(2 out of 5 stars) Josef Bayer (1852-1913) is mostly forgotten today, but Die Puppenfee does survive at the outmost fringes of the repertoire. It follows a standard ballet recipe of toys coming to life, of course depicted through various dance numbers including a couple with local color (Spanish and Chinese). It is all very pretty, oversweet and thoroughly unmemorable. Same goes for the excerpts from Sonne und Erde, inconsequential, tepid and oversugared. I don t think I could under any circumstances possibly want to listen to it again. Andrew Mogrelia draws as good performances as one could reasonably expect from the Slovak Radio Orchestra, but it doesn t really help very much. And they even get good sound. No matter, this one is for the specialist.