Directly after Johann Strauss the Younger, Franz von Suppé is one of the most famous Austrian composers of the 19th century to have paid special tribute to the so-called “light muse”. His oeuvre includes nearly three dozen operettas and light operas as well as countless farces and comedies, which he loosened up by framing them with musical numbers. This was the typical repertoire of Old Viennese folk theatre, which he imaginatively enriched in his various capacities as Kapellmeister at the Theater in der Josefstadt and as "chief composer and conductor" at the Theater an der Wien, as well as on other stages of the Austrian capital later on. His most famous operettas are "The Beautiful Galatea" (1865), "Fatinitza" (1876) and "Boccaccio" (1879). Although most of his stage works have now been forgotten, his sparkling, animated, captivating and thrilling overtures are supremely vivacious, conveying this composer’s skill, his imagination in inventing catchy melodies, and also his creative abilities where design or instrumentation are concerned. Overtures such as "Light Cavalry", "Poet and Peasant" or "Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna" were indispensable parts of Viennese operetta’s “golden age” and have remained a regular feature of the city’s musical life (e.g. the Vienna New Year's Concerts) to this day. As Chief Conductor of the Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Ivan Repušic has selected some of Suppé’s best-known and most popular overtures for his new studio production. This album is paving the way for next year’s 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
