Conductor Popelka in the music club: And at the end to paradise – DiePresse.com

“Paradise” is a work of quiet tones, of nuances. As described by Joachim Reiber, it leads “to the edge of silence; risks emptiness”. In fact, it also risks idling, especially in the dragging third part. So it also lives from the energy and joy of playing that you have Schumann here – almost slightly naively – has to accommodate. “Paradise and Peri” is like a Shelley poem: embarrassing when you analyze it, brilliant when you believe in it.

Here the dynamic, fervent, mostly accurate approach of the musicians under Popelka proved its worth, declaiming in the first part, a little more questioning, searching in the second and finally bringing back subtle momentum in the grandiose ending third. At the forefront is Vera-Lotte Boecker as Peri, round and penetrating when it counts. Wiebke Lehmkuhl’s sonorous angel, Matthias Winckhler’s noble baritone solo and Andrew Staples as the persistent narrator are also impressive.