No. 1. Sinfonia & Introduction to the Conflict
No. 2. The married couple
"Abu Hassan" (1811) is a German singspiel in one act by a young Carl Maria von Weber, one of his first successes, in fact, a light, vivacious work that was well received at its' Munich premiere which took place on June 4, 1811. The libretto, written by Franz Carl Hiemer, was derived from "Le dormier eveille" or "The sleeper awakened" by Antoine Galland, in turn relating one of the tales of the "Thousand & One Arabian Nights" which were, in part, the chief instigators of the Turkish craze that steadily transmitted into a series of operas set in the Middle East and Africa, including Mozart's "L'oca del Cairo" and, more famously, "Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail" and Rossini's "L'italiana in Algeri", to name just a few examples. Weber's librettist actually used only the second half of the story, while the entire piece was later set by Meyerbeer's 1815 "Lustspiel Wirth und Gast".
The subject of this comic work concerns a debtor, Abu Hassan (tenor), and his wife, Fatime (soprano), and their efforts to outsmart the Caliph (and his creditor, Omar (bass)) and gain from him the money allotted for their supposed funerals, so that they can pay their debts and live in ease. They are both beset by creditors as the opera opens (as was Weber himself at the time of the opera's composition; in fact, Franz Carl Hiemer, a friend from Weber's Stuttgart days where they both had been frequently in debt, sent Weber the libretto in March of 1810, while the composer slowly set the opera in the following several months). Thankfully, all ends happily for all (except the wicked Omar who is imprisoned for his misdeeds by the Caliph (spoken role)).
The 1944 recording that I am using is quite wonderful in both the orchestra's vivid playing and the soloists' well-characterized singing (with the tenor being a possessor of a slightly dry but believable in the context of the role voice), while the sound quality is not as clear as it could have been, though it does not distract from the overall enjoyment of the piece and the performance:
Leopold Ludwig - Conductor,
Berliner Rundfunk-Sinfonie Orchester - Orchestra
Berliner Rundfunk-Sinfonie Chor - Chorus
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf - Fatima
Erich Witte - Abu Hassan
Michael Bohnen - Omar
Abu Hassan - Comical opera in one act
Berliner Rundfunk Orchester
Leopold Ludwig
