Search - Gunther Leib, George Frederick Handel, Horst-Tanu Margraf :: Händel: Imeneo

Caveat Emptor: German Handel from the Bad Old Days

Nicholas A. Deutsch | New York, NY USA | 05/20/2004

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Hearing this 1967 recording of Handel's penultimate opera "Imeneo" (first performed in 1740) is like having a time-travel machine - but arriving in the wrong year. It is billed as "after the German version of the Handel Festival in Halle in 1960 by Waldtraut Lewin," and it displays just about every distortion, musical and dramatic, that was perpetrated upon the composer's works at his birthplace until all too recently. Consider: one of Handel's shortest operas - barely over 2 hours of music uncut - is drastically cut to 55'; the remaining numbers are shuffled around and rearranged into 2 new "acts" (the original is in 3); most of the da capo arias are reduced to their "A" sections only, and there are internal cuts too; there is rescoring and also "additional accompaniments" for strings and winds, so that Handel's carefully varied textures are thickened and made monotonous; and, most disastrously, the castrato role of the young lover Tirinto - mezzo-soprano Janet Baker shone in the part in an English-language broadcast - is dropped an octave and sung (or rather snarled) by a tenor. Under the circumstances, to complain about the delayed cadences in recitatives or the lack of vocal ornamentation is beside the point.
On its own terms, the performance is fairly enjoyable. Apart from the unfortunate tenor, the singing is good, the best being by the best-known singer, soprano Sylvia Geszty (Rosmene). But even she is defeated by having so little of her part left to work with.
Berlin Classics have issued some excellent CDs of material from the DDR days, especially a number featuring tenor Peter Schreier. This one, however, can only be considered a curiosity. My advice: buy the new version of "Imeneo" on CPO (999 915-2) conducted by Andreas Spering. This has an excellent musical edition, and is well-sung, well-played and dramatically satisfying. (The all-American version on Vox has some fine singing but makes many poorly-judged cuts and textual choices; overall CPO is preferable.) It will also show you just how far German Handel performance practice has come in a quarter of a century.
[Note: I ordered this CD from ivansheldon; it arrived with a note apologizing for the absence of a booklet, and offering a full refund. The CD itself was fine.]"