrave, Mel Ferrer, Anthony Quayle, Anton Walbrook and prima ballerina Ludmilla Tcherina as the titular Rosalinda."

Inexpensive to hire on Amazon Prime.

[Master Jacques]

Anyone watched: "Oh Rosalinda!" Film 1955?

Any good?

"Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger revisit the world of music once more in their comedy adaptation of Johan Strauss's Die Fledermaus, updated to post-war Vienna. A scintillating, light-hearted musical, it features memorable performances from Michael Redgrave, Mel Ferrer, Anthony Quayle, Anton Walbrook and prima ballerina Ludmilla Tcherina as the titular Rosalinda."

Inexpensive to hire on Amazon Prime.

Yes indeed, I reviewed the Blu-ray when it emerged, and loved it. There's a lot going on, in terms of 1955 politics - notably a plea for the allied forces (Russian, American, English and French) to depart gracefully from Vienna 10 years after the war, which they'd done by the time the film came out - but the visual splendour is everything you'd expect from a P&P film, and it looks superb in the Blu-ray remastering.

Great performances from Anton Walbrook (as a not-too subtly gay Falke, finally voiced by Walter Berry), Quayle (the very funny, tight-lipped Russian Orlovsky) and Anneliese Rothenberger (doing her own English dialogue as a classic Adele). Tcherina is gorgeous, too. Only Redgrave seriously disappoints as Eisenstein, ill at ease and singing appallingly. But the whole thing is bright, tight, visually amazing and musically fun too, despite big cuts - notably Roselinda's Czardas.

[Dermot]

Anyone watched: "Oh Rosalinda!" Film 1955?

Any good?

"Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger revisit the world of music once more in their comedy adaptation of Johan Strauss's Die Fledermaus, updated to post-war Vienna. A scintillating, light-hearted musical, it features memorable performances from Michael Redgrave, Mel Ferrer, Anthony Quayle, Anton Walbrook and prima ballerina Ludmilla Tcherina as the titular Rosalinda."

Inexpensive to hire on Amazon Prime.

https://m.ok.ru/video/1498433587950

Enjoy.

[Master Jacques]

https://m.ok.ru/video/1498433587950
Enjoy.

Hmm. I don't think the film can be fairly judged, if watched in a washed-out, old video print on a pirate Russian site - which is what this looks like. I assume the Amazon Prime streaming uses the beautiful, newly-restored and uncut master, supervised by Powell's widow.

When it's Powell and Pressburger, nothing less than the best visuals will do, I think.

[Mal]

Hmm. I don't think the film can be fairly judged, if watched in a washed-out, old video print on a pirate Russian site...

That's not the worst of it!

"Nearly all of the most popular illegal film and TV pirate websites contain malware or credit card scams..."

https://www.itpro.co.uk/security/22139/police-warn-over-malware-threat-from-pirate-video-websites

[Goon525]

I suppose it’s a huge credit to our very own reviewer, an indication of complete acceptance of his views, that no one has posted anything at all about yesterday’s BaL. I would query giving the gold medal to a recording that’s in mono and nearly three quarters of a century old. But I can also see that everything since has areas justifying some serious reservations. I suspect Kleiber’s DVD may well be the happy medium for me.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I missed the broadcast, driving back home after a week in the Lake District. However, I caught up last night, and found it to be a refreshingly honest review of Die Fledermaus recordings.
I found myself fully in agreement with most of the judgements, with two fine recommendations: Krauss and Karajan (both Decca).
…and the dismissal of Harnoncourt, whose conducting of J. Strauss always gives the impression that the conductor hates it.

But I’m still not convinced about Schwarzkopf’s singing in the 1955 Karajan. The odd ugly-sounding syllable can ruin a good musical line.

[smittims]

My wife and I watched 'Oh Rosalinda' on Tv last year. It was of course a very polished , brilliant production, well filmed and acted, but, perhaps because of my liking for the original operetta, it wasn't to my taste. My O.H. whose name is Rosalind and who doesn't know 'Fledermaus' enjoyed it very much.

[Master Jacques]

My wife and I watched 'Oh Rosalinda' on Tv last year. It was of course a very polished , brilliant production, well filmed and acted, but, perhaps because of my liking for the original operetta, it wasn't to my taste. My O.H. whose name is Rosalind and who doesn't know 'Fledermaus' enjoyed it very much.

From the music theatre point of view, I was interested to see Powell and Pressburger pre-empting the more recent trend of radical adaptation, i.e. the placing of the story in a fantasy version of 1950s Vienna, rather than the 19th c. spa town of the original (provincial, so definitely not Vienna, contrary to what many people assume).

I admire the operetta too, but you're right in saying that we need to clear it out of our minds to fully enjoy Oh ... Rosalinda - that's the probable reason they didn't call it Die Fledermaus, to help audiences dislocate themselves from the original. In the event, it was a huge flop anyway, pleasing neither opera lovers nor film fans, for very different reasons!

[Wolfram]

I suppose it’s a huge credit to our very own reviewer, an indication of complete acceptance of his views, that no one has posted anything at all about yesterday’s BaL. I would query giving the gold medal to a recording that’s in mono and nearly three quarters of a century old. But I can also see that everything since has areas justifying some serious reservations. I suspect Kleiber’s DVD may well be the happy medium for me.

I was persuaded by yesterday’s BaL to invest in a cheap copy of the Krauss. I don’t think that I’ll be ditching Boskovsky in a hurry though, there’s too much going for it to do that. It’s such a shame about the Kleiber; with a different Orlofsky it would be my first choice. As it stands it’s a non-starter. The gala can’t be neatly programmed out on my Decca Originals copy of the Karajan; the track points are not in suitable places, which is annoying.

I wonder if the reason that there has been so few comments posted about yesterday’s BaL is because nobody was listening. Everybody was either out shopping or doing other things, caught out by the change of time slot.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've just ordered the Decca Originals Karajan - used, as it's download only now.

[Mal]

I admire the operetta too, but you're right in saying that we need to clear it out of our minds to fully enjoy Oh ... Rosalinda - that's the probable reason they didn't call it Die Fledermaus, to help audiences dislocate themselves from the original. In the event, it was a huge flop anyway, pleasing neither opera lovers nor film fans, for very different reasons!

I love instrumental music & Powell and Pressburger - Black Narcissus and the Red Shoes are two of my favourite films. But I'm not an opera lover, although (of course) loving much of the music. Does the film contain the best music from the opera? Is the orchestra anywhere near Kleiber's & Karajan's? The music in the film is played by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under conductor Alois Melichar. Was the orchestra and conductor P&P's first choice? Would Herrs Kleiber and Karajan, and BPO/VPO, consider films, even P&P, to be slumming it? Interesting that P&P went for an Austrian orchestra, were the British orchestras & conductors a bit put out at not getting the call? Why is the VSO off my radar? Maybe this article explains it:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenslaurson/2015/04/01/the-vienna-symphonys-path-out-of-the-shadow/?sh=7391b8ea26ff

"in the middle of Giulini’s tenure, which began in 1973, things went quite wrong, squabbles broke out and – not unrelated to issues of the orchestra’s (not Giulini’s!) inflated self-importance (not uncommon in the Arts and especially not uncommon in Vienna) – Giulini left in a kerfuffle and the orchestra self-destructed not to properly recover for decades."

Sounds like it would make a good film...

[Mal]

Oops!

Alois Melichar

"He also had a part in propaganda films of the Nazis.
After 1945, Melichar tried to hide his role in the Nazi period."

https://archive.org/details/1-melichar-alois-moussorgsky-ravel-pol-27246-9-1931

"As a music critic, Alois Melichar acquired notoriety by his intemperate attacks on better composers than himself."

https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0006194/trivia

[Mal]

Nothing in the entire history of recorded music is as annoying as Ivan Rebroff on the Kleiber recording.

Kleiber was top of my list before Rebroff happened, that pushed it right to the bottom. What was Kleiber thinking?

In this review, it was like an Antipodean comedy sketch - Dame Kiri de Kanawa at her most beautiful, followed by Dame Edna Everidge as Orlofski.