This seventh volume of Auber’s overtures features the ‘fairy opera’ Le Cheval de bronze (1835). The overture expresses the magical and mystical dynamism of the story, while the 1857 opéra-ballet version presents an interpolated dance sequence, exemplifying some exotic chinoiserie. Poetic and graceful, Le Lac des fées was highly regarded in Germany, and proved influential on Wagner who saw it in Paris. Marco Spada evinces some of Auber’s most accomplished and sustained mood setting. The overture to Le Cheval de bronze is also heard here in the arrangement by Engelbert Humperdinck (Das eherne Pferd, 1889).