Search - Haas, Chmelo, Bogza :: Sarlatan

From the House of the Dead

David Herter | Seattle, WA United States | 02/07/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Pavel Haas's amazing, energetic opera The Charlatan follows a troupe of quack performers and their charasmatic leader, Dr. Pustrpalk, as they journey from town to town through a Bohemian countryside. There are evasions, pursuits, seductions, murders, and all manner of rowdy behavior. Haas fashioned his own libretto, remarkable for its assured pace and sardonic humor, and its grounding in the rough-and-tumble of the everday. Unlike many operas, The Charlatan works vividly as theater. More important, the music is a delight -- brisk, confident, tender at times, rude at times, not afraid of modern ideas but wearing the smile of Czech folksong. It has much in common with later Janacek -- particularly Vixen and From the House of the Dead -- where repeated runs of notes are as important as melody, able to shift surprisingly among disparate moods; and like Janacek, Haas gives us endings that feel perfect, that startle with their swiftness, with the bustle of a spa-town brass band gone wild. This performance seems ideal. Entartete Musik, conductor Israel Yinon and Producer Michael Haas (no relation) should be congratulated for rescuing this work from obscurity, and reinstating a brilliant composer who was killed young."

TRULY, AMAZINGLY ENJOYABLE.

Alfredo R. Villanueva | New York, NY United States | 10/12/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"MY PASSION FOR ALL THINGS CZECH AND PARTICULARLY ITS MUSIC HAS LED ME INTO SOME UNEXPECTEDLY DARK TERRITORY. ESPECIFICALLY, THERESIN, A "CULTURAL GHETTO" WHERE MANY OF THE BRIGHTEST JEWISH COMPOSERS WERE IMPRISONED IN WHAT WAS TO BE A "MODEL" CAMP-- BUT ONLY SERVED AS A STOP THE THE GAS CHAMBERS IN AUSWITCHZ. PAVEL HASS, TOGETHER WITH OTHER THOUSANDS, WAS TRANSPORTED THE VERY DAY I WAS BEING BORN, OCT. 16, 1944, AND GASSED THE NEXT DAY. SO I APPROACHED HIS MUSIC WITH SOME TREPIDATION. NO NEED TO HAVE FEARED. A SIMPLY SPARKLING OPERA, THE CHARLATAN PASSES THE SUPREME TEST: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SEE IT, OR EVEN UNDERSTAND THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE, TO ENJOY IT THOROUGHLY. GREAT WORK BY ALL CONCERNED. KUDDOS TO ENTERTETE MUSIK!!!!!!"