Composer: Franz Lehár
Performer: Morenike Fadayomi, Zora Antonic, Reinhard Alessandri, Thomas Malik, Gerhard Balluch, Thomas Zisterer, Chor des Lehar Festivals Bad Ischl
Orchestra: Franz Lehár-Orchester
Conductor: Wolfgang Bozic
Number of Discs: 2
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: CPO
Catalogue: 777148-2
Release: 2006
Size: 532 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
Eva
CD 01
Act I
01. Vorspiel
02. Heissa, jucchheia (Larousse, Chorus)
03. Dialogue
04. Im heimlichen Dammer der sibernen Ampel (Eva)
05. Dialogue
06. Bestimmung, Fatum, das ist alles (Octave, Voisin, Prunelles)
07. Dialogue
08. Nur keine Angst, hier kann nichts passieren (Pipsi, Dagobert)
09. Dialogue
10. Um zwolfe in der Nacht (Pipsi, Octave)
11. Dialogue
12. Finale I: Halt! Einen Augenblick, ihr Leute! (Eva, Octave, Prunelles, Larousse)
CD 02
Act II
01. Retten Sie mich, Dagobert (Pipsi, Dagobert, Prunelles, Teddy, Fredy, Chorus)
02. Dialogue
03. March: Hat man das erste Stiefelpaar vertreten (Tutti)
04. Dialogue
05. Rechts das Mannchen meiner Wahl (Pipsi, Dagobert, Prunelles)
06. Dialogue
07. Erschrecken Sie nicht! (Eva, Octave)
08. Dialogue
09. Octave, gesteh’dir’s ein (Octave)
10. Dialogue
11. Ziehe hin zu deinem Vater (Pipsi, Dagobert)
12. Dialogue
13. Eva, Sie sehen reizend aus (Eva, Octave)
14. Dialogue
15. Finale II: Silentium, silentium (Eva, Pipsi, Octave, Dagobert, Teddy, Fredy, Chorus)
Act III
16. Wenn die Pariserin spazieren fahrt (Eva, Pipsi)
17. Dialogue
18. Gib acht, gib acht, mein schönes Kind (Eva, Teddy, Fredy, Chorus)
19. Dialogue
20. Sagen Sie nur, Pipsi (Dagobert, Pipsi)
21. Dialogue
22. Finale III: Ein Madel wie Sie, so nett und so fein (Eva, Octave, Chorus)
The premiere in 1911 was a scandal but also a gigantic success. It was above all a triumph for Lehar’s music, with the Neue Freie Presse (the top Viennese bourgeois publication of the day) pronouncing the following verdict: “In none of the earlier operettas does one find such a fine and elegant execution of the scenes, numbers, and finales.”
Eva is a major operetta, one that was regarded as revolutionary in its time (1911) for its social implications, being the story of a poor factory worker romanced by the wealthy factory owner, and how other workers try to step in and break up the liaison. Musically, Eva also represents one of the last blasts of “old Vienna” before World War I silenced its unique brand of culture forever. However, for some reason, Eva has remained elusive on recordings outside of excerpt performances and antiques, and CPO’s Franz Léhar: Eva comes courtesy of the Franz Léhar Festival in Bad Ischl, which has since 2003 done an excellent job of reviving Léhar’s neglected operettas every summer. This recording features an excellent cast, led by soprano Morenike Fadayomi in the lead and tenor Reinhard Alessandri as her well-heeled, would-be suitor.
This is about as ideal a recording as Eva could merit, given its long eclipse in the repertoire; the singing is excellent and the orchestra, led by Wolfgang Bozic, sounds great. Nevertheless, the CPO package is a little less than ideal for non-German-speaking audiences, as the performance contains all of the spoken dialogue segments and there is no libretto in the booklet whatsoever. There might be some way to obtain an English-language libretto for Eva separately, and listeners for whom the printed summary is sufficient may prefer to program the dialogue segments out of the piece during playback. The two-disc set consists of one long disc and one short one, and one wonders if CPO considered the option, in preparing this work for the international market, of withholding the dialogue segments and issuing the music on a single disc, in which case an English summary would have made more sense. At least those of us who could never figure out why there wasn’t even a bad recording of Eva available can breathe a sigh of relief that this good one has arrived.