🌹 Cheryl Studer as ARABELLA -Excerpts- Zürich, 28 May ’00 + Wolfgang Brendel & Franz Welser-Möst

RARE IN-HOUSE RECORDING, Zürich, 28 May 2000

Regrets about some tape distortion, in particular during the beginning of the Act II selection. Due to the low fidelity of the recording it is best to listen through earbuds or headphones.

Here, Studer expresses and projects the perfect atmosphere and feel through her echter Straussian Klang and luminosity, her voice equal parts velvet-lyric, expansive and dramatic. And, make no mistake, it could be no one else but her.

1 - Act I: “Mein Elemer! das hat so einen sonderbaren Klang” (00:20)
2 - Act II: Mandryka-Arabella Duet (09:04)
“Ich habe eine Frau gehabt ... Sie wollen mich heiraten ... Der Richtige, so hab ich stets zu mir gesagt ... Und du wirst mein Gebieter sein …”
3 - Act III: “Das war sehr gut, Mandryka” (22:46)

The cast for this run of Arabellas:

Irène Friedli - eine Kartenaufschlägerin
Cornelia Kallisch - Adelaide
Dawn Kotoski - Zdenka
Piotr Beczała - Matteo
Cheryl Studer - Arabella
Alfred Muff - Waldner
Wolfgang Brendel - Mandryka
Chor und Orchester des Opernhauses Zürich
Dirigent - Franz Welser-Möst

Music by Richard Strauss
Libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal

This in-house recording comes from one of the performances during the premiere of Götz Friedrich’s new production of the work (his final) which several years later DECCA recorded and released on DVD with a different cast, same conductor.

Photo of Studer - As Arabella at the ROH Covent Garden, London, 1996