Here is another valuable document of
Wilhelm Furtwängler’s activities
as a Mozart conductor at Salzburg. Mozart’s
music appeared infrequently on his concert
programmes - the last four symphonies
and the requiem plus the odd concerto
when some renowned soloist demanded..
That said, he obviously had a special
affection for the operas, which became
more or less the core of his Salzburg
performances during his last years.
We have come to expect
expansive and deeply affectionate interpretations
of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner and Wagner
from his baton. Is his approach to Mozart
different? On the surface it isn’t and
the timings of this issue (almost three
full hours stretching over three fairly
well-filled CDs) points towards a long
drawn-out affair – which in part it
is. But this isn’t the whole truth:
there are some extremely slow tempos
that could be questioned. I will come
back to this in due time. I should however
point out that the overall timing also
accommodates lengthy applause, extended
pauses while the sets are changed and
an unusually full amount of spoken dialogue.
Following the performance
with the Eulenburg score, which includes
all the spoken words from the original
edition, it is clear that there is much
more dialogue here than in any other
recorded performance I have heard –
or even live performance for that matter.
There are cuts – thank God – and it
can be nice to hear these once. However
as delivered here to a large outdoor
audience, requiring a sometimes larger-than-life
delivery, it becomes tiring on repeated
hearing. It is nevertheless fairly well
done, considering that these are singers
and not actors. Through clever tracking
it is also possible to programme out
most of the dialogue, so readers allergic
to long stretches of spoken German need
not hesitate on this ground.
The quality of the
sound is another matter. The source
material is a radio recording made by
the Salzburg studios of the Rotweissrot
group of stations established by the
American occupying forces. Unfortunately
the original tapes are not available
any longer so this set has been made
from copies in less than mint condition.
The booklet text stresses the restoration
work that has been done, and while acknowledging
the commitment and technical proficiency
of Othmar Eichinger and Harald Huber,
it has to be said that the finished
result is still quite primitive. The
value of this issue is primarily the
opportunity to get a glimpse of the
great conductor’s view of this indestructible
masterpiece and also to hear many great
singers of the day, most of them well
remembered. There is a lot to admire
here but one has to be prepared for
thin string tone, a fair amount of distortion,
voices coming and going through stage
movements and unavoidable stage noises.
On the other hand the numerous sound
effects, primarily the recurrent thunders,
are frighteningly realistic so one can
easily understand Papageno’s fear.
The overture at once
sets the seal on this performance: the
adagio-opening is heavy, dark, oratorio-like,
more Bruckner than Mozart, but the allegro
is swift and sparkling. The three ominous
wind fanfares (bars 97-102) are again
heavy and doom-laden but then the allegro
bounces along light-heartedly as befits
a Singspiel. These contrasts
turn out to be symptomatic of the whole
performance: adagios and larghettos
tend to be very adagio and larghetto,
while allegros are certainly not slow,
rather the contrary. Furtwängler
is careful to stress the dramatic accents,
for instance in the opening scene where
Tamino is chased by the serpent. Most
of the up-tempo numbers are traditionally
executed but what remains in one’s memory
after the performance are the sometimes
extremely drawn-out slow speeds. Compared
to the recorded version I know best,
Karl Böhm’s 40-year-old DG recording,
some of the numbers are almost somnambulist
– and Böhm is no hustler! In well-known
arias like Tamino’s Dies Bildnis
ist bezaubernd schön (CD1 track
5) and Sarastro’s O Isis und Osiris
(CD2 track 3) Furtwängler adds
a full minute’s playing time; that is
an extreme difference for a piece lasting
three to four minutes. Besides enhancing
the oratorio-feeling this approach also
puts the singers’ breath-control to
severe test. In The Queen of the Night’s
first act aria, O zittre nicht
(CD1 track 7) Wilma Lipp sounds uncharacteristically
strained in the first larghetto section,
while the allegro moderato – beginning
with the words Du, du, du wirst sie
zu befreien gehen, moves at a fresher
pace making her sound much more comfortable.
The march of the priests, opening the
second act, takes Furtwängler 3:36
to traverse, while Michael Halász
on the excellent Naxos recording, who
is by no means rushed, needs only 2:35.
Of course, difference in speed is only
one criterion when comparing interpretations
but at least it gives a tangible indication
of what to expect. The Vienna Philharmonic
play as well as their maestro allows
them to do but the Vienna State Opera
Chorus of this vintage was obviously
not so homogeneous a body as we have
come to expect from later incarnations.
The soloists are a
quite different matter. A glance at
the cast-list is like reading the Who’s
who of Austro-German opera singers
of fifty+ years ago. This goes down
to the tiniest comprimario role. Here
we find Ernst Haefliger who within a
few years was to become one of the foremost
Mozart tenors - recording Tamino, as
well as Belmonte, Don Ottavio and Ferrando
for DG. Here he is 1st Armed
Man. One of the most formidable Wagner
baritones of the 1950s, Hermann Uhde
is here as the 2nd Armed
Man? Sieglinde Wagner and Elisabeth
Höngen as 2nd and 3rd
Lady respectively are other examples
of luxurious casting. Watch out also
for Karl Dönch as 2nd
Priest. The three ladies blend well
in their concerted singing but Gertrude
Grob-Prandl as 1st Lady,
by far the most important of them, is
shrill and fluttery on her own. The
real find here is the otherwise unknown
(to me at least) Edith Oravez as Papagena.
It is of course mainly a speaking part,
which she acts splendidly, but when
eventually she is allowed to sing in
the finale, she displays an enchanting
soubrette, glittering, beautiful and
perfectly pitched. I wonder what became
of her. Rarely has the part of Monostatos
been so well sung as here by
Peter Klein, the second act aria expertly
executed. Veteran Paul Schöffler
is a warm and expressive Speaker, through
Furtwängler’s slow speeds appearing
almost as an Old Testament prophet.
He is almost on a par with Hans Hotter
on the Böhm recording – another
important Hans Sachs – and he is in
steadier voice. His speaking voice is
surprisingly thin and tenoral, so much
so that I wondered if it is the same
actor.
Among the five central
characters, three of the singers went
on to record their parts commercially.
Josef Greindl’s authoritative, slightly
gritty but sonorous Sarastro is to be
heard on Ferenc Fricsay’s DG recording
from 1955, and although his is a towering
presence whenever he appears on the
present recording he is hampered by
the slow tempos. In diesen heil’gen
Hallen (CD2 track 11) sounds more
comfortable and he finishes it on a
resounding low (unwritten) E. Also in
the mid-1950s Wilma Lipp recorded The
Queen of the Night for Karl Böhm
(his first Zauberflöte,
for Decca) and to my mind that is, with
the exception of Rita Streich on the
Fricsay, the supreme assumption on records
of this devilish part. Here she is,
as I have already mentioned, a bit uncomfortable
in the first aria but towards the end
she climbs the scale on "ewig"
with considerable ease, although the
stratospheric F is only touched in.
In the even more challenging Der
Hölle Rache (CD2 track 9) she
is really impressive: dramatic, intense
and hitting almost all the high notes
plumb in the middle. Lipp was not yet
25 when she recorded this, which makes
it even more impressive.
The lovely Irmgard
Seefried, who set down Pamina’s role
for Karajan on EMI just a year later,
is ideal for the part. In 1949 she still
that bell-like silvery clarity that
a decade later had been supplanted by
something less precious. She could at
the same time be utterly sad and vulnerable.
Her second act aria Ach, ich fühl’s
(CD2 track 15) shows her to very good
advantage.
The remaining two lead
characters never got to record their
parts, which in the case of Walther
Ludwig was a pity. Born in 1902 he had
already had a lengthy career, making
his debut in 1928 and being part of
the first ensemble at Glyndebourne.
At the age of sixty he resumed his medical
studies, which he had put on the shelf
in his youth, and from 1971 he worked
as a doctor. He recorded another of
his Mozart roles, that of Belmonte in
Die Entführung aus der Serail
for Decca, possibly that company’s first
complete opera and one of the earliest
LP-operas. Just a few years later, in
the mid-1950s, his voice had lost most
of its bloom, as is revealed by some
operatic excerpts and song recordings
in my collection. Here though, after
a hesitant start where he lacks elegance
and shows some of the hardening of tone
that was to be prominent later on, he
goes from strength to strength. In the
first act finale he glows with burnished
tone, not unlike that of Siegfried Jerusalem’s;
just listen to O ew’ge Nacht
(CD1 track 13, immediately after the
encounter with the Speaker). Then try
his second aria Wie stark ist nicht
dein Zauberton (CD1 track 14). This
is Mozart singing of the highest order.
I am afraid that I
can’t be so enthusiastic about the Papageno
of Karl Schmitt-Walter (1900– 1985).
This singer also had a long career,
making his debut as early as 1921. In
1961 he was still singing Beckmesser
at Bayreuth and some Lieder-recordings
I have, show a singer with a flexible
voice still keen with the words. The
latter aspect is also applicable to
his Papageno; his is a lively impersonation
and in the duet with Pamina, Bei
Männern, welche Liebe fühlen
(CD1 track 11) he shows something
of his former greatness. Otherwise he
is dry-sounding and, in the Vogelfänger-aria,
quite four-square. The booklet reprints
a review by the noted Viennese critic
Heinrich Kralik, who thought Schmitt-Walter’s
characterization was masterful. This
may well have been the impression with
the visual elements in place but as
a purely sonic experience it is a far
cry from for instance Fischer-Dieskau’s
(Fricsay and Böhm). Håkan
Hagegård’s (in Ingmar Bergman’s
film) is an assumption I also savoured
from the then young baritone on several
occasions in the early 1970s in Stockholm.
To sum things up: this
is probably not for the general opera
lover, who presumably wants something
"cleaner". Furtwängler’s
admirers, who don’t already own it in
one of the pirate-versions that have
appeared from time to time, should of
course consider it as should general
collectors with an interest in some
of these singers. Personally I’m not
sure I will return to it very often
in toto, but for Seefried, Lipp’s
Hölle Rache and Ludwig’s
Wie stark it will definitely
be tempting – sonics notwithstanding.
Göran Forsling
Chor der Wiener Staatsoper, Wiener Philharmoniker/Wilhelm
Furtwängler 
