Description

Max von Schillings — Mona Lisa, Op. 31, cpo (2 CD)

Brand new! Factory packaged! As pictured! Buy with confidence!

Product Details:

Product Type: Audio CD (2-disc set)
Brand / Label: cpo
Composer: Max von Schillings (1868–1933)
Work: Mona Lisa, Op. 31 — opera in two acts (libretto by Beatrice Dovsky)
Catalogue No.: cpo 999 303-2
Release Year: 1995
UPC: 761203930326
Genre: Classical / Opera (late Romantic)

Product Features

Format: 2 × CD (DDD)
Performers: Chorus of the Kiel Opera, Kiel Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Klauspeter Seibel
Recording: Konzertsaal des Kieler Schlosses, 20–21 December 1994
Made in Germany
Condition: Brand new, factory sealed

Overview

Mona Lisa is the most successful opera by Max von Schillings, a German late-Romantic composer and conductor whose music sits in the rich post-Wagnerian world of Richard Strauss and Franz Schreker. First staged in 1915, it frames a dark Renaissance tale of jealousy and revenge around the figure who inspired Leonardo's painting.

This cpo recording, made in Kiel in 1994, gives the score a committed, full-blooded reading under Klauspeter Seibel, with the Kiel Philharmonic and opera chorus and a strong German cast led by Klaus Wallprecht and Albert Bonnema.

For collectors of rare German opera and the lush idiom between Wagner and Strauss, it's a valuable two-disc account of a work too seldom heard.

Interesting Facts

Max von Schillings was a noted conductor as well as a composer, later director of the Berlin State Opera.
Mona Lisa (1915) was his greatest stage success and was performed internationally in the years after its premiere.
The libretto by Beatrice Dovsky spins a fictional Renaissance drama around the woman of Leonardo's famous portrait.
The score belongs to the late-Romantic German tradition alongside Strauss and Schreker.
The cover reproduces a detail of Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" from the Musée du Louvre.

Track Listing

Mona Lisa, Op. 31 — opera in two acts (complete), across 2 CDs. Cast includes: Klaus Wallprecht, Albert Bonnema, Marek Gasztecki, Karsten Ruß, Ulrich Köberle, Jörg Sabrowski, Bernd Gebhardt, Beate Bilandzija, Eva-Christine Reimer, Amy Lawrence, Gerda Kosbahn. Chorus of the Kiel Opera; Kiel Philharmonic Orchestra; Klauspeter Seibel, conductor.