Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Fall: Madame Pompadour; Boismortier: Don Quichotte

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

The theme for this Sunday's two-part program might whimsically be titled "The French Are Funny." Part one of today's presentation isn't French at all, really. It's a Viennese operetta by Leo Fall (1873-1925), the subject of which is the illustrious mistress of King Louis XV of France. She was involved in the intrigues of the court of Versailles. Fall's Madame Pompadour, his last operetta, premiered not in Vienna, but in Berlin in 1922. Its light heart and lyrical soul remains in Vienna; the Vienna Volksoper has staged it in 1955, 1986 and again in 2012, that third production being recorded for release through the German CPO label in 2014 on one generously timed compact disc. Andreas Schuller directs the chorus and orchestra of the Volksoper.

Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689-1755) wrote a lot of instrumental music in the ornate Rococo style, but he also wrote four lyric stageworks, one of which is Don Quichotte (1743). It is styled a "comic ballet" in three acts, and while there's plenty of dancing and good dance tunes in it, it is essentially a satirical theaterwork- a French baroque sendup of the Spanish author Cervantes' novel, which was satirical to begin with. The cultural resources of the Lorraine region of France made possible a studio recording of Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse. Hervé Niquet directed his period instrument ensemble Le Concert Spirituel, with eleven vocal soloists. That recording was issued under the Naxos label on a single compact disc in 1996.