Meet the Princess of Cyprus!

The Princess of Cyprus is one of the best-known figures (by name at least) in Romantic music.  Her name (in Helmina von Chezy's flopperoo of a play) was Rosamunde, and she is known exclusively today by the music Franz Schubert composed for the one, the only, unmitigated disaster of a production.  This should not be surprising, as a similar fate befell von Chezy's equally awful libretto for the opera Euryanthe, a work rescued only by the beautiful music Carl Maria von Weber lavished on von Chezy's flimsy text.

So what about Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern?  Of course the third entr'acte of the score is one of the best-known pieces for orchestra by Schubert,and the second ballet is almost as well known.  But that's precisely the trouble.  They're known as independent pieces.  There is almost a full hour's worth of music which Schubert composed for Rosamunde, and most of it is rarely if ever heard.  So: everyone has heard of her, but not nearly enough music lovers have heard the score in its entirety.  A pity.  But there is hope.  The work has been recorded in its entirety several times, and has been given a full performance on a few occasions.

The score opens with the overture to Schubert's earlier opera, Die Zauberharfe.  Why?  Apparently Schubert never had time to write an overture for Rosamunde.  At the premiere production the play was prefaced by the overture to another early Schubert opera, Alfonso und Estrella.  The overture to Die Zauberharfe was published at the same time as the music for Rosamunde, and that coincidence appears to be its only connection.   It makes no matter.  It's as tuneful as Schubert could make it, and that is recommendation enough. 

The Rosamunde music proper begins with an entr'acte in B- which is dramatic enough, and on a large enough scale, that some experts have suggested it might be the "lost" finale of the Unfinished (8th) Symphony.  It certainly works itself up to a powerful climax in the closing bars. 

The rest of the score consist of two more entr'actes, two short ballets, and several vocal numbers -- a song for soprano and chorus, and choruses for spirits, shepherds and hunters.  All these vocal numbers are contrasted very effectively.  There's also a charming little piece of shepherds' melodies, lightly scored for a chamber ensemble of paired clarinets, bassoons, and horns. 

The recording I have is a 1991 DGG CD conducted by Claudio Abbado with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, with the lovely voice of Anne Sofie von Otter in the song, and the Ernst Senff Choir providing the choral parts.   Abbado seems to have been on a Schubert kick at the time, having just recorded the complete symphonies two years earlier with the same orchestra.  I have that set too, and the light, sprightly playing of this orchestra is ideal for Schubert.  Certainly the sound is not without weight when needed (in the first two Entr'actes, for instance).

What makes Abbado's recording especially delightful is the fact that the music is rearranged in order, so that pieces come in a musically-rewarding sequence rather than adhering to the dramatic order of events in von Chezy's play (we only know of the plot by reconstruction from referring to newspaper reviews of the premiere, anyway, as the full text has long since been -- mercifully -- lost).  If you like Schubert, then it is surely worth your while to seek out this recording of Rosamunde!