ENGLISH VERSION + 7 MUSIC VIDEOS!
I want to do it differently now! The "Music videos" or "audio videos" below - it doesn't matter, how people call them - give an overview of Rudolf Schock's lifelong dealing with the role of 'Tassilo' in Kálmán's operetta 'Countess Mariza'.
More than 'Edwin' in 'The Gypsy Princess' 'Tassilo' gives a tenor opportunity to impress vocally and interpretatively. Adding to that, Rudolf Schock throws himself into the role with unrestrained, almost boyish verve. I love that, because it hits me in the soul! Schock combines bel canto and verismo. Together with vocal beauty, sounds a fast radical realism, which enables him to portray "real people" in a convincing manner.
Fono Forum's music critic Thomas Voigt in 2016: "...Rudolf Schock with fast all the pregnant sense of taste of the real actor..." and in 2017: "...he acts here with the eloquence of the actor, who 'accidentally' can sing extremely beautiful too...".
Schock's 'Countess Mariza'-recordings in 1954 (under Wilhelm Schüchter), 1962 (under Frank Fox) and 1967 (under Robert Stolz) I don't review here. All the good, that I wrote in my text about 'The Gypsy Princess' also applies to 'Countess Maritza'! However, with the help of some audio video's I would like to take you back to Schock's very first 'Countess Mariza'-recording of the late forties and his very last of the middle eighties. Particularly I focus on a complete, although acoustically mediocre, broadcast recording of March 1958 and a feature film of the same year.
Schock's 'Countess Mariza'-recordings in 1954 (under Wilhelm Schüchter), 1962 (under Frank Fox) and 1967 (under Robert Stolz) I don't review here. All the good, that I wrote in my text about 'The Gypsy Princess' also applies to 'Countess Maritza'! However, with the help of some audio video's I would like to take you back to Schock's very first 'Countess Mariza'-recording of the late forties and his very last of the middle eighties. Particularly I focus on a complete, although acoustically mediocre, broadcast recording of March 1958 and a feature film of the same year.
1947/48 on a 10-minute 78 rpm phonograph record with some highlights. This is the first operetta-recording of Rudolf Schock:
March 1958: almost complete broadcast recording under the musical direction of Werner Schmidt-Boelcke and with virtuoso assistence of Toki Horváth and his Hungarian Gypsy Band. This recording seemed to be deleted. However, in the meanwhile it is happily risen from the ashes (a.o. on Membran/Documents No.: 233001). With one single reserve: the mono recording is acoustically moderate. Nevertheless, I'm happy with it!
Kálmán's dream couple Sári Barabás & Rudolf Schock fills a vacuum in the history of gypsy-operettas on sound carrier.
On YouTube I put three tasteful music examples:
1) Tassilo's nostalgic memories of happier times in Vienna (1th act):
2) The tense and exciting, grand finale of the 2nd act:
3) The relatively modest finale of the 3rd act, but with a rarely heard "Ode to Women" by Tassilo! Rudolf Schock never recorded this ode.
It's a pity, that Schock only sings the refrain lyrics, but his overwhelming performance compensates a lot:
1958: Imre Kálmán's 5th dying day in 1958 must have been the reason, to release TWO cinema films with his music.
1958: Imre Kálmán's 5th dying day in 1958 must have been the reason, to release TWO cinema films with his music.
'The Czárdás King' (dir.: Harald Philipp) is more or less Kálmán's biopic and the FILM 'Countess Maritza' (dir.: Rudolf Schündler) is "based on the operetta with the same name". In other words: the film should not be seen as the real operetta filming.
About the FILM 'Countess Maritza':
Estate manager Tassilo is called Michael now, and Maritza remains Maritza. About the FILM 'Countess Maritza':
The plot is close to the operetta story. However, the film's heart is the supposedly chance meeting of Michael (Rudolf Schock) with the simple, but spontaneous puszta girl "Etelka" (Christine Görner). This happens in the sunny 'Burgenland' as the ideal background for a romantic film in technicolor.When it appears, that "Etelka" IS Michael's noble employer, film and operetta after all go hand in hand in the emotional scene, in which Michael is shaking off his so experienced humiliation by singing 'Come, Gypsies!!'.
Kálmán's music from the operetta is substantially reduced in the film. Probably by Bruno Uher (1912-1976), musical director of the film. Famous songwriter Robert Gilbert (1899-1978) would have written all the lyrics, but the original Brammer & Grünwald-lyrics from the operetta are also there.
Rudolf Schock, meanwhile nice experienced in film, acts relaxed in front of the camera, while actress and opera/operetta-soprano Christine Görner (1930) is keeping sentimentality at distance with playful irony (look at her eyes!). It's understandable, that later on she interpreted songs of Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht with pleasure and great success.
Thanks to "Fritz51267" I should like to highlight a YouTube-upload from the film:"Rudolf Schock ('Mir geht's gut/I'm doing well') & Christine Görner ('Höre ich Zigeunergeigen/When I hear gypsy violins')":
Christine Görner does not sing the song as Countess Maritza from the operetta, but - fooling with Michael - as country girl "Etelka". Her body language expresses naive wonderment: "Who am I, that I should hear music like this and...where lives love, Michael?". Rudolf Schock's 'I'm doing well', that he sings for "Etelka" in the back of the covered wagon, is from Kálmán's operetta indeed, but not in this form! His text is new, but the melody is from the very first music number of 'Countess Maritza', sung by a young gypsy woman. Her song is dark and forboding: "Happiness is a short dream...". I assume, Robert Gilbert wrote Schock's new text and focused it on the forced mixture of the sense of perspective and defeatism, with which Michael looks back upon his life. It's remarkable, that his later outburst of anger in "Come, Gypsies!!' is in the most sharp contrast therewith!
Lyrics: 'I'm doing well/Mir geht's gut' (R. Gilbert/music: I. Kálmán)
I'm doing well, I say to myself every day, even, when I’m not…
Because the worst is bearable, when you take it easy.
Money
and goods go
Wherever
the wind blows
In the
world everything can happen
Just
because she turns.
Happiness
is a leaf in the wind
Whirling
around and away
Pursuing
happiness
Is
useless.
When
all hell breaks loose
I can’t
stop laughing – undoubtedly
With me
everything is possible,
Because
that’s, who I am...
February 17, 1963:
February 17, 1963:
Live from the 'Kongress-Saal' of the German Museum in Munich: Ingeborg Hallstein & Rudolf Schock sing the duet: 'Say yes, my love, say yes' from 'Countess Maritza'. Werner Schmidt-Boelcke conducts the 'Munich Broadcast Orchestra'.
Rudolf Schock's life experienced Tassilo sounds powerful and not explicitly lyrical. This leads - whether intended or not - to an intriguing contrast with the just explicitly lyrical voice of the 21 years younger Ingeborg Hallstein, which "brightly shines as silver" (Agnes Wenk, widow of the reknowned, German concert singer Erich Wenk).
September 1985:
On YouTube I already wrote: Rudolf Schock sings 'Come Gypsies!' in the 'Concertgebouw' of Amsterdam.Rudolf Schock's life experienced Tassilo sounds powerful and not explicitly lyrical. This leads - whether intended or not - to an intriguing contrast with the just explicitly lyrical voice of the 21 years younger Ingeborg Hallstein, which "brightly shines as silver" (Agnes Wenk, widow of the reknowned, German concert singer Erich Wenk).
September 1985:
Franz Bauer-Theussl conducts the 'Noordhollands Philharmonisch Orkest'.
The 70 year old tenor gets to the bottom of his still remaining vocal possibilities.
His intensive account of Tassilo's song fascinates me strongly!
Krijn de Lege
March 3, 2018
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