Engelbert Humperdinck: »Königskinder«

Description

Engelbert Humperdinck is often called a one hit wonder. Apart from »Hansel and Gretel« noone knows the other works of this Wagner pupil. But as conductor Ingo Metzmacher explains, »Humperdinck was no mere Wagner imitator, but a highly individual composer who deserves to be taken seriously in his own right.« Metzmacher has long been a passionate champion of Humperdinck’s other fairy tale opera, »Die Königskinder« (The King’s Children); equally so Maestro Jeffrey Tate who some years ago conducted a staged production of the opera in Naples. The elaborate »Märchenoper« tells the story of a young prince who goes out into the world and falls in love with a maidservant tending geese. When he returns to court with her, his subjects revolt and refuse to acknowledge him as their sovereign anymore. Of course the influence of Wagner is clearly heard in the musical language, but Humperdinck’s predilection for folk songs shines through, keeping his music more elegant and slender than that of his supposedly superior mentor. The premiere of »Die Königskinder« at the New York Met in 1910 was a triumph. To hear the opera in concert performance under the baton of Jeffrey Tate allows for a focus on the many musical delights the work has to offer. Hamburg born soprano Michaela Kaune – a member of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and recently Bayreuth’s celebrated Eva – sings the fated maid, and the King´s Son is the young American tenor, Brenden Gunnell, who made quite an impression when he stepped in as a last minute substitute in Elgar’s »The Dream of Gerontius« at the Laeiszhalle in 2012. They are supported at the highest level by the Internationale Chorakademie Lübeck, the Tölzer Knabenchor and the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, Jeffrey Tate’s own orchestra.