AVAILABILITY
www.preiserrecordings.at
Contemporaries and
internationally acclaimed Wagnerians,
Ohms and Kappel make worthily matched
discmates. Elisabeth Ohms, the more
famous of the two, was born in Arnheim
in 1888. After training in Amsterdam
she moved to Frankfurt and took her
first roles in Mainz. But it was in
Munich that she really made her mark,
giving the city’s premiere of Turandot
and attracting sufficient attention
from Toscanini for him to invite her
to La Scala in 1927 and 1929 (Kundry
and Isolde respectively). She was heard
in Vienna, under Strauss, at Covent
Garden and at the Met. As her celebrity
increased so she moved closer to the
vortex of Wagnerian influence, first
singing at Bayreuth in 1931 (under Toscanini,
who’d asked for her). When one considers
that she’d made her debut in Frankfurt
a decade earlier – and that almost in
default of an earlier desire to play
the violin – then her ascent is little
short of meteoric. And yet that career
became increasingly circumscribed, with
Ohms turning down numerous foreign invitations
and performing increasingly in Munich.
Her retirement in 1942 meant that she
had sung professionally for twenty years
though the period of her greatest triumphs
was perhaps no more than eight or ten
years in duration. She died in Bavaria
in 1974.
Preiser has collated
a representative collection of her recordings,
all made in 1929. She was a dramatic
soprano of powerful presence, with a
beautifully sustained legato and uncompromising
intelligence. Her Fidelio extract is
moving by virtue of its control and
still more so her Oberon, where diction,
architectural span, surety of technique
and beauty of tone are all present in
abundance. Even in an age spoiled with
soprano talent Ohms could clearly carve
out an important niche for herself.
Her Flying Dutchman has plenty of bite,
and a ringing declamatory top and she
makes a good pairing with Theodor Scheidl,
whilst her Isolde, taken at a measured
tempo, is superbly voiced. The two songs
from the Wesendonck Lieder show two
further things; firstly a technical
point – at times her intonation does
flatten; and secondly a quality of histrionic
projection; she had a rare ability to
vest her singing with a touching, almost
tragic quality. Partly this is a question
of voice type but much more it relates
to her powers of voice deployment and
to stage virtues that she can successfully
convey through the microphone. It’s
a rare enough quality to note. Her Rosenkavalier
must have been wonderful to see; on
disc it’s strongly characterised and
energised. Those qualities of dramatic
projection and legato phraseology inform
everything she does and these sides
are evidence of a consistently superior
musician. Her later withdrawal from
the wider operatic and concert stages
was very much our loss.
Kappel is represented
by four items – in fact four issued
78 sides and two apparently previously
unissued sides. Four years older than
Ohms Kappel studied in Leipzig under
Nikisch, no less. Making her debut in
Hanover in Fidelio she was quickly invited
to a series of prestigious engagements,
being especially popular at Covent Garden
where she sang The Ring. She sang frequently
under her old teacher Nikisch and soon
Richard Strauss recommended her to the
Vienna State Opera (debut, 1921) and
he ensured that she perform Donna Anna
with him at the following year’s Salzburg
Festival. Bruno Walter employed her
repeatedly and her New York Met debut
was, inevitably perhaps, in Wagner and
greatly admired once more. That said,
as Preiser’s notes remind us, for a
singer of her obvious standing she made
relatively few recordings. An early
series for Favorite in 1911 yielded
16 pieces and she also recorded 6 sides
for Grammophon. She died in 1971.
There has always been
something of a debate surrounding Kappel’s
voice type - soprano or mezzo? The fact
remains that she was given soprano roles
and she brings to her undeservedly meagre
recorded legacy the kind of heroic vibrancy
that Ohms did – all the better reason
for these two to be bracketed thus together.
Her Immolation Scene is full of tremendous
tonal resources and great style – she
was indeed a truly stylish singer on
the evidence of these precious sides.
The late acoustics sound well, the voice
being forwardly recorded but well balanced
against the orchestra. I wouldn’t say
that it was a big voice (maybe a little
pinched at the top as well in Ho
jo to ho) but it was undeniably
deployed with considerable acumen. Her
Verdi is maybe on a slightly lesser
plane but it’s marginal. Both the Faust
and the Ho jo to ho are noted
as unissued at the time.
They have survived
in good shape, and all these sides sound
well balanced and well filtered. They’re
a pleasure to listen to, as are the
noble protagonists of this rather fascinating
and entirely successful disc.
Jonathan Woolf
Elizabeth Ohms (soprano) except * Gertrude Kappel
(soprano) 