It’s rare for me to begin a review by talking about the packaging, but in
this case it’s instructive to do so. You get an attractive hardback book
with the CD in a sleeve at the back. The book contains some very attractive
photographs of the orchestra members, conductor and soloist, together with a
full list of who is in the orchestra. However, the text is only in French:
again, instructive. From my broken schoolboy French, I think I picked out
that the CD was recorded to celebrate the opening of a new auditorium in
Bordeaux, and that the orchestra are attempting to set down one-disc
summaries of various composers’ works, with Wagner being the first
instalment. Finer linguists than I, please feel free to correct me.
All of which suggests to me that the primary audience for this release
will be Aquitainians who support this orchestra or who attended the concerts
themselves. It enters a highly competitive field of Wagner extracts, in
which it can’t really be competitive. I like Paul Daniel’s work, and he
shows a good ability to build a long paragraph in the opening of the
Tannhäuser overture and Siegfried’s funeral march, but the
Tristan prelude plods, and the Bacchanale is a little too well
behaved. Likewise, Heidi Melton sounds perfectly fine, but is a little
squally at the top in places, especially as Brünnhilde and Isolde. There is
nothing so grievous as to rule this disc entirely out of court, but so many
other fine sopranos have set down excerpts — Jessye Norman with Karajan or
Birgit Nilsson with Downes,
to name but two examples — that there is really no need to settle for
anything less than total excellence.
The orchestra play perfectly well, but their quality isn’t nearly as good
as, say,
the Philharmonia for Klemperer on EMI, or the
Berliners for Karajan (on several discs on both EMI and DG), not to mention
the Vienna Philharmonic for Solti. When you look at those competitors this
disc really doesn’t cut the mustard. It’s for convinced fans of this
orchestra only; not really for the wider audience.
Simon Thompson
