I share Mr. Clarke’s enthusiasm for Meyerbeer’s almost unknown little gem and was in fact the programmer and producer of the 1998 concert he refers to.
Being a very young programer at Dutch radio, I was in charge of several concert series, among them a Sunday afternoon series in Muziekcentrum Vredenburg, Utrecht. One of the missions of Dutch radio was to present lesser known works and by chance, I had come across a recording of Meyerbeer’s Teolinda in an LP-sale (it was after all the time where many retailers started selling off their LP's and you could make really nice discoveries this way).
The recording I bought was from 1983 on the Pro Arte label, with Mariana Nicolescu (soprano), Dieter Klöcker (clarinet) and the Ludwigsburg Festival Orchestra, conducted by Wolfgang Gönnenwein. I immediately liked the piece and thought it would be nice to incorporate into one of our future seasons.
Luckily I was able to interest Nelly Miricioiu in the work. At the time, she was the reigning bel canto queen in the Netherlands, starring in many radio concerts at the famous VARA Matinee series at the Concertgebouw. My friend Emma Johnson was easily persuaded to play the clarinet solo and this is how this concert came about.
I was not aware that a pirate recording of the concert existed on the internet and it was very nice to hear it again.
Thank you, Colin Clarke, for your review, which made me hear this beautiful piece again, so many years later. I will also check out the new Claves-recording. Lenneke Ruiten is quite a different kind of singer, but I would love to hear her approach to the piece.
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