Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Lehar: Das Fuerstenkind

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

Sentimental Viennese operetta always figures in my summertime programming. Who could be more songfully sentimental than Franz Lehar (1870-1948)! I have broadcast recordings of all of his famous operettas: Die lustige Witwe (" The Merry Widow,"1905), Das Land des Laechelns ("The Land of Smiles," 1924) and my personal favorite Giuditta (1934).

I've also come up with recordings of his more obscure or less successful ventures in the genre. "The Merry Widow" is a classic of its kind, but stylistically it's conventional compared to Das Fuerstenkind ("The Prince's Child," 1909), whose lush orchestration looks forward to Lehar's later Silver Age works.

The story of "The Prince's Child" is pretty typical of operetta: a Greek nobleman leads a double life. He's a legitimate head of state, but he's also the head of a band of robbers. His princess daughter has been kept in the dark about his alter ego. The robbers prey upon tourists to Greece. A young American hostage falls in love with the robber/prince. Complications spring from the kidnapping of this girl, and what the princess learns about her father.

Das Fuerstenkind was recorded in radio broadcast from Munich in 2010. Ulf Schirmer conducts the Munich Radio Orchestra and the Chorus of Radio Bavaria. "The Prince's Child" was released in 2013 on two compact discs through the German CPO label, in co-production with Radio Bavaria.