Carl Johann Adam Zeller

This 6CD set contains 100 tracks from the international catalogues of EMI Classics and Virgin Classics of the best songs from the most famous operettas from Vienna, Berlin, London, New York and Madrid.

The operettas represented here are among the most popular and successful ever written, covering the period from the middle of the 19th century to the early part of the 20th century, after which the genre evolved into what we now know as musicals. These operettas produced some of the world’s best-known melodies that have become established in their own right outside of the theatre and have been heard in every context, including concerts, recordings and film soundtracks.

All the items are sung in the language in which they were originally written.

The Austro-Hungarian composers like Johann Strauss II, Franz Lehár and Emmerich Kálmán contribute many gloriously romantic pieces from their timeless operettas, including Die Fledermaus, Der Zigeunerbaron, Gräfin Mariza, Der Graf von Luxemburg, Das Land des Lächelns and of course the immortal Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow).

There is also a representation of the Berlin school of operetta with extracts from works by Eduard Künneke (Der Vetter aus Dingsda) and Walter Kollo (Drei alte Schachtein and Marietta), the latter sung by the composer’s grandson, the tenor René Kollo.

The French operetta tradition is strongly represented by some of the finest operettas ever written such as Orphée aux Enfers, La vie Parisienne and La Belle Hélène by Offenbach, Véronique by Messager and La Fille de Madame Angot by Lecocq.

The works of Gilbert and Sullivan are acknowledged to be the pinnacle of English operetta and they are represented by items like ‘Poor wand’ring one’ from The Pirates of Penzance and ‘Take a pair of sparkling eyes’ from The Gondoliers. Other English composers include Edward German (Merrie England), Ivor Novello (Glamorous Night) and Noël Coward (Bitter Sweet).

In America, a group of composers produced some superb operettas that were fully comparable to the Viennese models that inspired them. These include The Belle of New York by Gustave Kerker, Naughty Marietta by Victor Herbert and The Firefly by Rudolf Friml.

The lively world of the Spanish zarzuela is not neglected, with a generous selection of arias and choruses from some of the most attractive works of this genre, including Doña Francisquita by Vives, Los gavilanes by Guerrero, La taberna del puerto by Sorozábal and La tempranica by Giménez.

All the performances are in authentic style, and the singers are international stars who have appeared in all the major performing centres of the world. Their names include Victoria de los Angeles, Sari Barabas, Teresa Berganza, June Bronhill, José Carreras, Michel Dens, Nicolai Gedda, Barbara Hendricks, Mady Mesplé, Jessye Norman, Lucia Popp, Anneliese Rothenberger, Rudolf Schock, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Rolando Villazón and Fritz Wunderlich.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (1915–2006) is universally acknowledged to be one of the greatest singers of the 20th century. Blessed with a voice of exquisite beauty, as well as a striking physical presence, she shone brightly in opera, excelled in the concert hall and brought a unique artistry to the recital platform. She was signed exclusively to EMI in 1946 by the recording producer Walter Legge, with whom she formed a dedicated artistic and personal relationship, and together they produced a stream of magnificent recordings over almost 30 years. In addition to the tonal qualities of her voice, Schwarzkopf was renowned for her unrivalled communicative ability, which the vocal critic John Steane described as 'almost making the voice visible'. Thus she could translate her charismatic stage presence into purely vocal terms through the medium of recording, and still convey all the dramatic meaning of her songs and operatic characters to listeners who could hear but not see her. This rare quality is evident in all the recordings in this unique collection, which covers a lifetime of work and reveals the development of her art.

The first CD begins with recordings of works by Bach, Handel and Mozart that are among the earliest that Schwarzkopf made for EMI. They show her voice at its freshest and also exhibit her fine legato and appreciable technique in Baroque music.

CD 2 begins with the famous collaboration between Schwarzkopf and the eminent pianist Walter Gieseking in a collection of simple but refined songs by Mozart that reveal great beauty of tone, evenness of line and sincerity of expression in the singing, as well as sensitive accompaniment from Gieseking. These are followed by four of Mozart’s concert arias with orchestra, in which the conductor is the highly regarded George Szell.

At the beginning of her career, Schwarzkopf sang mainly lighter roles and in CD 3 we have a collection of Mozart arias that demonstrate this part of her repertoire in the arias of Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro) and Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), but also a number of lyric roles that she never sang on stage, including Zerlina (Don Giovanni) and Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro). This disc also gives us the chance to compare Schwarzkopf’s totally different characterisation of the three principal female roles in Don Giovanni (Elvira, Anna and Zerlina) and Le nozze di Figaro (Susanna, Cherubino and the Countess).

CD 4 brings us back to the field of Lieder and includes another collaboration with a famous pianist, this time Edwin Fischer, in a highly acclaimed recital of Schubert Lieder, as well as more Schubert songs with her two regular accompanists, Gerald Moore and Geoffrey Parsons.

In CD 5 we encounter the widely varied programmes of songs by a wide-ranging selection of composers – from Mendelssohn and Schumann, through Liszt and Brahms, to Mahler and Medtner and many more in between – that would often be a feature of Schwarzkopf’s recitals. To each of these songs she brings her own individuality and stamps them with her personal qualities of beautiful singing and vivid interpretation.

The next disc is devoted entirely to the songs of Hugo Wolf, a composer whom Legge had championed since the beginning of the 1930s. Guided by Legge, Schwarzkopf became a peerless interpreter of Wolf's compositions. This live recording is of a legendary concert in Salzburg on 12 August 1953 marking the 50th anniversary of Hugo Wolf’s death. The piano accompanist is the great conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler.

CD 7 brings us to Richard Strauss, a composer of whose works Schwarzkopf was a matchless performer. It begins with Schwarzkopf’s 1953 recording of Strauss’s valedictory Vier letzte Lieder, followed by the closing scene from Capriccio, an opera that Schwarzkopf performed a number of times on stage, and ends with scenes from Arabella, which Schwarzkopf sang only in the recording studio.

CD 8 stays with Richard Strauss. It starts with a long extract from the first act of Der Rosenkavalier beginning with the aging Marschallin contemplating the passing of the years in a famous monologue and then going to the end of the act in an extended duet with her young lover, the handsome Octavian. This is followed by the glorious trio from the end of the third act, one of Strauss’s most beautiful compositions for the female voice. Then come 12 of Strauss’s wonderful songs for soprano with orchestra, all conducted in supreme Straussian style by George Szell.

In CD 9 we turn to the lighter side of Schwarzkopf’s repertoire with extracts from a whole range of delightful Viennese operettas, beginning with two of Johann Strauss II’s favourite works: Die Fledermaus and Der Zigeunerbaron. Then come several extracts from Schwarzkopf’s second complete recording of Die lustige Witwe by Franz Lehár, and finally the complete recital of operetta arias that was always one of Schwarzkopf’s must popular albums.

The final CD in the set starts with some of Schwarzkopf’s earliest operatic recordings, when she was singing Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier rather than the Marschallin, and a very youthful-sounding Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel. Then come a varied assortment of operatic arias that recall some of the roles that Schwarzkopf sang in the early part of her career, and the disc concludes with four items from the memorable concert at the Royal Festival Hall, London, in February 1967, when Schwarzkopf joined with her two distinguished colleagues Dietrich Fischer- Dieskau and Victoria de los Angeles to pay homage to that doyen of accompanists, Gerald Moore.

The German baritone Hermann Prey was born in Berlin in 1929. In a career that spanned some 48 years, he became one of the most popular singers of his time and formed a great bond with his audiences through his unaffected and natural style of singing and his personal charm and acting ability. His repertoire was extremely wide and encompassed all the classic German Lieder, as well as a whole range of operatic roles from the lively Figaro of both Mozart and Rossini to more serious baritone parts in Verdi and Wagner, although it is in the lighter roles that he is most affectionately remembered. He enjoyed great success in the world’s major opera houses including Vienna, Bayreuth, Salzburg, Munich, Milan and New York, and also appeared frequently on German TV and in opera films. He died in 1998.

CD 1 begins with two groups of Lieder by Schubert to words by Schiller and Goethe, followed by a selection of 12 Deutsche Volkslieder by Brahms, while CD 2 contains a complete performance of Schubert’s great song cycle Winterreise. CD 3 is devoted to Schumann, including Dichterliebe and songs with words by Kerner, and CD 4 opens with Schumann’s Liederkreis before going on to a collection of songs by Weber.

CD 5 presents six songs by Beethoven, starting with the popular ‘Adelaide’, and these are followed by a group of songs by Liszt, concluding with his setting of Three Sonnets by Petrarch. CD 6 begins with a group of songs by various composers all to words by Goethe that were recorded in 1974 but issued for the first time in 1998 as a tribute to Prey at the time of his death. These are followed by a very attractive selection of German Folk and Wayfarer songs that show Prey in lighter mood.

In CD7 we have a group of ten descriptive ballads by Loewe including his setting of Goethe’s ‘Erlkönig’ and the traditional Scottish poem ‘Tom der Reimer’ (Tom the

Rhymer). This CD ends with a magnificent performance of Bach’s Cantata Ich habe genug with the Orchestra of the Leipzig Gewandhaus conducted by Kurt Thomas that illustrates Prey ‘s talent for German liturgical music and oratorio.

With CD 8 we move to opera in a wide range of repertoire from Baroque and Classical works by Keiser, Gluck and Mozart to the Romantic music of Wagner and Humperdinck. All the arias from French and Italian operas are sung in German, as was the practice in German opera houses at the time these recordings were made.

CD 9 brings us to some more modern operatic items by Leoncavallo Richard Strauss and Korngold and then two powerful arias by Tchaikovsky, after which the mood lifts with extracts from the operettas Gasparone by Millöcker and Boccaccio by Suppé. Finally we have four romantic songs from American musicals that Prey sings in fine idiomatic style. On this CD we also hear Prey’s frequent partner in both opera and operetta, the much loved soprano Anneliese Rothenberger, in several duets.

The final CD begins with arias from a number of German so-called ‘Spielopern’ by Kreutzer, Nessler and Lortzing before concluding in high spirits with items from operettas by those two masters of the genre, Johann Strauss II and Carl Millöcker.