STRAUSS, JOHANN. Die Fledermaus —complete.

Rosalinde Hilde Gueden (sop.

Eiscnstein Waldemar Kznentt (ten.

Adele sErika Koth (sop

Falke Walter Berry (bass)

Frank Eberhard Waechter (bar.)

Alfred Giuseppe Zamplerl (ten.)

Orlofsky Regina Resnik(sop.

Blind Peter Klein (ten.

Frosch Erich Kunz bar.)

Ida Hedwig Schubert sop.)

Lord Barrymore Omar Godknow

Ivan B. Fasolt

Carikonj Andre von Mattoni

With the Vienna State Opera Chorus and Vienna Philharmonic Or- chestra conducted by Herbert von Karajan. Decca © MET201-3: 0 SET201-3 (three 12 in., 95s. Od. plus 31s. Od. P.T.).

Mono:

Krauss (2/51) LXT2550-1

Karajan (11/55) 33CX1309-10

Ackermann (8/60) 33CX1688-9

Stereo:

Ackermann (8/60( SAX2I36-7

The artists faking part in the Gala Ball Scene are as follows: Rentals Tebaldi (soprano): Vilja from "The Merry Widow". Fernando Corena (bass): Domino. Birgit Nilsson (soprano): I could have danced all night from "My Fair Lady". Mario del

Monaco (tenor): Passio,oe. Teresa Berganza (mezzo-soprano): Lullaby. Joan Sutherland (soprano): Ii Baceo. Jussi BjOrting (tenor(: Dein sot mein gances Hero from "The Land of Smiles". Leontyne Price (soprano): Summertime from "Porgy and Bess". Giulietta Simionato (Contralto) and Ettore Bastianini (baritone): Anything you can do from "Annie get your gun". L(uba \Velitsch (soprano): When, When ,ner du aflein. These performances are accompanied by various small anonymous instrumental groups.

Yet another Fledermaus! A dashing, spirited and exuberant Fledermaus which offers some surprises as well. As on the Columbia version of 1955, Karajan again conducts. But here we have Hilde Gueden (as on the Krauss/Decca set of nine years ago) as Rosalinde; and Erika Köth as Adele. The men are very good without in all cases knocking out their opposite numbers. But I am not quite persuaded yet that this Rosalinde or this Adele are going to make me forget my allegiance to La Schwarzkopf and the slightly neater and sweeter Rita Streich in these roles. But Miss Gueden, if she has not quite the same swooping and flouncing grace, is very good indeed at all testing points: "Mein Herr was dachten sic von mir?" and the Czardas. Perhaps there is not quite so much manner in her acting. Or it may be that there are far more "production touches" in general in this new set than in the older one, so that she does not seem so dominating a lady. For instance, when the pretended French Marquis arrives at the party music is playing very faintly in a distant room and as he comes in, unmistakably, there steals on the air a faint faint snatch of La Marseillaise!

Permissible? Ali, but there is much more than that, much more than the loud applause which greets such things as Miss Köth's "Mein Herr Marquis". There is indeed a whole procession of turns or party pieces added in to the festivities at the place (after "Dui-du)" where custom sometimes interpolates a long ballet sequence. Here we get an inch or so of party music and then, like a cabaret, come the interpolations. Miss Resnik as Orlofsky (not quite as dashing as one could have wished in "Chacun a son gout") is supposed to be entertaining not merely "die schoene junge Ratten" from the Opera but a galaxy of Decca's top recording stars as well. There is polyglottery a la St. John's Wood: jokes in English and Italian as well as the current German and, for the purist I daresay, a very considerable disruption of the kind of mood so far established. Tebaldi leads off with a very serious, slightly heavy but beautiful "Viljalied" (in German). Corena obliges with the sort of song I associate with Yves Montand, also charming. These like every other item elicit a tumultuous welccrne frcm the other guests. Nilsson's song from My Fair Lady is sung in excellent English; does the conjunction of music and artist show up either? I know which comes off second best: the composer. One just longs for him to provide something for this Brunnhilde to get her teeth into! I could have done without del Monaco in this particular drawingroom, but it too earns vociferous applause; Berganza's basque Lullaby is lovely, so are Leontyne Price's "Summertime" and in its daring and agility, Miss Sutherland's Waltz. The late Jussi Bjorling begins "You are my heart's delight" in Swedish and finishes it in German (this has brought us to side five), Simionato and Bastianini get a smile out of the incongruity of their double act and last of all, rather touchingly, Ljuba Welitsch expressing the hope that she is really welcome at the party, sings from the heart Wein, wein nur du allein; thus more or less bringing us back to the locale, if hardly the mood of Die Fledermaus.

What are the rights and wrongs of this interlude? Apparently it follows a tradition honoured on New Year's Eve at the Metropolitan, where other artists not actually singing in the performance contribute something to the party. It is after all only following up the precedent whereby eminent divas in the last century used to sing Comin' through the rye and the Carnival of Venice during the singing lesson scene in The Barber of Seville. (I've heard the Shadow Song thus introduced as late as about 1936 at Covent Garden.)

Some people will frown. I should like to be present when Desmond Shawe-Taylor unpacks his copies. On the other hand I have played it to persons of highbrow and middle-brow taste and neither was in any way "shocked", only amused. After all, one can quite easily skip (or fairly easily, though one would find it easier to begin again with the prison scene).

The great thing perhaps to emphasise is that this is a very lively peformance of Die Fledermaus itself and the spirit, acting and atmosphere really come streaming across the footlights. The stereo is that much preferable, but both seem to me brilliant.

The packaging is sumptuous, with a very clear libretto in Germau with English translation. The whole thing goes into a box which has the plushy feel of afauleuil at the Vienna opera. P.H.-W.