Lortzing: Regina (2CD)

Lortzing's Revolutionary Opera in the Original Version. The mild-mannered, middle-class composer of Der Waffenschmied as a musical firebrand? Regina is indeed a very unusual opera by Albert Lortzing: a romantic political »liberation opera« in which the main characters are workers. They go on strike and sing for their freedom. But Lortzing was neither a politician nor a propagandist. As a librettist he remained, even in a music drama of »serious content, « as is the case in Regina, an uncompromising critic of his times; his texts thrive on his wit, on their author's knowledge of human nature, comical vein, and insightful societal radiography. His music preserves and revives the virtues of the late eighteenth century: buffoonish tempi, sleights of hand, and points, the ideals of cantability and naturalness, the captivating rhythms of fashionable dances, and a bright, discriminating instrumental style. The contrasts of generic character teased out by Lortzing in Regina have all the greater impact – the effects of the grand opera, the pithy freedom songs and trim choral numbers, the melodramatic exaltations transcending the limits or at least straining them. Lortzing's Regina was a political undesirable for many years and first premiered after his death. »Regina awaits better times, « the composer commented, and following this opera it was very difficult for him to find another job as a conductor and to support his large family. He died in January 1851, heavily in debt, in his native Berlin.