Album Reviews

Elliot Fisch

Conductor Salvi seems to know what he’s doing in these unchartered waters, and the tempos seem appropriate. The orchestra plays well, and the chorus is hearty. © 2022 American Record Guide

Joanne Sydney Lessner
Opera News, February 2022

Led by Dario Salvi, the performance is stylish and vibrant, with an energetic chorus and strong soloists. © 2022 Opera News Read complete review

Richard Bratby
Gramophone, November 2021

…Dario Salvi conducts with lively rhythmic directness. The momentum never sags and the woodwind-playing, in particular, has a real sparkle in its eye. Martina Bortolotti von Haderburg glows brightest as the opera singer Pauline, with Andrea Chudak bringing a suitably soubrettish glint to her friend Justine, while Annika Egert sings the youthful Freda with a sweet, plangent tone and a tight, brittle vibrato that works well in the context.

…I suspect you will want to return to this set…for the sheer richness and quality of Strauss’s inspiration. Waldmeister is a wonderfully melodious score, and stage productions and alternative recordings are clearly well overdue. Which is not to say that this wholehearted (and necessary) venture from Naxos is anything other than very welcome indeed. © 2021 Gramophone

George Hall
BBC Music Magazine, October 2021

While not one of Strauss’s A-List operettas, musically Waldmeister is a skilfully written, often attractive piece, with impeccable orchestration and melodies from the impressive pot-pourri overture onwards that represent the composer near his best. © 2021 BBC Music Magazine

Infodad.com, October 2021

…Dario Salvi does a first-rate job with the music, and many of the soloists handle their roles with considerable skill. Among the women, Martina Bortolotti von Haderburg stands out as Pauline, a Dresden Opera singer who refuses to be scandalized by such matters as the appropriate dress to be worn when playing lawn tennis (another “modern” element of the plot). Among the men, Friedemann Büttner’s broad characterization of Professor Müller works well… The Sofia Philharmonic Chorus is quite fine, and the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra plays the music with all the enthusiasm it requires. © 2021 Infodad.com Read complete review

Gerald Fenech
Classical Music Daily, September 2021

Truly Sparkling Music

Dario Salvi’s attention to detail and animated conducting serves the composer’s intentions to the hilt and does justice to his luscious music. As for the singers, they are a perfectly synchronized team that perform with a true depth of feeling. Chorus and orchestra contribute splendidly with some impressive singing and playing.

This issue is a tribute to the courage and determination of Naxos to complete this unique cycle. Indeed, the recording was made between 13 and 19 January 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bulgaria Hall, Sofia. While we are grateful for this heroic effort, we await with eagerness the last piece that completes the jigsaw: Indigo und die vierzig Räuber (Indigo and the Forty Thieves). © 2021 Classical Music Daily Read complete review

The Light Music Society, September 2021

…a wholly enjoyable listen, which leaves one feeling charmed and energised in equal measure by this compelling argument for a long neglected work, aching to get back to our opera houses! © 2021 The Light Music Society Read complete review

Remy Franck
Pizzicato, September 2021

The Strauss operetta Waldmeister, which premiered in 1895, is a turbulent love story. A Waldmeister punch plays an important role in it, because under the influence of the alcohol the right couples find each other in the end. The casting is striking: of the six male roles, five are filled by a tenor voice.

With this studio production Naxos presents the world premiere recording. This is astonishing, for the music is quite attractive and imaginative. This is already evident in the beautiful overture. In it Dario Salvi proves the quality he wants to give to this interpretation.

Almost all of the singers can please and that is considerable, because even most of the tenor roles could be cast satisfactorily. The imaginative music of Johan Strauss is well served, and the world premiere recording is undoubtedly successful. © 2021 Pizzicato

David Denton
David’s Review Corner, September 2021

Following on from last year’s critically acclaimed release of Johann Strauss’s long forgotten operetta, Blindekuh, we now have the equally neglected, Waldmeister.

For the years that followed its premiere in Vienna in 1895, it received almost a hundred performances, critics of the time writing highly favourable reviews. It started out with the dubious idea of marrying a new libretto to the existing music Strauss had composed for the operetta, Jabuka. This new text proved to be a hopelessly complex story, and it was soon left to become the poor relation to the massive box office success he was enjoying with Der Zigeunerbaron and Die Fledermaus. Described as an ‘Operetta in Three Acts’, I hesitate to even summarise the plot’s tangled web, but taken down to ‘bare bones’, it relates a series of relationships between young people that begin in a rustic backdrop. Then as we move into a higher financial scenario, there are the obligatory disguises required in such comedies, with the jealousy and fun that ensues. To confuse things even further, there are roles for a very large solo cast of ten plus an active chorus, but I am sure I would have enjoyed it a great deal more if Naxos had provided an English translation. The best they offer is a German libretto you can download from their Website. So long stretches of spoken dialogue are totally lost on me, and I guess that will be true for most others who acquire the release. The performance took place last year just for this recording in Sofia and uses much the same cast, mostly of German-born opera singers, that appeared in Blindekuh. It is headed by the Italian-born lyric soprano, Martina Bortolotti von Haderburg, in the central role of the seductive and sexually provocative Pauline, while the second act introduces the American bass-baritone, Robert Davidson, and the young German tenor, Noah Schaul, though my attention was turned towards the excellent Daniel Schliewa in the high tenor role of Botho, the influential Forest Steward. Keeping the operetta moving at an admirable pace, and obtaining first class playing from the Soia Philharmonic, Dario Salvi, continues his quest to discover ‘lost’ works that we should hear. The recording team have excellently balanced the singers and orchestra. © 2021 David’s Review Corner

After Blindekuh, already a great success, Naxos offers us Waldmeister, whose sumptuous music deserves our full attention… and that of the theatres of the World!

And the great Artisan of the success of this Waldmeister is the “Meister”, precisely! Maestro Dario Salvi, whose attentive, refined, alternately restrained and fiery conducting marvellously serves the composer’s intentions and does justice to his beautiful music.

As for the singers…a team of a beautiful homogeneity.

The Sofia Philharmonic Chorus efficiently prepared by Slavil Dimitrov launches joyfully into the languorous caressing phrases distilled by Johann Strauss and gives a beautiful depth to the finales, even more impressive.

The Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra sounds good, always supple, and at turns intimate or ample, brilliant and exuberant but always measured, under the attentive and poetic control of Maestro Salvi, dosing his effects and tempi to perfection, scrupulously faithful to the indications that Johann Strauss himself specified on his score. © 2021 Operetta Research Center Read complete review

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