---
product_id: 1633187
title: "Schubert: Alfonso und Estrella"
brand: "barorgonasovalargeharnoncourt"
price: "KD 10.73"
currency: KWD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 9
url: https://www.desertcart.com.kw/products/1633187-schubert-alfonso-und-estrella
store_origin: KW
region: Kuwait
---

# Schubert: Alfonso und Estrella

**Brand:** barorgonasovalargeharnoncourt
**Price:** KD 10.73
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Schubert: Alfonso und Estrella by barorgonasovalargeharnoncourt
- **How much does it cost?** KD 10.73 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.com.kw](https://www.desertcart.com.kw/products/1633187-schubert-alfonso-und-estrella)

## Best For

- barorgonasovalargeharnoncourt enthusiasts

## Why This Product

- Trusted barorgonasovalargeharnoncourt brand quality
- Free international shipping included
- Worldwide delivery with tracking
- 15-day hassle-free returns

## Description

Product Description          Olaf Baer, Luba Orgonasova, Alfred Muff, Thomas Hampson, and Endrik Wottrich star in this Schubert opera with Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Arnold Schoenberg Choir at the Theater an der Wein, May 1997.             Review          Just in case you haven't ever read the libretto, much less seen a production of Alfonso und Estrella--and that defines a lot of operagoers--yes, it really is as naively untheatrical as people have noted over the years. Franz von Schober's text is a mess in terms of plot, character definition, timing, consistency, and structure. Schubert's music sometimes has little to do with the emotions being expressed, and occasionally (as in an important act I concertato) provides the same melodic line successively without changes to people giving vent to contradictory feelings. But the opera is still full of Schubert's music. It is occasionally appropriate to the situation, always lyrical, and invariably touched with the magic he possessed. Much of the credit belongs here to stage director Jürgen Flimm. He imposes coherence on the libretto by turning its stereotyped characters into archetypes through a mix of realistic costuming and stage props set against expressionistic, almost Turneresque backdrops. (It helps that the plot, during the last 15 minutes of the opera, becomes Son of "The Magic Flute.") Making King Mauregato of León physically blind instead of only internally so was clever, as a reflection on both his paranoia and zeal for war. Flimm is also to be thanked for his relatively low-keyed (at least, through most of the performance) pressing of war's futility, mainly seen through the poverty of the two courts--Mauregato's, and that of his vanquished predecessor, Froila. None of this is specifically mentioned in the libretto, though it certainly lies within its spirit. Kudos, too, to both Florence von Gerkan for her costumes, and Erich Wonder for his set design--especially act II's sepia-toned backdrop of a middleclass living room that clearly represented some idealized memory from the past in Mauregato's mind. The cast, for the most part, is excellent. Hampson is magnificent as the aging Froila, his abilities as a Lieder singer very much to the fore, without losing the larger sound required by the orchestral accompaniment. Nearly as much can be said for Orgonasova, who has strong control of a refined sound throughout her extended range. Bär, too, sings well, and Muff is both forceful and dramatic, despite some rough patches in the upper range of his voice. Wottrich suffers from the opposite problem: his tone has a worn edge except when the voice rises towards its upper range. The acting throughout is effective from all parties. Harnoncourt conducts a vital yet sensitive reading, with great attention paid to his soloists. It is nice for a change to watch his stickless, two-handed conducting method during introductory passages, instead of observing audience members, outdoor fountains, ticket takers, busts of composers, etc. That brings us to the excellent camerawork. There are more moderately long shots than one is used to, emphasizing both the subdivided stage and the active groupings on it. Facial expressions aren't lost, thanks to a generous amount of close-ups, but they aren't the sole focus of attention, as in so many poorly filmed operatic stage productions. Sound is available in Dolby Digital and Digital DTS surround, with a 16:9 aspect ratio. Subtitles are in English and German. The production is complete, save for part of one scene that brings back the villain and explains a plot detail that still remains unclear afterwards. There are no added features, but what do you need? You are either open to Schubert, or you aren't. If you are, get this DVD. -- Barry Brenesal, Fanfare, Jan-Feb 2010

## Images

![Schubert: Alfonso und Estrella - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61GjbBJn2pL.jpg)
![Schubert: Alfonso und Estrella - Image 2](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71LQe1KLvCL.jpg)
![Schubert: Alfonso und Estrella - Image 3](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81hvtiQE6iL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    His "Time" Has Come?
  

*by G***O on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 26, 2010*

Amazingly, there are now two DVDs available of an opera that was never staged, or even given a full concert performance, in the lifetime of its composer! Nor in the century after his death! Plus several recordings of it on CDs.  Was wird es doch des Wunders noch! Well, friends, it's not such a bad opera after all; critics have panned it for its unwieldy involuted narrative, but honestly the libretto by Franz von Schober is no more embarrassing than that of any Verdi opera before Simon Bocanegra. Why, there's even a moment of some 'universal' significance in it, when the humanist notion of tolerance between nations is celebrated. This staging (I haven't seen the competitor) is short of visual splendor but suitably fluid and stageworthy. The dramatic action, originally conceived as occurring in Medieval Spain, has been time-machined to early 20th C, but the anachronism is not at all jarring. Anything more of a pageant in armor would merely distract us from the only thing that really matters here; the Music.And musically, it would be hard to do a better rendition. Thomas Hampson is magnificent in the role of the aged embittered deposed King Froila. Endrick Wootrich, as Alfonso the son of Froila, struggles in his first scene with a baritone tessitura that doesn't accomodate his best notes, but then he redeems his voice and his character with a youthful heroic bari-tenor. This is music in which baritones dominate, and Olaf Bär is perfect vocally and dramatically in the smaller role of the usurper Mauregato, now blind and conscience-stricken. Baritone Alfred Muff is convincingly odious as the traitor Adolfo, who aspires to seize the Princess Estrella through his coup d'etat, and he sings his roll with musically eloquent harshness. Estrella, sung by Luba Orgonasova, has the only important female role in the drama and in the music. Orgonasova sings quite well, but her stage presence is the only serious weakness of this production; she's noticeably too old for the role and she completely lacks the "affect" of a lovely princess. Instead she's an anxious biddy with a solid vocal technique. The 'Chamber Orchestra of Europe". conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, turns out to be a mixture of modern and historical instruments; the horns are 20th C, for instance, while the trumpets are 18th C. However, the performance is decidedly of the "historically informed" variety, in tempi and articulations, and the overtures and symphonic interludes are very satisfying.But I'm hard pressed to decide whether I'm satisfied with "Alfonso und Estrella" in toto. Schubert composed it in 1821-22, exactly at the time of the premiere of Weber's opera "Der Freischütz". It was promptly rejected in Vienna, and later efforts to get it staged in Berlin or Dresden were equally unsuccessful. I have a sneaking suspicion that "we" have reason to be glad that Schubert's career as an opera composer was thwarted, since all of his greatest music was composed after he'd 'failed' with "Alfonso und Estrella". I'm inclined to think the moment wasn't ripe for the sort of opera he attempted to write. Remember, please, that Spohr, Schumann, and Mendelssohn all made the same attempt -- to compose an opera in the musical language of Romanticism, in the German language of poetic drama learned from Schiller and Goethe, a 'through-composed' opera eschewing both recitativo and spoken words -- and all 'failed' to capture an audience. Dare I say that Beethoven hadn't done much better? "Fidelio" has its merits and has held a place in the repertoire, but no one in his right mind would call it one of Beethoven's greatest works, or one of the very greatest operas.The Nineteenth Century was hardly a great era of dramaturgy anyway. The poetic dramas of Schiller and Goethe, superb as they are for reading, certainly didn't inspire a 'language of the theater' that carried other dramatists toward genius. It was the century of stilted melodrama and exaggerated acting. In English, it was the century of the novel, not the stage. The operas based on Schiller and Goethe, by and large, bowdlerized their sources into the broadest sort of spread-armed melodrama. Not until Ibsen on the spoken stage and Hofmannstal on the musical stage did any dramatist/librettist succeed in producing language worthy of the music it was set to. Franz von Schober's libretto for "Alfonso und Estrella" is no more fustian than most, but it's not truly worthy of its music.I wonder also if there was really any hope for the attempt to set strophic poetry to the symphonic language of "through-composition". In "Alfonso und Estrella", Schubert essentially tried to incorporate the musical idiom of his Lieder into a symphonic and stagey Mega-Lied. He aimed at a kind of 'verismo' before his forms could accommodate it. The operas of Mozart, Paisiello, Cherubini, and Rossini made no such awkward mistake. Berlioz strove mightily to formulate a revolutionary Romantic genre of opera, but even he, in "Les Troyens" resorted to presenting his finest formal arias through the gimmick of having minor characters sing 'ballads' outside the dramatic action. Opera was originated and theorized as a convergence of words, music, and scenery into a supremely affective Unity of art. Schubert's "Alfonso und Estrella" frankly doesn't achieve that ideal. His cycles of Lieder, in fact, seem to me more emotionally affective -- more dramatic -- than his opera.I've also viewed/heard the DVD of Schubert's opera "Fierrabras", composed a year later. That production is far more 'innovative' and post-modernist than this one. Take a look at my review of it, if you're interested. It may be, after all, that Schubert's "time" has come on the opera stage.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    5 stars, but barely
  

*by Z***P on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 23, 2021*

We can be deeply grateful for any recording of Schubert’s operas, especially his greatest, Alfonso und Estrella.  As Schubert’s biographer, Maurice J. E. Brown testifies, “The score contains as much fine and outstanding music as any other full length opera ever written, if we judge the score purely as music.”  Furthermore, this is a fine performance by prominent musicians, in the grand old Theater an der Wien, no less.  Thomas Hampson (Froila) sings magnificently.The dilemma is that there is another, even better recording, but without video: the audio CDs with Hermann Prey and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, conducted by Otmar Suitner, in Berlin, 1978.  If your budget has room for only one, do you choose this DVD or the CDs?  I recommend the audio CDs with Prey et al.On this DVD, scenery, props, costumes, and choreography are all rather austere.  That’s not necessarily a flaw, but it’s basically one step up from “opera in concert,” and you still have to use your imagination when you watch it.Furthermore, there are some idiosyncrasies here that undermine Franz von Schober’s libretto.  He wrote a message of forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation.  However, these people are not repenting and forgiving one another out of weakness or fear of punishment.  Instead, they have soberly examined their souls and resolved to become better people.  It is a noble idea that perhaps contributed to Schubert’s writing such sublime music.It is inconsistent with Schober’s message that this DVD: (1) makes Froila so old he has difficulty walking (when the libretto describes a strenuous regimen of good works); (2) makes Mauregato blind (not in the libretto); and (3) simply deletes the important lines where Mauregato forgives Adolfo, who vows to stop being a narcissist and start being a team player.Thus, I recommend you first acquire the CD version of Alfonso and Estrella with Hermann Prey, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and Otmar Suitner.  If you decide you love the opera and desire to see a visualization, by all means also acquire the DVD reviewed here.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Four Stars
  

*by E***R on Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 9, 2014*

Beautiful music, good voices, anachronistic (19th century) costumes, low-budget staging

---

## Why Shop on Desertcart?

- 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016
- 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories
- 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price
- 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members)
- 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection
- ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews

**Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.com.kw/products/1633187-schubert-alfonso-und-estrella](https://www.desertcart.com.kw/products/1633187-schubert-alfonso-und-estrella)

---

*Product available on Desertcart Kuwait*
*Store origin: KW*
*Last updated: 2026-03-04*