Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)
Cardillac (1926 version)
Cardillac’s Daughter – Vera Lotte Boecker (soprano)
The Lady – Stephanie Houtzeel (soprano)
The Officer – Herbert Lippert (tenor)
The Courtier – Daniel Jenz (tenor)
Cardillac – Tomasz Konieczny (baritone)
The Provost Marshal – Evgeny Solodovnikov (bass)
The Gold Merchant – Wolfgang Bankl (bass)
Vienna State Opera Chorus & Orchestra/Cornelius Meister
rec. live, 5 November 2022, Vienna State Opera House, Austria
German libretto and English translation included
Capriccio C5530 [2 CDs: 95]
Cardillac seems to be experiencing a moment in the sun in the past decade. A wonderful new recording appeared on BR Klassik in 2023 (review) and now there is this new release from Capriccio which was recorded live in Vienna in 2022.
This is now the third recording of Hindemith’s tale of the pathologically obsessed goldsmith Cardillac. The opera is based on one of E.T.A Hoffmann’s better short stories, Mademoiselle de Scuderi. The tale concerns the madness of the goldsmith Cardillac, whose obsessive love for the jewelry that he creates causes him to murder those who purchase it from him.
The performance recorded here was originally made by the ORF for a radio transmission and has some of the expected less desirable features associated with that. Occasional stage noises are audible but it doesn’t occur often enough to cause major concern. The recording is reasonably well balanced although the orchestra sounds a bit distant, as are the voices at times.
Tomasz Konieczny has a real gift for playing villains, the natural sneering quality of his voice (something that Tito Gobbi had) makes his portrayal of Cardillac into a real example of the Nasty Canasta style of malevolence. His tone is always firm and incisive, if a touch one dimensional over the course of the opera. This is a very fine achievement overall. Indeed his singing at times reminded me very much of the wonderful bass Matti Salmimen.
As Cardillac’s daughter, Vera Lotte Boecker gives the most convincingly girlish portrayal of the role on any recording. Her pleasantly vibrant soprano shimmers and glows in what is the only sympathetic role of the opera.
The rest of the roles are all smaller, and on this occasion they are quite well characterized. Stephanie Houtzeel’s Lady starts off in slightly hoarse voice but she quickly recovers and gives a wholly admirable performance of the role. She is partnered by Daniel Jenz’s sweetly musical tenor as the Courtier, whose life is cut short in mid coitus by Cardillac. Wolfgang Bankl also makes a convincing contribution as the gold merchant and thankfully his voice is different enough from Konieczny’s to be able to tell them apart in their scene together.
Herbet Lippert ‘s tenor has now become too unyielding of tone to give much pleasure as the Officer, although it is an unpleasant character in any case. At the opening of the opera Evgeny Solodovnikov gets things off to a splendid start with his solid, granite-like tone as a very fine Provost Marshall.
Cornelius Meister conducts this consistently fascinating score with good attention to detail. He seems to be at his best in the illumination he brings to the more chamber-like sections, such as the well-known duet for two flutes, during which the first on stage murder occurs.
However this recording does come into direct competition with the wonderful BR Klassik version conducted by Stefan Soltész. To my ears Soltész does a better job of conveying the inner tension of this score and he is given the better, more immediate and atmospheric sound engineering. This is interesting because the BR Klassik version was also recorded live, at a single performance. It was however, a concert performance and it would seem that Munich’s Prinzregententheater is a much livelier recording venue than the Staatsoper in Vienna. This is not the first time I have noticed how full and spacious sounding are recording projects deriving from the Munich venue, as many of Ivan Repušic’s recordings for BR Klassik have shown.
Additionally the Munich recording, generally speaking, has a finer cast than this one. This is especially true of Markus Eiche’s Cardillac. Eiche’s warm, resonant baritone offers a much more complex anti-hero than Konieczny, at least in audio-only terms. Konieczny gives a really fine performance but Eiche’s achievement is just that much better.
However; one fact may sway the prospective purchaser to this new Capriccio recording; the inclusion of the full libretto with a good English translation. The BR Klassik set comes with a lengthy plot description (Capriccio’s plot summary is woefully inadequate) but having the full libretto to consult while listening to, what is for many an unfamiliar score, should not be underestimated. I suspect that this will cause the purchasing public to opt for this version over the BR Klassik. Overall they will not be disappointed by the experience of Cardillac” im Wiener stil.”
Mike Parr
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