My end is my beginning.
Having tried about every recording
of Das Rheingold in the catalogue,
in a vain search for an ideal version
that wasn’t Solti’s, I now return
to the version which introduced
me to the work as an undergraduate
– borrowed from the University record
library in the early 1960s – and
which subsequently was the second
opera recording that I bought. The
first was the Erich Kleiber Marriage
of Figaro, an earlier Decca
recording which still wears its
years lightly (Decca 466 369 2 or
Documents 222932), and Mozart and
Wagner have remained my two favourite
opera composers ever since. The
Decca recording of the Todesverkündiging
and Act III of Die Walküre
(Kirsten Flagstad, Set Svanholm
and Solti) soon joined my collection
and, later, the Karajan Götterdämmerung.
With the advent
of CD, I bought the Solti versions
of Siegfried and Götterdämmerung
– living with the Karajan LPs of
the latter had convinced me that
his was not the Ring that
I wanted, despite its many virtues,
and the Boulez, though it made good
television, did not appeal – but
I looked elsewhere for the first
two operas in the cycle. Leinsdorf’s
Walküre was, and remains,
a satisfying alternative to Solti,
especially as it comes on three
mid-price CDs instead of the usual
four, thanks to Leinsdorf’s tendency
to push the tempo. (430 391-2 but
no longer listed by UK dealers though
it appears to be available from
Amazon.com and other US dealers
on 470 443.)
The Flagstad/Solti
Act III recording, now extremely
well refurbished (96kHz, 24-bit),
makes an excellent supplement to
it. (467 124-2 – see review
by CC. Incredibly, this CD seems
to have been deleted and is not
even available to download. Surely
it must reappear as a Decca Original,
otherwise Arkiv to the rescue, perhaps?
Or look out for remainders.) Her
companion recording of Act I with
Hans Knappertsbusch is available
on Australian Eloquence (466 678-2).
Rheingold,
however, remained elusive. Marek
Janowski on Eurodisc/RCA is very
good, but lacks that final degree
of magic and soon found its way
to the back of the cupboard with
the CDs that are rarely played –
in any case, his version is now
available only in a complete Ring:
excellent value, but not my ideal
, though Theo Adam is superb and
the original presentation of Rheingold
alone was excellent for a budget-price
set – more lavish, in fact, than
the new Decca reissue (82876 55709
2).
Just for fun I
bought Günther Neuhold’s live
1993-5 recording, available incredibly
cheaply (Documents 223057); no libretto
but an otherwise lavish presentation
for the price, complete with Arthur
Rackham illustrations. This very
decent account is also available
as part of a complete Ring,
which I have seen on sale for as
little as £9.99. (CF was not impressed
by much of the singing in his review
of the complete Brilliant Classics
incarnation of the Neuhold – see
review).
My most recent
purchase, the mid-price reissue
of Bernard Haitink’s EMI digital
recording (3 58699 2, also available
as a complete Ring package)
certainly has a great deal going
for it but, again, it turns out
not to be my ideal version. At around
the same price as this Decca reissue,
it comes in a cardboard box with
no libretto.
My colleagues DH
and CC had too many reservations
about the Naxos/Lothar Zagrosek
for me to go for that version (see
review).
Nor does Barenboim seem to offer
that ideal account, unless one is
seeking a DVD version – see review.
GF was not entirely enthusiastic
about the ‘Australian’ Rheingold
– see review
– but very recently he made Decca’s
complete DVD recording of the Ring
under Michael Schønwandt
his Recording of the Month; I haven’t
yet had time to sample this, though
it looks very promising – see GF’s
enthusiastic review.
(Decca 074 3264)
I have yet to hear
the Keilberth versions of any of
the operas on Testament, which have
won so many golden opinions, or
the Kempe Ring from 1957
recorded at Covent Garden and available
complete from Testament (again)
or opera by opera from Walhall.
So, when I saw
this Solti recording offered for
review, I speedily placed my bid
for it – I’d just about come to
the conclusion that I was going
to buy it, anyway. Distance can
sometimes lend a nostalgic enchantment
that disappears on reacquaintance,
but such has not been the case here:
this Rheingold goes right
back to the top of the list. I was
very pleased to receive the Hyperion
Helios reissue of Francisco Guerrero’s
Missa Sancta et immaculata
in the same package (CDH55313 –
expect an enthusiastic recommendation),
but this Decca set pips it at the
post as my Bargain of the Month.
Some dealers are still offering
this recording more cheaply in its
previous incarnation (455 556 2),
making it even more of a bargain
for the time being.
This Solti version
is not ideal in all respects: the
orchestral contribution from the
VPO can almost be taken for granted,
not just in the superb orchestral
opening, the descent to Niebelheim
and the depiction of the entry into
Valhalla; they also accompany the
voices clearly without ever swamping
them – they can probably play Wagner
almost as well in their sleep as
the music of Strauss for the New
Year’s Day Concert – but, though
the singing is never less than thoroughly
satisfactory, some of the singers
were not at the peak of their career.
Kirsten Flagstad
in particular was 62 even when she
made the Walküre Act
III recording a year earlier, having
‘retired’ in 1952, but her second-best
is more than good enough for me
and, in any case, her role in Rheingold
as Fricka is far less central than
her Brünnhilde in Walküre.
In both operas one somehow hears
the wonderful voice that was through
its slightly tremulous afterlife.
Birgit Nilsson, Leinsdorf’s Brünnhilde,
who took over that role in the remaining
Solti operas and sang them very
well, would have been in better
voice, but she didn’t quite (yet)
have the Flagstad magic. When Wotan
praises the newly-created Valhalla
(Vollendet das ewige Werk)
and Fricka replies that she is more
worried about the fate of Freia
(Mir bangt es um Freia) reminding
Wotan of the price he must pay (Vergaßest
du was du vergabst?) the slight
tremulousness is actually a vocal
advantage.
What makes this
version extra special is the sense
of drama, achieved through Solti’s
direction and the commitment of
the singers and aided by John Culshaw’s
magic as producer. Solti’s tempi
fall midway between Neuhold and
Haitink on the one hand (4 and 3
minutes, respectively, slower overall)
and Janowski on the other (6 minutes
faster). Since this is the version
of Rheingold that I first
got to know, I am, of course, biased,
but it doesn’t seem to me that Solti’s
pace can be faulted in any particular
and, in any case, the differences
are minimal. If any opera dictates
its own pace, Rheingold is
it.
The recording of
Walküre III was a significant
development; for Rheingold
the Sonicstage technique was even
more effective. More developments
were yet to come, notably the advent
of quieter editing facilities in
1964, in time for the last two operas,
but even in 1958 the Decca engineers
were achieving a fidelity which
is still remarkable. Without everything
coming into place at once, it would
never have happened – a later broadcast
concert version of Siegfried
with different singers comes nowhere
near repeating the magic.
When Wotan and
Loge descend to Nibelheim, you can
really imagine their descent; when
Alberich bullies Mime, the menace
is palpable and it becomes even
more so as Wotan and Loge work their
trick on him. When Alberich dons
the Tarnhelm to transform himself,
the magic is conveyed in the very
sound that we hear.
The effects would
all have counted for nothing had
the performers not played their
parts. Set Svanholm’s Loge, for
example, is masterful. Compared
with his earlier Wagner performances,
the part of Loge may have seemed
a let-down, but he sings it perfectly.
Without adopting the sneering tone
that some singers bring to the part,
he plays the role forthrightly –
some have even said too forthrightly
– but he hints at the detached role
of this misfit among the gods, the
one who stands back at the end of
the opera and observes that Wotan
has sown the seeds of his own destruction:
Ihrem Ende eilen sie zu –
they are hastening towards their
end.
In the Old Norse
poem Vøluspá,
Loki turns on his former colleagues
at the end of the world and brings
about Ragnarøk, the
downfall of the gods, which Wagner
translates as Götterdämmerung,
the twilight of the gods:
Kjóll ferr austan, / koma
munu Muspells
of løg lýðir,
/ en Loki stýrir;
fara fíflmegir / með
freka allir,
þeim er bróðir
/ Byleists í før.
[A ship comes
from the east; there shall come
across the sea from Muspell
(hell) its inhabitants – Loki
is the steersman; the monstrous
brood comes, all the men, and
in company with them the brother
of Byleist
(i.e. Loki?) goes.] (Vøluspá
stanza 51, text from Snorri
Sturlasson, Edda: Gylfaginning,
ed. A Faulkes, (London: University
College for Viking Society for
Northern Research, 1988, p.51).
One could easily
believe Svanholm’s slightly detached
Loge fitting into this scenario.
When Loge calls Alberich Vetter,
cousin, he may be employing the
appellation in its colloquial sense
– ‘mate’ – but there may also be
a hint there from Wagner of Loge’s
relationship with evil. Certainly
the other gods have little time
for him:
Froh: Loge heißt
du, doch nenn’ich dich Lüge.
[Loge you are, but I call you Lie]
Donner: Verfluchte
Lohe, dich lösch’ich aus!
[Accursed fire, I’ll put you out!]
Did Wagner see
the highly talented but morally
very dubious Loge as an analogue
of himself? Wagner was certainly
genial but Gottfried Keller must
have been supremely naïve to
have believed that he was also a
good man – ein genialer und auch
guter Mensch.
In Walküre
III, Otto Edelmann had been a superb
Wotan, able to capture both the
imperious and tender aspects of
his unwilling punishment of Brünnhilde.
George London is not quite in that
category – significantly, he was
replaced to splendid effect by Hans
Hotter, the Wotan
of his day, for Die Walküre
and Siegfried – but his singing
is never less than good.
The whole action
of the cycle begins with Alberich’s
greed for the Rhinegold and ends
with the destruction brought about
by his revenge. In Gustav Neidlinger
Solti had a superb exponent of the
role: he never needs to resort to
vocal tricks to bring out the nature
of this creature. When he sings
that he would rather give his life
than the ring, we believe him: Das
leben – doch nicht den Ring!
That the magic
should be a joint effort between
musicians and engineers is appropriate.
Wagner himself skilfully melded
the Middle High German Nibelungenlied
with material from the Norse Edda
and the Vølsungasaga
and Thidrekssaga (all in
translation) together with material
of his own invention, and he employed
the latest technology of his day
in staging the operas of the Ring
cycle. The BBC programme The
Golden Ring, detailing how the
same magic was worked on record,
remains available on DVD (Decca
0743196) but John Culshaw’s book
Ring Resounding (Secker &
Warburg, 1968) seems to be out of
print.
Some of the effects
which Wagner envisaged could not
be realised in live performances,
then or even now. Such is the entry
of the gods into Valhalla, signalled
by Donner’s earth-shattering hammer
stroke as the rainbow bridge shimmers
into existence. The music itself
creates some of the magic, the strings
serving to remind us why this bridge
was known in Old Norse as Bifrøst,
the trembling one, but you would
need CGI fully to create the vision
– at one and the same time the magnificent
creation shining in splendour –
in prächtiger Glut prangt
glänzend die Burg – and
also a reminder that Wotan played
foul to get it: Mit bösem
Zoll zahlt ich die Bau.
John Culshaw didn’t
have CGI, but he was developing
its aural equivalent. Even in the
1957 Walküre he had
built a stage mountain for the Valkyries
to clamber over. On stage, Donner’s
hammer stroke comes over as not
much more than a loud ting, as it
does also on the rival recordings;
on Decca the effect is still shattering
even fifty years on. When Decca
were looking for a sampler of Solti’s
best performances in 1992 they chose
this cataclysmic entry into Valhalla
to represent his Ring cycle. Solti’s
Haydn and Mozart, also on that sampler,
are certainly not beyond challenge,
but his Chicago Till Eulenspiegel
and Miraculous Mandarin
and this excerpt from Rheingold
make that CD still worth keeping
(436 753-2).
Wisely, in remastering
this latest 96kHz, 24-bit version,
the engineers have decided to leave
well more or less alone. They have
applied a modest degree of de-hissing,
using the latest CEDAR technology,
but have left in some background
noises – creaking chairs and the
like, audible only on headphones
– for fear of diminishing the dynamic
range of the recording. When RCA
have reissued many of their recordings
of this vintage in SACD, it seems
surprising that Decca have not gone
for this option.
The booklet is
of necessity less lavish than that
which graced the SET LPs; now that
it is fitted inside the usual double
case, it is even diminished from
the initial CD release with the
case and booklet housed in a cardboard
slipcase. It does, however, contain
the full libretto and an idiomatic
English translation when, at around
the same price, the EMI Haitink
offers only a detailed summary with
a link to a libretto on the website
which I have never been able to
find. That need not be a problem,
when there is an excellent paperback
offering the Andrew Porter ENO translation
face to face with the original –
Richard Wagner: The Ring of the
Nibelung, English translation
by Andrew Porter (London: Faber
and Faber, 1977).
All in all, there
is no doubt in my mind that this
is still the Rheingold.
I’ll keep Janowski, Neuhold and
Haitink, each with its own strengths
– I’ve enjoyed re-hearing them for
comparison and if, for any reason,
Solti doesn’t appeal, you could
do much worse than with one of these
– but they mainly serve to remind
me of the superiority of this Solti
version.
Brian Wilson
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Georg
Solti 
