WAGNER GALA
Richard WAGNER
Der fliegende Holländer: Die Frist ist um (4); Lohengrin: Einsam
in trüben Tagen (1); Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Was duftet
doch der Flieder so mild; Wahn! Wahn! Überall Wahn! (4); Parsifal: Ich
sah das Kind an seiner Mutter Brust (1); Tristan und Isolde: Weh, ach wehe!
Dies zu dulden! (2, 3), Mild und leise (2); Die Walküre: Der Männer
Sippe, Du bist der Lenz (1)
Kirsten Flagstad
(sop) (1), Birgit Nilsson (sop) (2), Grace Hoffman (mezzo-sop) (3), George
London (bass) (4), Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Hans Knappertsbusch
Recorded in 1956 (1), 1958 (4), 1959 (2, 3)
Decca
458 238-2
[75'47"]
Crotchet
This seems to have got into the wrong series, for opera gala is surely intended
for those whose exploration of opera is at the beginning. The scenes here
are not quite the ones I would have chosen with such people in mind. Cognoscenti
will find it all very interesting, however, for here we have as much as will
go onto one CD of three LPs recorded in the fifties by the great Hans
Knappertsbusch.
Decca's attitude to Knappertsbusch was fairly ambiguous. They recorded a
Meistersinger in the early days of LP and the 1951 Bayreuth Parsifal has
always been a mainstay of their catalogue. But they sat on the Bayreuth
Götterdämmerung (just issued by Testament at long last) while rumours
rumbled on for years of a complete Knappertsbusch Ring in their vaults
(apparently not true). When the epoch-making decision was made to record
the entire Ring for the first time they had him record Act 1 of Die Walküre
while Solti recorded Act 3 as a trial run. The choice fell upon Solti,
catapulting him to an eminence that not all musicians felt was deserved.
Similarly, the Tristan excerpts here (the original LP also included the Act
1 Prelude) were followed a year later by the complete opera in which Nilsson
was conducted by Solti.
By kind concession (maybe Solti was busy that day) Knappertsbusch was allowed
to accompany recital discs by Kirsten Flagstad (we have here the "other side"
of an LP which also included the Wesendonck Lieder) and George London (the
LP also contained an excerpt from Die Walküre). Flagstad was by this
time just over 60 and had retired from the operatic stage. Would that there
were many Wagner interpreters today with a tithe of the vocal security she
still showed. Nilsson was at the summit of her career (this was the year
of her Met début in Tristan). She was to refine her interpretation
for the celebrated 1966 Bayreuth version under Böhm, but in the Liebestod
in particular, where Knappertsbusch reaches an incandescence scarcely inferior
to that of the classic Flagstad/Furtwängler recording, this is already
a performance to rival the greatest. London is sometimes unremittingly powerful
but for the most part his voice retains musicality even in the strongest
moments.
Knappertsbusch was notoriously indifferent to orchestral discipline (was
it for this reason that Decca preferred Solti in a jet-set age?) but the
odd slipshod moment has to be measured against a virtually unrivalled awareness
of what the music is really about. Decca should have made amends for past
injustices by issuing the complete contents of the original three LPs as
a double pack in their Legends series.
The orchestra is at times too backward in the Flagstad and London recitals
and the transfer has given the voices a paint-stripping quality. Still, this
is a disc that connoisseurs of Wagner interpretation will need to have. The
notes are brief but to the point both as regards the artists and in setting
forth the context of each excerpt. They are translated into French and German.
Not for the first time recently I note that the sung texts appear only in
the original and in English. The matter is perhaps beyond my brief but I
hope French critics are making due protest?
Christopher Howell
Performance
Recording
