Music at the origin – dark red roses and silent lips

Last year, St. Peter/Au Castle, with its beautiful ambience, was the location of one of Lower Austria’s serenade concerts for the first time. As the birthplace of Carl Zeller and with the Carl Zeller Museum housed in the castle, St. Peter is an ideal venue for this oldest continuously existing Lower Austrian concert series, as music-historical memorials are intended to showcase the works of the respective “genius loci” with well-known artists Podium at the “original location” are offered. This is what happened again on September 1st in the ballroom of the castle, where Mayor Johannes Heuras and Maria-Diana Engelhardt, representing the artistic director Michael Linsbauer, welcomed two absolute world stars and four students from their singing classes with Kammersängerin Daniela Fally and Peter Edelmann and expressed their support for the exemplary cooperation with the castle manager Sabine Hummer and the cultural advisors Susanne Pfaffeneder and Angela Gruber.

The musical welcome was obvious with “Grüß Gott everybody” and “I am the Christl from the Post” – superbly interpreted by the young tenor Thilo Cubasch and soprano Celina Hubmann – from Zeller’s operetta “Der Vogelhändler” before Peter Edelmann’s son Alexander and the mezzo-soprano Milena Pumberger performed excerpts from Lehár’s operettas “The Merry Widow” and “Zigeunerliebe” in a convincing manner. All four “up-and-coming artists” already showed masterful leadership as well as competent accompaniment and training by their singing teachers as well as a wide range of sounds and were able to inspire the audience in the packed ballroom with their successful performances. Whether in the dark timbre of a fiery Csárdás or in dizzying heights with the top notes of the soprano, whether in the pleasantly baritonal tone or in flexible tenoric voice color and soft height – all this was in works by Carl Millöcker through Leo Fall, Johann Strauss and Emmerich Kálmán or Victor August Herbert, who were brilliantly accompanied on the piano by Fiona Pollak. Duets and ensemble scenes were also sung.

Coloratura strong and noble in tone

Whether it’s the Salzburg Festival, Milan’s Scala or the ballroom in St. Peter – Daniela Fally, who was born in Lower Austria, inspires audiences worldwide, impresses as always with a crystal-clear soprano voice due to her vocal perfection and combines this with the finest comedy at the operetta evening in St. Peter; Millöcker’s “We poor prima donnas” should be mentioned as an example. Peter Edelmann, on the other hand, has a large, warm, noble-timbred baritone with a beautiful mellowness and also impresses with his consistently excellent stage appearance. His famous father Otto put singing in his cradle, so to speak. He now wants to pass on what he inherited from his father and what he learned in opera practice to young singers within the framework of the Otto Edelmann Society. Thomas Gnedt, director of the Carl Zeller Museum, is very pleased with this concert evening: “I was able to have a little say in the program and will musically enrich my museum with two of the performances (from Zeller’s ‘Vagabund’ and ‘Joconde’). can.”

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