Programs · Episode

MARSCHNER: Der Vampyr

Program: At the Opera
Aired: Saturday, October 29, 2022 @ 6:00 pm
Hosted by Lisa Simeone

Vampires have always been popular at the movies — witness Bela Lugosi as Dracula back in 1931, and Kristen Stewart's vampire romance in the recent Twilight films.  And they've often turned up on TV, as well, in series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and HBO's True Blood.  Yet you seldom find vampires at the opera, unless it's this richly-scored, and unduly neglected drama by Marschner.  At the Opera samples two recordings of the opera, featuring baritones Franz Hawlata and Roland Hermann as the drama's title character — an undead nobleman called Lord Ruthven — along with tenors Jonas Kaufmann and Donald Grobe as Ruthven's heroic nemesis, Sir Edgar Aubry, and sopranos Regina Klepper and Arlene Auger as Malwina, the vampire's would be victim.

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Vampire stories have been around for centuries, and new tales of the undead are still popular today. Consider Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan, and her vampire romance in the Twilight movie saga.  Then there was the HBO series "True Blood." In that one, vampires become a grudgingly accepted part of modern society — they can even buy a synthetic blood product, so they can quench their unusual thirst without biting so many necks.

Still, there's not much question about the most famous vampire of them all: Dracula, from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel. If that book alone didn't immortalize the Transylvanian count, there have since been scores of films about him, ranging from the 1931 classic starring Bela Lugosi to Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 version of the story, with Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder.

But Stoker's notorious title character is hardly the first vampire to catch the public fancy, and it was one of Dracula's literary ancestors that inspired Heinrich Marschner's atmospheric, 1828 opera, Der Vampyr — The Vampire.

There's a well-known story about a gloomy, summer night in 1816 when Lord Byron, Mary Shelley and her husband Percy all challenged each other to write spooky stories. The two men didn't have much luck, while Mary Shelley came up with one of the most famous horror stories ever — Frankenstein.

But the three writers weren't the only ones present that night. Byron was accompanied by his traveling physician, a man named John Polidori. Byron, it seems, wrote fragments of a story — and Polidori eventually finished it. He called it "The Vampyre," and it was an immediate hit when it was published in 1819, under Byron's name.

Eventually, Polidori was rightly credited as the story's author — and it went on to influence vampire literature for generations. Its title character is a debonair vampire named Lord Ruthven, who bears a distinct resemblance to Stoker's Dracula. Both characters are more than just straightforward, bloodthirsty fiends; they're seductive aristocrats, preying on the daughters of Europe's elite families. And Polidori's story of Lord Ruthven is also the basis of today's opera by Heinrich Marschner.

Marschner's The Vampire was first performed in 1828, and its music is reminiscent of a more famous composer of German romantic opera, Carl Maria von Weber It also has a touch of chromaticism, which at times seems to hint, just a little, at the later works of Richard Wagner Like many German operas of the time, The Vampire mixes a number of elements. Along with arias, duets and choruses, it incorporates brief passages of spoken dialogue and even some melodrama — spoken dialogue accompanied by atmospheric music.

Marschner's opera isn't staged all that often, but on AT THE OPERA we'll explore two recordings that bring us the work in all it's spooky glory.  From 1974, recorded live in Munich, baritone Roland Hermann is Lord Ruthven, the title character, with soprano Arleen Auger as his would-be victim Malwina, and tenor Donald Grobe as the hero who tries to save her. In a 1999 recording, Franz Hawlata is the dreaded vampire, starring alongside Jonas Kaufmann and Regina Klepper.

FEATURED RECORDINGS:

Fritz Rieger, conductor

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus

CAST:  Roland Hermann (Lord Ruthven); Arleen Augér (Malwina); Donald Grobe (Sir Edgar Aubry); Nikolaus Hillebrand (Sir Humphrey Davenaut); Anna Tomowa-Sintow (Emmy); Jane Marsch (Janthe); Manfred Schmidt (George Dibdin); Victor von Halem (Berkley)
(Opera d'Oro 7016)

Helmuth Froschauer, conductor

WDR Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Cologne

CAST: Franz Hawlata (Lord Ruthven); Regina Klepper (Malwina); Jonas Kaufmann (SirEdgar Aubry); Markus Marquardt (Sir Humphrey Davenaut); Anke Hoffmann(Janthe/Emmy); Thomas Dewald (George Dibdin); Yoo-Chang Nah (Berkley)
(Capriccio 5184)

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