The English title of Kálmán's most celebrated operetta is a misnomer. The heroine is a princess not of gypsies but (as the German title, DieCsárdásfürstin, indicates) of the csárdás; she's a Budapest cabaret-singer in love with a young aristocrat. Its score shows Kálmán at his most fluent, with a succession of gloriously tuneful hit numbers that mix spicy Hungarian rhythms with the more graceful strains of the Viennese waltz.
Individual numbers have often been committed to disc, but complete recordings have been much less frequent. Yet to appreciate the overall structure of Kálmán's operetta scores you really need to hear his elaborately constructed act finales, in which musical reprises are interspersed with passages of dialogue and melodrama.
Apart from sensibly reducing the opening orchestral flourishes from three to one, Bonynge typically gives us total fidelity to what Kálmán actually wrote. He brings out to the full Kálmán's highly charged rhythms, every detail of the exotic orchestration, and the contrasts of mood between the fiery big numbers and the moments of melancholy and sadness in the Acts 1 and 2 finales. Among a wholly admirable cast, Yvonne Kenny provides the vocal strength, fire and beauty required by the title role. A wonderful bargain.