Kalman: Die Bajadere, Operetta in three acts

Bonynge, Richard, WDR Funkhausorchester Köln

CPO 777 982-2

The Bayadere celebrated its premiere in Vienna on 23 December 1921. A few months later, on 18 February 1922, the Metropoltheater in Berlin staged this operetta by Emmerich Kálmán. His music brings together Hungarian folk melodies and the Viennese waltz, displays operatic and melodramatic elements, and illustrates the American dance rhythms of its times. In addition, it offers exotic tone colors like those of the tárogató and specific rhythms designed to satisfy the longing for the faraway, foreign India. These ingredients came with the guarantee of musical success. This work numbers among the genuine highlights in the Hungarian composer Kálmán’s operetta oeuvre. In 2014 the WDR presented a concert performance of The Bayadere and then went on to produce this work in the studio. We are happy and proud now to be able to release this benchmark production on cpo. Following the performance operapoint. com wrote: »The great Richard Bonynge opened the operetta’s vibrant introduction with plenty of energy and stormy drive, astonishing for this world-renowned Australian conductor who is now in his seventies. The elegant, slender gentleman with a full head of white hair who has always loved the operetta and whose discography includes many CD recordings in this field led the WDR Orchestra and the WDR Chorus with precisely trimmed conductor’s gestures, so that here Emmerich Kálmán’s famous Bayadere experienced the right interpretation.«

CD x 2

CPO

29.12.16

761203798223