Regula Mühlemann – Fairy Tales

Contents

Antonin Dvorak: Rusalka, Op. 114, B. 203: Song to the Moon (Arr. for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble by Wolfgang Renz)

Jacques Offenbach: Die Rheinnixen: Komm zu uns und sing und tanze, ‘Barcarole’ (Arr. for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble by Wolfgang Renz)

Jules Massenet: Cendrillon, DO 5: Ah! Douce enfant (Arr. for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble by Wolfgang Renz)

Adolphe Adam: La filleule des fees: The Pink Fairy (Arr. for Chamber Ensemble by Wolfgang Renz)

Giuseppe Verdi: Falstaff: Ninfe! Elfi! Silfi!…Sul fil d’un soffio etesio (Arr. for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble by Wolfgang Renz)

Claudio Monteverdi: Lamento della Ninfa, SV 163: Amor, amor (Arr. for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble by Wolfgang Renz)

Henry Purcell: The Fairy Queen, Z. 629:

O let me weep ever, ever weep (Arr. for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble by Wolfgang Renz)

Turn then thine eyes (Arr. for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble by Wolfgang Renz)

Benjamin Britten: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 64:

Be kind and courteous to this gentleman (Arr. for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble by Wol

Come, now a roundel ans a fairy song (Arr. for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble by Wolfga

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Neue Liebe, Op. 19a, No. 4/ Mwv K 70 (Arr. For Soprano And Chamber Ensemble By Wolfgang Renz)

Edvard Grieg: Peer Gynt, Suite No. 2, Op. 55

I. Ingrid’s Lament (Arr. for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble by Wolfgang Renz)

II. Arabian Dance (Arr. for Chamber Ensemble by Wolfgang Renz)

Iii. Peer Gynt’s Homecoming, Stormy Evening On The Sea (Arr. For Chamber Ensemble By Wolfgang Renz)

IV. Solveig’s Song (Arr. for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble by Wolfgang Renz)

Edvard Grieg: Peer Gynt, Op. 23, No. 26: Solveig’s Cradle Song (Arr. for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble by Wolfgang Renz)

Edvard Grieg: Six Songs, Op. 25, No. 2: A Swan (Arr. for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble by Wolfgang Renz)

Jacques Offenbach: Die Rheinnixen: Alles hüllt sich in Dunkel (Arr. for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble by Wolfgang Renz)

Magical beings like fairies, elves, witches or ghosts have always fascinated and inspired mankind. Especially in music, one encounters all these unreal creatures at every turn. Antonín Dvořák, for example, dedicated an entire opera to the mermaid “Rusalka”. In Verdi’s “Falstaff,” a supposed fairy queen drums up a host of water and air spirits. And in Claudio Monteverdi’s famous “Lamento della Ninfa,” a nymph recounts her tragic love affliction

Swiss soprano Regula Mühlemann has now also slipped into these three female characters on her new album “Fairy Tales.” From early Baroque to Romanticism to classical modernism, Mühlemann, together with the CHAARTS Chamber Artists from Switzerland, presents a musically fairy-tale-like, highly exciting panorama: In addition to excerpts from Jacques Offenbach’s Grand Opéra “Die Rheinnixen” (including the “Barcarole,” which was later reused in “The Tales of Hoffmann” and became world famous), the album combines vocal and instrumental pieces from Jules Massenet’s Cinderella opera “Cendrillon,” which premiered in 1899, and Adolphe Adam’s fairy ballet “La Filleule des fées.” The music from the Shakespeare operas by the Englishman Henry Purcell (“The Fairy Queen”) and his compatriot Benjamin Britten (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”) also takes us into the world of fairies. Towards the end of the album, Regula Mühlemann and CHAARTS turn their attention to the Nordic spirit world. Henrik Ibsen’s dramatic poem “Peer Gynt”, based on Norwegian fairy tales, was the basis for Edvard Grieg’s dramatic music of the same name. Here one encounters not only rumbling demons and trolls, but also tender, enchanting vocal pieces such as “Solveig’s Song”

Regula Mühlemann and the ensemble span the stylistically as well as tonally wide arch from small cast baroque music to orchestral radiance in arrangements by Wolfgang Renz. These give the “Fairy Tales” album a particularly varied sound. Especially works with a much larger original cast, such as Dvořák’s Rusalka, the Peer Gynt Suite or Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, sound fascinatingly new.

“The idea for the fairy songs also came to me because of my voice, because I have been asked a few times in the past for “fairy tale” repertoire,” says Regula Mühlemann, who was immediately awarded the “Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik” in 2016 with her first solo album “Mozart Arias”.