Wagner's Valhalla

[Brünnhilde forever]

One picture of the LA production:

[Häuschen]

Just purchased my ticket for the March 8 performance and sooooooo looking forward to Der Ring in 2010.  This will be my first complete Ring and I'm seriously considering tickets to both complete performances if I can swing the finances.

Can anyone comment on this Erich Kleiber recording?



http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=53035

Kleiber is one of my favorite conductors but I'm not familiar with the singers, nor the reputation of the Colon Theatre.  For $40 it's probably worth a try.

[Häuschen]

I meant to add that all this week I've been listening to the Clemens Krauss recording from Bayreuth in 1953.  Superb singing and sound quality, if a little echoey at times on the Das Rheingold discs.

[Haffner]

I meant to add that all this week I've been listening to the Clemens Krauss recording from Bayreuth in 1953.  Superb singing and sound quality, if a little echoey at times on the Das Rheingold discs.

It's an excellent, mono performance.

The Kleiber is very good. I'd grab the Krauss over that particular Kleiber recording, however. Better singers mostly.

[Mandryka]

Does anyone know if Nilson, Hotter and Vickers ever sang in the Ring together - and if so, how can I get the record?

[Lilas Pastia]

I don't think so. Hotter was already retired when Nilsson and Vickers started singing together in Bayreuth Ring productions. But I may be wrong. A Walküre maybe?

[Mandryka]

I don't think so. Hotter was already retired when Nilsson and Vickers started singing together in Bayreuth Ring productions. But I may be wrong. A Walküre maybe?

That's interesting -- I didn;t realise Hotter retired so early.

I last say him about 10 years ago in a prom -- the sprecher in Gurre-lieder.

[knight66]

There is a Vickers/Nilsson Walkure with George London, it dates from 1962. The LSO is conducted by Leinsdorf and its most recent incarnation was on Decca. It is excellent in may ways, probably one of Leinsdorf's best sets.

If there is a live set with your dream cast, I don't know about it. Hotter was born in 1909, so may have been in casts with the other two. In the 1060s he had started to direct Wagner productions. He retired in 1972 from the headline roles.

Mike

[Mandryka]

There is a Vickers/Nilsson Walkure with George London, it dates from 1962. The LSO is conducted by Leinsdorf and its most recent incarnation was on Decca. It is excellent in may ways, probably one of Leinsdorf's best sets.

If there is a live set with your dream cast, I don't know about it. Hotter was born in 1909, so may have been in casts with the other two. In the 1060s he had started to direct Wagner productions. He retired in 1972 from the headline roles.

Mike

I know the George London set and I'm afraid to say that he's my least favourire Wotan ever.

But thanks for trying!

[Lilas Pastia]

There is a Vickers/Nilsson Walkure with George London, it dates from 1962. The LSO is conducted by Leinsdorf and its most recent incarnation was on Decca. It is excellent in may ways, probably one of Leinsdorf's best sets.

If there is a live set with your dream cast, I don't know about it. Hotter was born in 1909, so may have been in casts with the other two. In the 1060s he had started to direct Wagner productions. He retired in 1972 from the headline roles.

Mike

Vickers first sang with Nilsson in 1971 (Tristan und Isolde) . IIRC they partnered each other numerous times in Tristan during the seventies. Vickers did sing with Hotter (Parsifal to his Gurnemanz) in the early sixties. The trio did sing together once, but in Beethoven (Fidelio), not Wagner.

[knight66]

Andre, I am not at home, so cannot look again at my box set. Did I quote the wrong date of the Leinsdorf Walkure recording?

Mike

[Wendell_E]

Andre, I am not at home, so cannot look again at my box set. Did I quote the wrong date of the Leinsdorf Walkure recording?

Mike

I don't know about the date of that recording, but Vickers and Nilsson did sing together before 1971.  The Met archives show their first performance together there was a Walküre on February 9, 1960.  Four days later, the did a Fidelio together.  Unfortunately, Hotter last sang at the Met in 1954 (repertory disagreements with Bing, IIRC), so there's no Nilsson/Vickers/Hotter broadcast from the Met, either. 

[Lilas Pastia]

A 1960 Fidelio has survived (from La Scala, under Karajan - this is the one I referred to):
   
But there is no recorded evidence of a 1960 Walküre (Nilsson-Vickers recordings had to wait until 1971). Unless there is a live pirate recording I'm not aware of. In any case, until the 50 year copyright date has elapsed, any Met performance is guarded by the local Fafner. Let's wait until next year, then!

[Wendell_E]

But there is no recorded evidence of a 1960 Walküre (Nilsson-Vickers recordings had to wait until 1971). Unless there is a live pirate recording I'm not aware of. In any case, until the 50 year copyright date has elapsed, any Met performance is guarded by the local Fafner. Let's wait until next year, then!

You can listen to the February 24, 1968 Met broadcast at http://www.rhapsody.com/richard-wagner/wagner-die-walkure-february-24-1968.  You have to be a rhapsody subscriber to hear the whole thing, but even if you're not, you can listen to up to 25 tracks per month for free (more than enough for, say, a complete Act I and the Todesverkundigung).  The cast also includes Thomas Stewart, Leonie Rysanek, Christa Ludwig, and Karl Ridderbusch.   Karajan had conducted the premiere, but had left by the time of the broadcast, so we get Berislav Klobučar instead.

The Met did broadcast both Fidelio and Die Walküre with Nilsson and Vickers in Feb. 1960, but so far that 1968 broadcast is the only one that's showed up on Sirius or Rhapsody.  Maybe one day.

[knight66]

I am not sure whether the mystery is solved of my Leinsdorf recording. I am home now and can confirm the box shows 1961, re-release 2002, Decca. I will do a little research. I have a feeling it was licenced to RCA until recently.

Mike

[knight66]

From the Gramophone archive; it confirms 1962 as the date of the recording.

Mike

WAGNER. DIE WALKURE. Jon Vickers (ten) Siegmund; Grê Brouwenstijn (sop) Sieglinde; Birgit Nilsson (sop) Briinnhilde; George London (bass-bar) Wotan; Rita Gorr (mez) Fricka; David Ward (bass) Hunding; Marie Collier (sop) Gerhilde; Judith Pierce (sop) Helmwige; Julia Malyon (sop) Ortlinde; Mar- greta Elkins (mez) Waltraute; Josephine Veasey (mez) Rossweisse; Noreen Berry (mez) Siegrune; Maureen Guy (mez) Grimgerde; Joan Edwards (contr) Schwertleite; London Symphony Orchestra / Erich Leinsdorf. Decca Grand Opera 0 (D 430 391-2DM3 (three discs, nas: 216 minutes: ADD). Notes, text and translation included. From RCA LDS6706 (9/62).

This performance, made during the period when Decca's Ring was in progress, has in consequence tended to be overlooked. Leinsdorf was an experienced Wagnerian, having taken over the Wagner repertory from Bodanzky at the Metropolitan Opera in the 1930s, restoring all the cuts made by his predecessor. He paces the work firmly and stamps his authority on the LSO of the day, but finds it hard to relax or to peer into the more metaphysical side of the score as would a Furtwängler or a Goodall. His reading is more to be equated with that of Levine today, having the same visceral excitement, as in the fight at the end of Act 2 and the departure of the Valkyries in Act 3. Leinsdorf also evinces an understanding of the larger paragraph; what I find missing is that extra, hard-to-describe inward quality which should inform Wotan's Narration and his relationship with his erring daughter; it is something instinctive that cannot be learnt. George London's Wotan doesn't help. For all the security and resplendence of his singing, so like that of James Morris today, it wants the verbal understanding and subtlety of phrase brought to the role by Hotter and Bailey. Indeed, even Nilsson—in the Todesverkiindigung and elsewhere—doesn't approach the insights and understanding she showed for Solti (Decca), and BOhm (Philips) some five or six years later. That said, her performance leaves many others standing in its strength of voice and intelligence of delivery. The Valkyries comprise many excellent British singers of the day.

Act 1 offers many rewards in the fervent, heroically sung Siegmund of Vickers, heard to greater advantage here than for Karajan in his complete Ring on DG, and in the imaginative, deeply felt Sieglinde of Brouwenstijn, who manages the storytelling of "Der Manner Sippe" as well as any Sieglinde on disc. It was also a pleasure to hear again the sonorous bass of David Ward, even if Hunding needs a more granite-like tone than he can provide (he was soon to become an appreciable Wotan). In Act 2, Rita Gorr is a powerful but unsubtle Fricka—and perhaps those epithets characterize the performance as a whole. The recording is over-resonant and not very atmospheric. A.B.

[Lilas Pastia]

You can listen to the February 24, 1968 Met broadcast at http://www.rhapsody.com/richard-wagner/wagner-die-walkure-february-24-1968.  You have to be a rhapsody subscriber to hear the whole thing, but even if you're not, you can listen to up to 25 tracks per month for free (more than enough for, say, a complete Act I and the Todesverkundigung).  The cast also includes Thomas Stewart, Leonie Rysanek, Christa Ludwig, and Karl Ridderbusch.   Karajan had conducted the premiere, but had left by the time of the broadcast, so we get Berislav Klobučar instead.

The Met did broadcast both Fidelio and Die Walküre with Nilsson and Vickers in Feb. 1960, but so far that 1968 broadcast is the only one that's showed up on Sirius or Rhapsody.  Maybe one day.

Unfortunately I get this message:

U.S. Only. We're sorry. We have detected that you are outside of the United States. This service is currently only available to residents within the United States.

Booohooohooo! 

[Wanderer]

Unfortunately I get this message:

U.S. Only. We're sorry. We have detected that you are outside of the United States. This service is currently only available to residents within the United States.

This is ridiculous. Things like that shouldn't be an issue on the internet age.

[Wendell_E]

This is ridiculous. Things like that shouldn't be an issue on the internet age.

Yeah, I had a similar problem when the BBC had the English National Opera Carmen available for online viewing.  I actually was able to watch it once, right after they put it up, but just a couple of hours later, they'd restricted it.

I did use my 25 free tracks on Rhapsody yesterday to listen to as much of that Walküre as I could (through Wotan's "So nimm meinen Segen, Niblungen-Sohn!"), the rest will have to wait 'til next month.

[Wilhelm Richard]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HERR WAGNER!