Matthias Lika - Raff: Dame Kobold (CD)

Joachim Raff moved in circles that included Franz Liszt and Robert Schumann, and he ultimately became one of the best-known German composers of his day. Of Raff's six stage works Dame Kobold ('The Phantom Lady') was the first of a series of comic operas that anticipated later trends, moving away from Wagnerian pathos and looking back to the levity of Rossini. Admired for it's utterly gorgeous musical setting, the opera is notable for a disarmingly simple yet fast-paced plot, bewitching solos and elegantly flowing melodies, and a deftly responsive marriage of language and music.