TRACKLISTING

1 Im Chambre séparée (Heuberger: Der Opernball)
2 Ich schenk mein Herz (Millöcker,
arr. Mackeben: Die Dubarry)
3 Ich bin die Christel von der Post
(Zeller: Der Vogelhändler)
4 Sei nicht bös (Zeller: Der Obersteiger)
5 Du sollst der Kaiser meiner Seele sein
(Stolz: Der Favorit)
6 Als geblüht der Kirschenbaum
(Zeller: Der Vogelhändler)
7 Draußen in Sievering
(J. Strauss, rev. Stalla: Die Tänzerin Fanny Elssler)
8 Schwips-Lied (J. Strauss, rev. Paulik:
Eine Nacht in Venedig)
9 Mein Herr Marquis (J. Strauss: Die Fledermaus)
10 Es muß was Wunderbares sein, von dir geliebt zu werden
(Benatzky: Im weißen Rößl)
11 Im Salzkammergut (Benatzky: Im weißen Rößl)
12 Du nur bist das Glück meines Lebens
(Dostal: Die Vielgeliebte)
13 Strahlender Mond (Künneke: Der Vetter aus Dingsda)
14 Vilja-Lied (Lehár: Die lustige Witwe)
15 Sah ein Knab’ ein Röslein stehn (Lehár: Friederike)
16 Einer wird kommen (Lehár: Der Zarewitsch)
17 Meine Lippen, die küssen so heiß (Lehár: Giuditta)
18 Wien, du Stadt meiner Träume (Sieczynski)

BARBARA BONNEY soprano
Ronald Schneider piano

RECORDING INFORMATION

Perhaps best known for searching performances of lieder repertoire, American soprano Barbara Bonney here focuses her attention to detail on a range of delightful songs from operettas including favourites by Lehár, Strauss and Stolz.

Barbara Bonney is no stranger to the world of operetta. Her stage repertoire includes the title role in Lehár's Die lustige Witwe, and the famous Vilja-Lied is included here.

Having held many prestigious musical posts in Austria and Switzerland, including the Graz and Lucerne opera companies and the Vienna State Opera, Ronald Schneider provides authentically Viennese accompaniments helping to reveal these songs as gems of vocal storytelling.

Operetta evolved in the mid-nineteenth century as the favoured musical theatre entertainment for the world’s expanding urban populations. It was Paris that led the way with the satirical works of Jacques Offenbach; but the most widespread and lasting impact probably came from the romantic Viennese operetta founded upon the allure of the Viennese waltz.

It was the waltz king himself, Johann Strauss, who created the first real classic of the Viennese operetta repertory. Die Fledermaus is a typical tale of high jinks at a Viennese society ball. In “Mein Herr Marquis”, the singer makes fun of a supposed Marquis’s suggestion that she is his maid. Such disguises and mistaken identities were a staple ingredient of operetta. We find them again in Der Opernball, composed by sometime engineer, later music critic Richard Heuberger and set at a Vienna Opera Ball. Originally a duet, “Im Chambre séparée” portrays a young lady’s attempts to entice her innocent young naval cadet partner into the intimate seclusion of a private box.

The real glory days of Viennese operetta came with the works of Franz Lehár whose Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) was Viennese operetta’s greatest ever international success and helped reinforce the glamour that attached to the Austrian capital around the time. This is also well depicted in the song “Wien, du Stadt meiner Träume”, an independent sentimental song by Rudolf Sieczynski.

Other operetta compositions featured on this album include two songs by Carl Zeller, a Viennese civil servant by profession and a composer only in his spare time, from his biggest successes, Der Vogelhändler (The Bird-Seller) and Der Obersteiger (The Mine Foreman).

With the outbreak of World War I and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, operetta, and Lehár himself, became more serious in tone, reflected here in Der Zarewitsch (The Tsarevitch), Friederike, and Lehár’s very last work, Giuditta, composed for the Vienna State Opera on a much larger scale than usual, and something of a reworking of the Carmen story.

Im Chambre separée is a diverse collection of operetta songs by the principal composers of the repertoire. It provides a musical journey through the differing styles of the genre sung by one of today’s best-loved artists.