Ralf Weikert - Eugen d'Albert: Die Toten Augen (2000)

If you like Wagner and Strauss, chances are you'll like Die Toten Augen, Eugen d'Albert's most mystical, lushly orchestrated score. Its one act is set in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. A shepherd discovers that one of his lambs is missing and he goes to look for it. Nearby, beautiful, blind Myrtocle lives happily with her husband Arcesius who is Roman envoy to the senate in Jerusalem; he is ugly and malformed and does not want his wife's blindness cured. She is told that Jesus will be passing by later that day and that he has performed miracles. Arcesius and the young Roman Captain Galba, who is secretly in love with Myrtocle, leave for the senate. Jesus passes by and Myrtocle is indeed cured. When Arcesius and Galba return, she runs toward Galba, mistaking him for Arcesius and they embrace, Galba professing his love. Arcesius kills Galba in a jealous rage. Myrtocle stares into the sun until she goes blind again. The shepherd crosses the courtyard with the lamb in his arms.
There is an interesting recording of this work on Myto from 1951 in cruddy sound, but Marianne Schech's Myrtocle is immensely moving and beautifully sung. Here Dagmar Schellenberger is a bit sharper-edged, but she has no trouble with the high tessitura and offers us a vivid picture of this complicated character. Hartmut Welker is a gruff but effective Arcesius, but Norbert Orth's Galba is only fair--to be honest, the role is the least well conceived of the three and even Wolfgang Windgassen on Myto has trouble bringing the character to life. The others in this large cast are very good and Lothar Odinius as the tenor Shepherd is simply beautiful. Ralf Weikert leads the Dresden forces vividly and CPO's engineers have given us a stunning recording that allows us to hear all of d'Albert's details. This is not a great work but it's oddly fascinating. Recommended. -- Robert Levine