Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Strauss: Jakuba

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

This is Johann Strauss' "Serbian" operetta, the fourteenth of his sixteen works for the lyric stage, its composition inspired by the quintessential Bohemian comic opera, Smetana's The Bartered Bride. Jakuba, oder Das Apfelfest (1894) was commissioned for Vienna's public celebration of fifty years of Strauss' career as a composer. The Waltz King incorporated polka and mazurka tunes into his Slavic operetta, and it has some splendid choruses, too. The setting of Jakuba is in the Balkans, in a little town in Serbia, where matchmaking goes on at the annual apple festival. According to custom, a girl bites into an apple, gives it to her chosen suitor and, if he, too, takes a bite they are considered partners.

The staging of Jakuba during the 1894 Strauss Week was a triumph. The dances from Jakuba were played all over Vienna and beyond. However, over time Strauss' Serbian operetta became obscured by the international fame of Die Fledermaus and The Gypsy Baron.

Jakuba received its world premiere recording in 2005 in the Czech Republic. The native Viennese operetta specialist Christian Pollack was called upon to lead the European Johann Strauss Orchestra (actually members of the Brno Symphony Orchestra) and the Gaudeamus Choir of Brno. The entire singing cast was brought in from Vienna. Naxos Records issued Jakuba on two CD's in 2007 in its "Operetta Classics" series.