Presented in a card slipcase Naxos has now collated
their individual Met Ring broadcasts into a cycle of sorts. Recorded
between 1936 and 1941 with the greater part conducted with animation
by Bodanzky – but with his usual cuts and conflations – we have
a number of interesting choices. The sound can be intermittently
problematic; it’s at its best in Die Walküre and
Siegfried; in Rheingold we have however the compensatory names
of List and Schorr, in Götterdämmerung Melchior is joined
by Marjorie Lawrence, whose aesthetic is quite dissimilar from
that of Flagstad or Traubel. The Ring was not performed as a broadcast
cycle at the Met until after the War, which accounts for the seeming
piecemeal collection gathered together. In truth some of the greatest
Wagnerian voices of the century make their unmistakeable presence
felt and if the conducting is not quite commensurately elevated
– both Bodanzky, then reaching the end of his life and Leinsdorf,
early in his career, were inclined to be speed merchants – it
is nevertheless invigoratingly engaged and frequently a lot more
than that.
Siegfried dates from the broadcast of
30 January 1937. The cast is stellar and the sound in this inscription
is perfectly reasonable given the obvious limitations to be expected
of a broadcast of this vintage. Merely citing the names Melchior,
Schorr, Thorborg, Flagstad and List is enough to induce colossal
expectation in Wagnerian hearts and in the main it is one that
is triumphantly met. It is here too that Bodanzky is at his peak
as a Wagnerian conductor of sure instinct, coalescing the score
into an organic entity, encouraging magnificently powerful basses
and flaring brass. Melchior is at his operatic height; the voice
still youthful and free, easily produced and thrilling. His characterisation
of the role is spellbindingly intense but also psychologically
acute – one feels him grow in depth and passion. And yet in the
Forest Murmurs we find him capable equally of inward reflection,
of transfusing his tone with pliancy and inwardness of expression.
His Brünnhilde is Flagstad and for one who had only recently
started singing the role (November 1935 in San Francisco) her
impersonation is of stunning eloquence no less remarkable than
her technical accomplishment. It was a role that featured less
in her Wagnerian armoury than the other Brünnhildes – only
thirty performances in total, the majority of them with the Met.
Her sun-awakening scene is gloriously lit but it is noticeable
how she reserves the full weight of her burnished tone – and its
commensurate power – for the final scene, when its deployment
is of optimum theatrical consequence. Schorr’s Wotan is in even
better voice than in the Rheingold of a few months later – and
also part of this Naxos Cycle. In fact he’s in resplendent vocal
form; the command is full, the compass broad, the range unsullied
by any apparent imperfection – it’s a moot point whether his meeting
with Thorborg’s Erda is even more stunning than his scenes with
Melchior. Both have a blazing intensity. Even in this exalted
company Thorborg’s clarity is remarkable and in Laufkötter
we have a Mime of practised accomplishment and one who superbly
avoids commonplace insinuation and caricature Naxos’ sound quality
is excellent; it differs from Guild’s inscription somewhat in
some details – Guild’s copy, from the NBC transcriptions includes
the tumultuous applause that drowns the radio announcer at the
conclusion of the work.
Recorded a couple of months later than Siegfried,
Das Rheingold once again finds house conductor Bodanzky
on animated form. His fleet footed drive and panache can best
be appreciated from the clarity of the passages for harp and horns
(listen to Der Welte Erbe Gewänn’ ich zu eigen durch ich?)
or the way in which the strings dig in behind the Fricka of Karin
Branzell and Schorr’s Wotan in Nur Wonne schafft dir. The
singers are on sublime form. The scalding iron curdle of Branzell’s
Fricka and the colour and plangency of her tonal reserves (sample
Jezt fand ich’s) and Schorr’s nobility, his firmly focused
tone and increasing urgency and authority. Then there is Rene
Maison’s superb Loge, one of the under acknowledged highlights
of the Met broadcast survivals. His elegant legato is a lesson
in voice production, beauty of tone, depth of characterisation
and sheer subtlety. Immer is Undank Loges lohn! From Scene
II is one of the greatest moments from among many as is his glittering
shaft of vocalism toward the end of the second scene, and the
thin, sneering elegance in his dealings with Alberich in Scene
III (Risen-Warum winde sich ringelnd!). His is an unmissable
assumption of the role. The Mime of Karl Laufkötter avoids
gross caricature and performs with excellence whilst Eduard Habich’s
Alberich. Whilst not especially beautiful of voice – and there’s
a little strain as there occasionally is with Schorr at the top
of their compass – he is nevertheless truly inside the role and
enormously characterful. His snarled curse – a curdling venomous
moment – is spine tingling. As the work draws to a close Branzell
and Schorr, if anything, deepen in their responses and vocalism;
her melting entreaties and his musing depth as his voice lightens
on the Rainbow Bridge are cherishable, imperishable moments. The
sound is rather gritty with the inevitable imperfections of surface
noise, fortissimi overload and some grit in the grooves. An alternative
incarnation of this performance does however exist from Guild
and one can note some differences. Guild utilise an alternative
set of acetates and have interpolated a few words lost where Bodanzky
imposed his customary Two Act structure. Guild has also performed
some reconstructive surgery to the Rainbow Bridge scene, patching
so as to ensure an uninterrupted scene, whereas Naxos faithfully
preserves the slight breaks. Crucially Guild has excised Doris
Doe’s Erda – on the grounds that she is considered "disappointing"
- and has instead substituted a commercial Victor disc sung by
Thorborg. For some this may tip the balance Naxos’ way.
The 6 December 1941 performance of Die
Walküre saw some fascinating, if fortuitous, casting;
the debut in the role of Brünnhilde of Helen Traubel; also
Kipnis’s first Met appearance as Hunding and, somewhat dramatically,
the last minute substitution of the ill Lotte Lehmann by the young
Astrid Varnay. She had in fact never sung on stage before and
this was apparently her world debut. Familiar from earlier instalments
are Schorr and Kipnis and as Siegmund, inevitably, Melchior. Kersten
Thorborg was Fricka and hers is a name that should never be overlooked,
even in this company, when it comes to the giant success of these
Met Ring cycles. This was Schorr’s last Wagner broadcast; he was
only fifty-three but time and over use of the voice had led to
serious decline in its evenness and production. His Wotan is no
longer the long breathed and noble assumption of several years
earlier. It’s true that even in 1937 there were signs of strain
in his upper tessitura, audible sounds of fallibility, but these
were generally subsumed into the powerful generality of his leonine
stage presence and the cumulative power of his magnetic performances.
Here the fissures are wider and less easy to overlook. Melchior
though is unchangeably magnificent. The voice’s beauty and power
are intact, the colour and subtlety of phrasing – in the Invitation
to Valhalla scene or Winterstürne – still supreme examples
of his art. Varnay, at twenty-three, was fortunate to have studied
the role even if she’d never sung it on stage; she sings with
vivid characterisation, real élan and understanding. One
wouldn’t necessarily expect her vocal command to be absolute at
this stage in her career and it’s not quite; unlike Schorr who
struggles at the top, with Varnay there are a few unfocused moments
in her lower register – but they’re few and far between. Helen
Traubel had turned down a Met debut as early as 1926 but did appear
eleven years later; it was after Flagstad’s departure from the
Met in 1941 that Traubel took on the heavy Wagnerian roles. She
has always seemed to me far freer and more powerfully expressive
when caught on the wing; sometimes on disc there was a degree
of stentorian immobility that limited admiration. Here however
the sensitivity and the soaring flexibility of the voice are admirably
intact – sample for example the scene when she interjects with
Wotan for protection. The reservation with this broadcast survival
is the sometimes problematic sound – much less impressive than
Siegfried – and also, one feels, the conducting. For all the intensity
and powerful delineation, for all that the First Act, in particular,
generates considerable theatrical heat there is still something
marginally inflexible about Leinsdorf’s pressured and fast conducting.
Finally there is Götterdämmerung,
another performance which is somewhat compromised by aural imperfection
(principally some acetate wear and also a degree of fluctuation
on the originals which has been well dealt with here by Ward Marston).
This is the earliest of this Met cycle with commensurately the
poorest sound but persevere because there are noble compensations.
Chief amongst them is, needless to say, Melchior. He is in commanding
voice with a brooding, gleaming and sonorous baritonal extension.
His range is exceptional, his high C of cavalier brilliance, and
the impersonation one of all encompassing variety and breadth.
All the more valuable therefore is the fact that this seems to
be his only surviving Götterdämmerung. Brünnhilde
is Marjorie Lawrence and her famous splash in this role was to
appear astride her horse Grane as she rides into immolation –
a feat Wagner had sanctioned but no one before Lawrence had had
the nerve to do. (And a feat to which the director and conductor
both objected). Lawrence, then in her mid twenties possessed a
lustrous and youthful sheen to her voice. The voice is strong
but not overpowering; the compass is even but distinctly stronger
in the middle and upper registers. Hers is an unusually mature
understanding of the role, plaint and affectionate where necessary,
rising to a peak of complex sensitivity for the Immolation scene.
This Bodanzky takes at a pretty fearsome lick, exercising some
tempo retardation later on – but his characteristic vitesse
might be unwelcomingly bracing to some. Schorr’s Gunther is still
magnetic to hear; when he and Melchior join vocal forces in the
blood-brother duet the results are as thrilling as one would anticipate.
German bass Ludwig Hofmann made his met debut in 1932 in this
role and he proves a suitably cavernous Hagen, powerful without
barking and no guttural impediments. Eduard Habich was fifty-six
in 1937 but his insinuating Alberich is still impressive and he
abjures easy characterisation. But the principal glory belongs
to Melchior, Lawrence his worthy Brünnhilde.
Imperfections exist here alongside some imperishable
singing; cuts, harsh sound, some resolutely dramatic conducting.
But the gains are lasting ones and this miscellaneous Ring stands
as eloquent tribute to the standards of Wagner singing routinely
encountered in the opera houses of North and South America during
a golden age of vocalism and musicianship.
Jonathan Woolf
NAXOS 8.501106 [11CDs]