The music from this show has been delighting audiences for more than three quarters of a century, but though there have been a few good recordings of excerpts from it, this is the first of the entire score, contained on two CDs. It is a handsome recording, impeccably cast. David Rendall is vocally dashing as Prince Karl Franz, the hapless monarch who falls in love with a tavern barmaid while a student in Heidelberg. His singing of the famous “Serenade” is so virile, his tone so ringing and true, that it is unthinkable that the object of his affections could resist for a minute. As that focus, Marilyn Hill Smith proves to be a prize worth winning, a soprano with warm, focused tone and sure technique. Her stratospheric high notes in “Come Boys, Let’s All Be Gay, Boys” really set your pulse pounding. Together, the two leads make “Deep in My Heart” a most memorable duet. Opera veteran Norman Bailey scores with rich, sonorous tones in “Golden Days”, and tenor Bonaventura Bottone sings such a heady “Drinking Song” that you want to join in, with voice singing and glass clinking. Conductor John Owen Edwards really gets inside this music and imparts his enthusiasm to the virtuoso musicians of both the Ambrosian Chorus and the Philharmonia Orchestra.
This recording was made just before producer John Yap switched over to Dolby Surround, and it seems just a wee bit shallow and lacking in stage depth when compared to other recordings in Jay’s Master Works Edition series. But don’t let that stop you; the sound is still very good, clean, and well balanced. And this is the performance of a lifetime–vital, alive, and bursting with joy and enthusiasm.
