Mozart: Die Zauberflöte

Now for the performances: Berry sings commendably as Papageno and Gedda, despite sounding slightly awkward at the start of "Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schon" is excellent throughout. But it is the women of this recording that really stand out. Janowitz is simply divine as Pamina, Popp is surely the single greatest Queen of the Night and the Three Ladies, headed by no less than Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, are excellent. The parts of the three boys are sung by women who mercifully don't sing too heavily so as to maintain the character of the songs.

Some criticise Klemperer's tempi, which compared to Davies for example, are sometimes on the slow side, but I have to disagree as no parts of the opera ever sound plodding - interpretation is very thoughtful throughout. For example, when I first heard a clip from Popp's "Der Holle Rache kocht in meinen Herzen" I was slightly worried as it seemed so much slower than the furious Haitink/Gruberova interpretation I was used to, yet on complete listening it is so utterly effective and well sung you couldn't really wish it to go any quicker.

Sound quality is very good, I had a couple of "fuzzy moments" on the first CD but they are hardly noticeable and really nothing to complain about.

Overall, a fantastic recording with brilliant performances and at a superb price. If you want a single definitive recording of the Magic Flute, let it be this one.

Klemperer would not have been the first conductor to come to my mind in connexion with the Magic Flute. As you would expect, he is not the speediest, but he doesn't dawdle either. The Magic Flute for me is less a drama than a musical tableau, and it's the purely musical rather than the dramatic aspects that interest me in it. With a cast like this we would expect outstanding musicianship and accomplishment, and in general we would be right about that. A great deal is a matter of personal opinion and personal taste, more so than usually. The three Ladies are no less than Schwarzkopf, Ludwig and Hoeffgen, for instance. That's an astounding trio, but they don't quite astound me somehow, splendid though they are. Gedda's voice is one that I particularly like, so I don't fault his Tamino. Ruth-Margret Puetz is just fine as Papagena and Walter Berry strikes me as an outstanding Papageno. The divine Gundula Janowitz is divine as ever in the part of Pamina. However the 'high spot', in a rather vulgar sense, of the Magic Flute is the successive arias for first the Queen of the Night and then for Sarastro in Act II. Here we have slightly mixed success. Lucia Popp is, for me, simply superlative. I have heard that extraordinary thing done faster and more 'dramatically' but never with greater technical assurance, and as I've probably made clear by now it's not a more dramatic reading that I'm after. Klemperer's steady tempo here is as I like it, but it suits Frick less well. He has the right resonance in his low notes, but the slowish tempo does not do his steadiness or quality of tone any favours. Franz Crass was on hand for a couple of smaller roles, and I wonder whether he might not have been a little better as Sarastro. This aria was described by Shaw the only music that might have come from the mouth of God, and I've heard it attain more nearly to that status than it does here.

The other contributions are just fine, and the recording, from 1964, is just fine too. There is an interesting and knowledgeable liner-note by Richard Osborne, a useful synopsis of the story, and translations of the text into English and French. To my delight, there are some summaries of the scenes embedded in the text itself, a very acceptable replacement for the spoken dialogue. This is likely to be as good a Magic Flute as I shall be privileged to hear.