CPO Paul Lincke: Frau Luna

What times those were: To mark the 60th anniversary of Paul Lincke's death, WDR organized a concert performance of the completely unabridged "Frau Luna" in May 2006 at the Cologne Philharmonic Hall, followed by two weeks of production at the Cologne Funkhaus. What was special about this was that not only Lincke's music sounded true to the original, but the original dialogue by Heinrich Bolten-Baeckers was also trusted, without being shortened or fashionably updated. And lo and behold: the result is an operetta revelation! Lincke was simply more than just an ingenious inventor of melodies: refined and elaborate ensembles and finales show great compositional quality. And then, of course, there is the dream cast: Rene Kollo and Maria Leyer for the "great" singing parts of Luna and Prince Sternschnuppe, and singing folk actors like Wolfgang Volz, Lotti Krekel and Ernst H. Hilbig for the traveling moon troupe. Together with the Lehar's Rastelbinder production of the ORF from 1981 with the incomparable Fritz Muliar (CD 5816938) we now have two almost historical jewels of the operetta - discography in our catalogue!