How many people do you know that own TWO recordings of Hans Pfitzner’s “Das Christ-Elflein” (“The Christmas Elf”)? Well, now you know ONE.
I was riding around in the car yesterday, trying to knock out some last-minute, long-distance Christmas shopping, and after listening to Josef Rheinberger’s “The Star of the Bethlehem,” I popped in the Orfeo recording of “Das Christ-Elflein,” with Helen Donath in the title role and Kurt Eichhorn conducting. (That’s right, my car still has a CD player. In fact, it was the deciding factor in purchasing the vehicle.) If you’re curious, my other recording is a more recent one, on the CPO label, with Marlis Petersen as the Elf and Claus Peter Flor conducting.
The plot, based on an airy-fairy play by Ilse van Stach, concerns an Elf, who’s never heard of Christmas, and a grumpy old Fir Tree, who has and doesn’t like it. (Firs get chopped down at Christmas.) Despite the Fir Tree’s warnings about the heartlessness of the human race, the inquisitive Elf ventures into the world of men. It turns out it’s a rather depressing place.
When the Christ Child appears on Christmas Eve, the Elf wants to follow Him into heaven. But the Christ-Child has work to do: He’s to escort the soul of a dying girl. When the guileless Elf offers himself in her place, the Christ-Child accepts. The girl is restored, and the Elf returns every year at Christmas as the Christmas Elf. The opera concludes with a joyous Christmas party with the girl’s family.
In the Eichhorn recording, Donath makes a good Elf. Her voice and characterization convey innocence and purity. The jaded and embittered Fir Tree, on the other hand, is sung by Alexander Malta, whose pleasingly resonant voice belies a gruff exterior. Bass-baritones, it happens, are thick on the ground, and Nikolaus Hillebrand sings an authoritative, even noble Knecht Ruprecht (a gift-bearing companion of St. Nicholas).
The work itself is entertaining – it’s got some good bits, especially fun in the parts that incorporate quotations of “O Tannenbaum,” and there’s obviously also an ample amount of Christmas sentiment (okay, schmaltz) – but if I’m to be honest, it doesn’t hold a Christmas candle to the ne plus ultra of the genre, Engelbert Humperdinck’s “Hansel und Gretel.”
For a time, the fairy tale opera was to Germany what the ghost story was to England, a cherished Christmas tradition. “Hansel und Gretel” was given its first performance on this date in 1893 – with Richard Strauss, no less, directing the orchestra and cueing singers from the pit of Weimar’s Hoftheater. With its folk-like simplicity, visions of sweets, and Evening Prayer (replete with angels), it’s been part of the Christmas season ever since.
“Hansel und Gretel” had a foundational advantage in the familiar Brothers Grimm fairy tale. “Das Christ-Elflein” is a much stranger concoction, mixing sacred and secular – indeed pagan – elements into a heady Christmas punch.
The opera, really a singspiel (an entertainment with sung parts linked by spoken passages), first appeared in 1906 and was revised in 1917. It still gets revived in German-speaking countries, but in the two recordings I own, anyway, there is the drawback of interludes delivered by a German narrator. I would have preferred had the singer’s spoken dialogue been retained.
“Hansel and Gretel” was the first opera broadcast live on the radio from the Metropolitan Opera in 1931. Here’s a lovely, classic staging from the Met, prior to the current rage for Regietheater:
My favorite recording of the “Dream Pantomime,” with Otto Klemperer:
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Irmgard Seefried, with Josef Krips conducting, from 1947:
“Das Christ-Elflein”
