Search - Die Dubarry, Der Bettelstudent :: Die Dubarry/Der Bettelstudent

Finally! A Complete Dubarry!

Brett Farrell | Cape May, NJ USA | 06/30/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I was very surprised a while back when I was browsing through amazon.germany and saw that a company had released scores of gold and silver era operetta, many of which have no known complete recordings. I was not sure of what the sound quality would be so I was hesitant to buy especially as the CD would have to be shipped from Germany. It didn't take long however before the collection was put for sale on amazon.usa. I jumped and chose the one operetta I wanted the most `Die Dubarry'. I'm glad I did.

The music was clearly recorded a long while ago (1954) but it has been so well digitally re-mastered that the quality is superb. Again it sounds old but it's been nicely cleaned up. Most of the dialogue is on separate tracks but not all of it which I don't care for. It comes in a less expensive cardboard case but that doesn't bother me. The included book doesn't come with a libretto but that would hardly matter because the entire book is in German.

As for the music it is wonderful. I can hear how it would have catapulted Millocker into stardom not to mention earn him his title as one of the three kings of the golden age of Viennese operetta. While `Die Dubarry' isn't the original working of the operetta, it's a later reincarnation of Millocker's original `Madame Dubarry' but the music is primarily the same and it took forever to get this recording so I'm not going to hold my breath for a recording of the complete original.

This is a great bargain priced treasure of a more than worthy operetta that belongs in any operetta fan's collection."