Imagine a German Menotti and you will get a sense of the music of Bavarian-Swabian composer Werner Egk. Both write tuneful, dramatic, compelling, cloyingly dissonant scores with serious debts to Puccini. Egk also is no stranger to opera, Der Revisor (The Government Inspector) being one of a seven-part series of stage works. The libretto, an adaptation by the composer of a Gogol short story, is about a deceitful man who convinces an entire town that he is a much-feared civil servant, one that is supposed to be arriving incognito and possibly could discover all of the town’s dirty little secrets. Being a freeloader, the false inspector pretends to be what they fear, reaping the benefits in wine, money, and women, and just as he is discovered it is announced that the real inspector will be arriving. Curtain.
Egk makes the story into a lean opera buffa, a series of set pieces rather than a Wagnerian continuum. Don’t be intimidated by the fact that it is cast in five acts: no single act runs longer than 27 minutes, and each act is further divided into short scenes, none of which is longer than about six minutes, making a long and involved story easier to grasp. Egk’s score is melodic but not without bite, and his sense of harmony is elegant and always surprising. The vocal writing is well wrought and voice-appropriate, melodic when needed, choppy and bumbling as the story calls for it; the score always serves the drama.
As the charming deceiver Chlestakow, tenor Douglas Nasrawi is sublime and oafish, especially in the drinking scene of Act 2 where he is raving about his many attributes and experiences, none of which are true. Nikolai Galkin is excellent as the manservant Ossip, and as Marja, Chlestakow’s paramour, Cornelia Zink is both sweet and self-assured. Baritone Michael Dries is fine as the stentorian town mayor, as are Nikola David and Felipe Peiró as Bobtschinkskij and Dobtschinkskij, a sort of Russian Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum. Less good is Janet Walker as Anna, the mayor’s wife, whose voice is a little heavy and dark for the part, and who sounds like she is too close to every microphone compared to the others.
The real star of Der Revisor is the orchestra, and Hans Norbert Bihlmaier leads the Augsburg Philharmonic with a steady hand, navigating Egk’s score (which is complex in how often and how quickly it shifts moods) with seriousness and finesse. The recording quality is a little on the muddled side, but not distracting enough to negate an otherwise strong recommendation for this release. Be aware, however, that the printed libretto is only in German.
