Recordings : Rattle Delivers Decadent Treats

The Berlin Philharmonic is about to get a wake-up call. The august orchestra has been led for much of the past century by Wilhelm Furtwangler, Herbert von Karajan and Claudio Abbado. But beginning in 2002, when Simon Rattle takes over, there will be a new kind of conductor for a new kind of city. And here is an example of what the former principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and upcoming music director of the Ojai Festival (June 2000) is up to these days. He has simultaneously released the first non-Polish recording of Karol Szymanowski’s mystical early 20th century opera “King Roger,” and Leonard Bernstein’s street-savvy 1953 musical, “Wonderful Town.” Think of it this way: Side by side are Queen Roxana’s smolderingly erotic song, which hovers over Roger’s exotic 12th century Sicilian court, and Ruth and Eileen’s lament to Ohio, which spills out onto Christopher Street in Greenwich Village.

“King Roger” is gorgeous music, an almost decadently sensual drama of sexual awakening, and the performance is lush and white-hot, with Hampson as a robust Roger and Szmytka as a riveting Roxana. The filler is substantial--Szymanowski’s Fourth Symphony (really a piano concerto), written in an elegant folk-music-based style but played here closer to Bartok.

“Wonderful Town” has plenty of zip and character (although Rattle occasionally seems to slip into English music-hall jazz) and a terrific cast. It turns out, moreover, that Szymanowski and Bernstein play off each other rather well. The Polish composer had nothing on Bernstein when it came to the sybaritic or the decadent, and Rattle understands that well. What better calling card for Berlin?