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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Most Electrifying 'Walküre' Ever Recorded, 21 Nov 2003
This is a recording that merits its status as a legend. It has everything ... except the opera's third act. An explanation: the recording was begun in 1935 in Vienna, under conductor Bruno Walter but owing to all kinds of technical and scheduling difficulties parts of the second act had to be recorded three years later with mostly the same singers in Berlin under Bruno Seidler-Winkler, himself no mean Wagner conductor, because Walter had by then left Hitler's Germany. And the third act was simply never recorded. Even so, it has never been out of print. Many years ago I owned this performance on an LP whose dreadful sound could not hide the intensity and beauty of the performance. This transfer, done by Naxos's miracle man, Mark Obert-Thorn, is absolutely stunning. There are many passages where one simply cannot tell that the recording was made seventy years ago. The voices are generally very forward and are extremely life-like. Except for occasional and quickly forgotten slight tubbiness and limited dynamic range the orchestral sound is more than satisfactory; indeed, it is about the best I've ever heard from recordings of that era. A transfer engineering triumph.But the best part is the musical performance, cobbled together as it is in some respects. The cast is a dream. Get this: Sieglinde----------Lotte Lehmann
Brünnhilde---------Marta Fuchs
Fricka-------------Margarete Klose
Siegmund-----------Lauritz Melchior
Wotan--------------Han Hotter Hunding------------Emanuel List Further, each of these singers is in extraordinary voice. It is as if they sense they are involved in a history-making endeavor in this, one of the first attempts to record 'Walküre.' Lehmann, who could later sound a bit matronly, here sounds ardently young and feminine. Melchior sings as well as I've ever heard him, a bronze baritonal sound that is absolutely rock-solid, coupled with fidelity to the music as written, not always present elsewhere with Melchior. Marta Fuchs, who made few recordings, is a young-sounding and intensely dramatic Brünnhilde; the voice is like a laser. The young Hans Hotter, then only 26, is singing his first Wotan, a role he made his own in the years to come. There is a strong, rather than hectoring, Fricka from the mezzo, Margarete Klose. Hunding is manly and dramatically apt as sung by Emanuel List. The Vienna portion (more than 2/3 of the recording) is played by the Vienna Philharmonic who as the Vienna State Opera Orchestra had this music in their bones. The Berlin portion utilized the Berlin Philharmonic who are only marginally below the VPO's level in this era. This is Bruno Walter's only major Wagnerian recording. This conductor, often cited as the quintessentially gemütlich Germanic conductor, leads an intensely dramatic performance. What a pity we don't have more Wagner from him. Individual passages of note in Act I: Melchior's 'Ein Schwert verhiess mir der Vater,' and then 'Winterstürme' followed by the rapturous duet (Melchior, Lehmann) 'Du bist der Lenz.' Act II: the argument in Scene One between Fricka (Fuchs) and Wotan (Hotter), which is often just sort of skated over but here is full of fire and spirit. Then the most dramatically engaging 'Wotan's Monolog' (where he tells Brünnhilde the history of the Ring) that I've ever heard; this passage is sometimes scorned because it is so long and recounts material that presumably the informed opera-goer already knows. Not so here; Hotter makes us, as well as Brünnhilde, hang on every word. Klose's alternately confused and brave Brünnhilde, especially at the beginning of Act II, Scene 4 ('Siegmund! Sieh auf mich!) where she tells Siegmund he must die, is simply stunning. The marginally less effective part of the recording is in the last part of Scene 5 when two different singers (Ella Flesch and Alfred Jerger) perform that scene's confrontation between Wotan and Brünnhilde. It's not that they are bad--in fact, they're quite good--but their voices are so very different from Fuchs's and Hotter's that it is a bit jarring. This, obviously, is not going to be anyone's only recording of 'Die Walküre.' And although there is a scene by scene synopsis, there is no libretto; Naxos probably recognizes that anyone buying this 2CD set will probably already have a modern recording and a libretto. Still, I suspect I will be reaching for this performance in preference to a number of other more modern performances that I own. It's that good! Once again I want to thank Naxos for making this and other significant historical recordings available in clear sound at a budget price. They keep coming up with winners like this, the 1931 French 'Manon,' the early Karajan 'Meistersinger,' the recently released 'Louise,' and others. Most heartily recommended. CD1=73:41
CD2=70:22
TT=2:24:03 Scott Morrison
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~ Dr. Emil Schipper
~ Richard Wagner
~ Richard Wagner
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~ Richard [Classical] Wagner
