The prospect is mouth-watering: "the two greatest
living Wagnerian sopranos" of their age - and probably any age - alongside
the indisputable king of Wagnerian tenors and one of the most distinguished
and celebrated bass-baritones ever to sing Wotan, all on stage together
under the fiery baton of Fritz Reiner.
Nothing in this world is perfect, so a few caveats: first, the sound
is gritty, swishy, hissy and derives from an AM broadcast - even though
one happily listens through it. Secondly, although Friedrich Schorr
is monumentally authoritative and delivers his narration tellingly,
there is no denying that even though he is here only 48 years old, he
is past his best. He can be heard husbanding his diminished vocal resources,
either faking or yelling his top notes - as in "O heilige Schmach!".
His last, climactic command, "Zurück von dem Speer! In Stücken
das Schwert!" is inaudible in the orchestral din, apart from the first
word which can just, faintly, be heard, Thirdly, the three big cuts,
totalling more than twenty minutes, are serious and mar the Fricka-Wotan
argument in Scene1, Wotan's narration in Scene 2, and the “Todesverkündigung”
in Scene 4. I suppose for some who find too many longueurs in this act,
which can easily seem anti-climactic or disappointing after the thrills
of Act 1, these cuts might even be welcome, as they were for many of
the patrons in 1936 but they will scandalise the true Wagner aficionado.
Whatever the damage, I can live with it in return for being able to
hear such glorious voices. Finally, and most irritatingly of all, the
announcer Marcia Davenport invents "a slowly descending curtain" to
cover the fact that the broadcast is truncated 43 bars before the end
of the Act while Wotan has still to dismiss Hunding and voice his wrath
at Brünnhilde's disobedience in attempting to protect Siegmund.
It’s a shocking, early example of the inflexible tyranny of NBC
programme scheduling.
And yet, and yet ... this is still a collector's item and the only extant
audio record of the frequent collaboration between Kirsten Flagstad
and Lotte Lehmann. Both are phenomenal, Flagstad in particular reminding
us of the superhuman gleam of that extraordinary voice in its prime,
embodying in her more aloof, hochdramatischer soprano a Brünnhilde
as yet untouched by mortal tragedy. Lehmann's remarkable Sieglinde is
all desperate, womanly suffering, her pure intense tone vividly conveying
Sieglinde’s desperation and hysteria. As the commentator puts
it, "one is woman and the other superwoman". Those performances alone
would be reason enough to treasure this issue but add the thrilling
tenor of Lauritz Melchior and you have true Rheingold; the moment when
Melchior lets fly on the climactic phrase “Umfängt Siegmund
Sieglinde dort?” is simply marvellous. The principals are ably
supported by the lesser-known but impressive Kathryn Meisle as an impassioned
Fricka, even if her top notes are occasionally too cautious. The few
bars given at the end of the Act to Emmanuel List remind us of why he
was the Hunding du jour. Reiner conducts with real drive; he has a totally
natural and compelling feeling for the ebb and flow of the music, encompassing
both the high drama of Sieglinde's ravings and the grave beauty of passages
such as the Introduction to the “Todesverkündigung”,
the scene which for me forms the highlight of this Act. The introductory
commentary is a quaint little gem of period sexism, musical biographer
Marcia Davenport being condescendingly described as "an attractive brunette".
Regarding the provenance of this re-mastering, I quote here the note
in full: "First released by our predecessor organization, educational
Media Associates of America, Inc., in 1976 on LP-426, this recording
was subsequently reissued in a restoration by Maggi Payne in 1999 as
Music & Arts CD-1048, and was newly restored for the present edition
in 2013 from recently discovered NBC transcription discs by Ward Marston
and Aaron Z. Snyder." The sound is still hissy but nowhere near as harsh
as previous issues.
The obvious comparison to be made with this is the Act II issued on
EMI, which was derived from an assemblage of recordings made in 1935
and 1938 in Berlin and Vienna with two different conductors (Brunos:
Walter and Seidler-Winkler), two different orchestras (the VPO and the
Berlin Staatsoper) and two different singers as both Wotan and Brünnhilde
(Ella Flesch and Alfred Jerger in Scene 5 only) but again featuring
Lehmann and Melchior. Marta Fuchs is a far from inadequate Brünnhilde,
Margarete Klose a vibrant Fricka and a young Hans Hotter is in superb
form as Wotan. Despite the absence of Flagstad - indubitably a lamentable
loss for all Fuchs' competence - the superior studio sound and a preferable
Wotan might for some collectors make it a more attractive option; the
true Wagnerite will want both.
If, by the way, you find the truncated ending too much to endure, Legato
Classics have issued the same performance and patched the ending with
another roughly contemporaneous recording by Schorr.
Ralph Moore
Masterwork Index:
Die
Walküre
