COMPOSERS: Penderecki
LABELS: Accords
ALBUM TITLE: Penderecki - Ubu Rex
WORKS: Ubu Rex
PERFORMER: Pawel Wunder, Anna Lubanska, Jozef Frakstein, Izabella Klosinska, Piotr NowackiPolish National Opera Chorus & OrchestraJacek Kaspszyk
CATALOGUE NO: ACD 133-2
Alfred Jarry’s anarchic farce Ubu Roi
tells how a blustering Polish aristocrat,
egged on by his ambitious wife,
bludgeons his way to the throne,
bleeds the country dry, then flees
from the invading Russian army.
Penderecki’s operatic version was
written for Munich in 1991, but
his interest in setting the play goes
back nearly 30 years. One can’t help
imagining what a sensational Ubu
he could have written in the 1960s, a
thud-and-blunder comic counterpart
to The Devils of Loudon. The one
he eventually did write is a much
tamer affair, full of less than pointed
parodies of Wagner, Verdi, Rossini
and Musorgsky, and only rarely, for
example in the climactic battle scene,
working up any real momentum.
The recording was made live in
October 2003 at the work’s Warsaw
premiere. There’s a lot of stage noise,
including a continuous rumble, and
singers sometimes disappear offmike.
But under the circumstances,
the performance is amazingly tight,
with a large cast confidently led by
Pawel Wunder and Anna Luban´ska
as the appalling Pa and Ma Ubu and
Piotr Nowacki as the double turncoat
Bordure, and choral and orchestral
contributions which generate as
much excitement as the piece allows.
Anthony Burton