Humperdinck: Dornröschen – review

Fassbaender/Landshamer/Kaiser/Haaks/Bavarian Radio Choir/Munich RSO/Schirmer(CPO, two CDs)Humperdinck's version of Sleeping Beauty, completed in 1902, is an intriguing but ultimately frustrating rarity. It seems determined to reconfigure the familiar fairytale as a version of Parsifal (for which Humperdinck himself had copied the full score before the Bayreuth premiere). The wounded king Amfortas in Wagner's music drama is the equivalent of the sleeping Röschen; for Klingsor and his magic garde...

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