Schubert Fierrabras opera to a libretto by Joseph Kupelwieser. Directed 2014 by Peter Stein at the Salzburg Festival. Stars Michael Schade (Fierrabras), Dorothea Röschmann (Florinda), Julia Kleiter (Emma), Benjamin Bernheim (Eginhard), Marcus Werba (Roland), Georg Zeppenfeld (König Karl), Marie-Claude Chappuis (Maragond), and Peter Kálmán (Boland). Ingo Metzmacher directs the Wiener Philharmoniker. Stage designs by Ferdinand Wögerbauer; contume designs by Annamaria Heinreich; lighting by Joachim Barth. Directed for TV by Peter Schönhofer. Sung in German. Released 2015, disc has 5.0 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA
Richard Wigmore, writing in the September 2015 Gramophone (page 97) suggests this production does as good a job as is possible with the lame Fierrabras libretto. He praises the singing and the "handsome" production with gauze-like backdrops that produce an engraved look that you can see in the artwork above from the keepcase package. He commends "many moments of ravishing Schubertian lyricism" and "ensembles . . . hinting at the operatic masterpiece Schubert might have achieved" with a better libretto.
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