BBC Prom 49: Robert Schumann Das Paradies und die Peri, Tuesday 22 August, 2023, Royal Albert Hall.

5*****: Clare Colvin

At the time Schumann embarked on composing Das Paradies und die Peri in 1843, his largest project until then, he declared he’d found an entirely new genre for the concert hall in a hybrid of opera and oratorio, “not for the chapel but rather for cheerful folk.”

Conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in his final season as its Music Director, Sir Simon Rattle bears in mind Schubert’s call for a light-hearted aspect to the tale drawn from Irish poet Thomas Moore’s oriental romance Lalla Rookh, that compiles four stories told to the titular heroine Princess Tulip-Cheeks by the poet Feramorz - the second tale of which is “Paradise and the Peri.”

Schumann was enthused by the poesy of the underlying idea. Born of a human and a fallen angel, the Peri cannot re-enter Paradise until she finds “the gift most dear to Heaven.” A drop of blood, shed in the name of liberty, is rejected, as are the sighs of true love as a maiden dies in the arms of her plague-stricken beloved. Only the third gift, the tear of a repentant convict, redeems the Peri to be finally welcomed into Paradise.

With a magnificent team of soloists in place, the continuous outpouring of song exerts its enchantment through the sweet though never sickly Turkish Delight of libretto, translated on screens into English. Soprano Lucy Crowe, in golden voice and glitzy scarlet gown, soars above as the plaintive Peri, dreaming of the nightingales and banks of thyme that she would find, if only Paradise will let her in. Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená gently admonishes as the supervising Angel and tenor Andrew Staples is a crisp-voiced Narrator. Among the smaller roles, Dutch tenor Linard Vrielink, Austrian bass-baritone Florian Boesch, and particularly Trinidadian soprano Jeanine De Bique (whose current season includes a return to the Paris Opéra as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro) stand out.

Das Paradies und die Peri was Schumann’s first international hit, written a year before his profound depression, interspersed with fanatical creativity, led over ten years to catastrophic mental decline, a suicide attempt, and incarceration in an asylum. The work fell from favour during the 20th century. Its restoration by Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra is the first complete performance at the Proms.

London Symphony Chorus Lionel Sow chorus-master

London Symphony Orchestra Roman Simovic leader

Sir Simon Rattle conductor