Wagner: Die Walküre

Leinsdorf, Erich, Melchior, Lauritz, Metropolitan Opera Chorus, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Traubel, Helen

8.110058-60

Recorded live at the Met. in New York in December 1941, the Naxos historical set offers an electrifying performance, starrily, cast, with radio sound giving clear focus to the voices. With Astrid Varnay as Sieglinde making her début at the Met. and Helen Traubel as Brünnhilde also making her début role, it was a great occasion, with Lauritz Melchoir plainly intent on not being outshone. He is in heroic voice, the master Wagner tenor of his generation, daring to hold on to his cries of Walse, Walse’ for extra-ordinary length. Varnay is a warm Sieglinde, producing Flagstad-like overtunes. Equally, Helen Traubel sings with a rock-like firmness that is too rare in latter-day Wagner sopranos, clear and incisive, never fluffing a note. Kirsten Thorborg is a magnificent Fricka, and Alexander Kipnis a thrilling Hunding, with his dark, incisive attack. It is sad that next to these, the other great Wagnerian, Friedrich Schorr, as Wotan, reveals a sadly worn voice, strained and dry on top. It may be as well that his Act II monologue is severely cut. Yet the nobility of his portrayal still comes over powerfully, as in his final half-tone phrase, kissing away Brünnhilde’s godhead. Liensdorf draws incandescent playing from the Met. Orchestra in a performance wilder than his RCA studio account but just as compelling. • Penguin Guide, January 2009

CD x 3

Naxos

30/11/2000

636943105825