Humperdinck: Königskinder

Day 336

Humperdinck: Königskinder

Soloists

Chorus and Orchestra of West German Radio

Richard Kraus

This opera has a couple of minor footnotes in operatic history. First because the original goose girl (the starring role written especially for her) Geraldine Farrar was said to have trained the flock of geese who appeared with her on stage. Whether that is true or just something dreamt up by the Metropolitan Opera's publicity department I don't know, but she certainly appeared for her curtain call on the first night holding a goose. The other context in which it is mentioned is that is an early (perhaps the earliest) example of sprechstimme, that half-speaking half-singing style noted with cross headed notes which Schoenberg used in Pierrot Lunaire.

In fact the history books have not got this quite right. Originally Humperdinck did write this as incidental music to a stage play and used sprechstimme there, but once he turned it into an opera almost all of it disappeared - only one line of sprechstimme remains.

Humperdinck is of course famous for Hänsel und Gretel. That is a gorgeous piece which is perhaps the only post-Wagnerian opera to remain in the repertory. Wagner was such an enormously influential figure that all of his followers, and there were many, simply couldn't survive comparison. Königskinder is, if anything, more Wagnerian than Hänsel: indeed at moments it seems to seriously close to direct imitation - the yearning string figure with its appoggiatura could have come straight out of Tristan. But the Wagner-like music is well balanced with the more gentle folksong-like material which is such a feature of Hänsel. Overall I think that Humperdinck got the balance right. There are some longueurs in the score but generally it does keep moving on nicely. There are some gorgeous bits of orchestral writing as well as some very stunning effects - the use of the piano in Act two to represent the bells works extremely well. This was another old recording (1952) so not all of the detail came through, but it was a studio recording rather than an off-air live performance so the quality was a lot better than yesterday's Spontini. Interesting to note that a young Fischer-Dieskau was in the cast. As soon as he opened his mouth his voice was instantly recognisable.

I can't see this ever becoming a repertory piece in the same way as Hänsel (English National Opera did a revival some years ago). It is too long for a children's opera and some of the choral and orchestral writing is as difficult as anything in Wagner so it is not something that could put on a short notice to fill a gap. But I was very pleased to have heard it.