Bayreuth, 1951 - CD,price:3.18,sku:11429-1,brand:Opera Depot,variant:CD,category:1 CD Set,nonInteraction:true.The appearance marked a new era for the festival and catapulted the young soprano to international stardom.
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Fortunately, the Met administration was having none of that, and it would seem from listening to this performance (and others that have circulated) that differences were patched up. Leinsdorfs tempi usually are brisk but he is flexible and tender where appropriate, particularly in the first act love music. Lauritz Melchior is a force of nature in this music, the definitive Siegmund, at the height of his career. It is known that the famed Danish tenor had an arrangement with Leinsdorf to show his power and strength in the cries of Walse Walse in Act I. Each of these is held for about 11 seconds duration, an am amazing display of vocal power (these are considferably shorter in Melchiors famous 1935 recording conduycted by Bruno Walter), The only relatively unfamiliar name in a major role is Julius Huehn (1904-1971), an American bass-baritone who had a considerable career in Wagnerian roles. He made made his debut in 1935 and performed in several other American opera houses. He surely is an impressive Wotan, a fitting companion for his better-known fellow stars. This performance has been issued several times on CD, most recently as part of the 2013 Sony issue, a major multi-disk set of historic Wagner performances from the Met, at budget price. It is is taken from off-the-air acetates of the broadcast from an anonymous source. As usual with Pristine, there are no texts or translations, but a detailed track listing is provided. R.E.B. October 2015 Fanfare For anyone impatient with those of us who talk about the good old days at the opera house, here is exhibit A. Wagner singing such as is heard in this Saturday afternoon performance from 1940 simply no longer exists. Period. End of debate. Richard Caniell, on his admirable Immortal Performances label, issued parts of this performance in his Dream Ring set, but he combined it with another broadcast so that he could get, among other things, Friedrich Schorr as Wotan. Both Colin Clarke and I reviewed that package very favorably in Fanfare 37:2. But for those who want a single, unedited live performance with whatever cast happened to be on stage, here it is. Sony and the Met, in their set Wagner at the Met, issued this same performance, and one might wonder why Pristine would bother. After all, the resources of the Metropolitan Opera Company and Sony should permit the transfer to be as good as technology is capable of. And indeed I have enjoyed that edition for the year or so that I have owned it. I am sure Sony and the Met did the best they could with what they had, but Andrew Rose of Pristine was given a different source (he is discreet and doesnt indicate from whom), a set of transfers on a completely different plane from the Sony release, not to mention inferior earlier issues. He had to make two tiny patches (each lasting less than a second, and covering side changes) and used the SonyMet version. Die Walkure Leinsdorf Flac Professional Studio CommercialThis sounds like a professional studio commercial recording from 1940, and a good one at that. Pristines XR stereo remastering gives a sense of the space of the Met, and the result is thrilling in a way one never thought this performance would be. And what a performance it is Leinsdorf was taking over Bodanzkys performances at the Met and he opened up Bodanzkys cuts in the Ring. And he also conducted with a passion and energy that did not always mark his work in the later stages of his career. Die Walkure Leinsdorf Flac Series Of PerformancesHe had a fairly famous feud with Melchior just prior to the series of performances in early 1940, with Melchior complaining about Leinsdorfs fast tempos. Some attribute the ulterior motive to Melchior of attempting to get Flagstads favorite conductor, Edwin MacArthur, to the Met pit.
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