This most elegant and sumptuous of Grand Operas demands the
finest of orchestras and the most silkily vibrant of soprano
voices. There haven’t been too many recordings of note,
either studio or live, in the digital era, hence this reviewer
finds himself referring back to the established classics by
Karajan,
Solti,
Bernstein and Kleiber (père
et fils)
to establish a benchmark against which this latest issue from
Decca may be judged.
Certainly we may gauge the quality of the Münchner
Philharmoniker in such passages as the extended Prelude
and Pantomime opening Act III. They do not have quite the lush,
voluptuous heft of the Vienna Philharmonic under Solti but they
play under Thielemann with nuance, drive and wit, and in moments
such as the orchestral introduction to the Presentation of the
Silver Rose they capture beautifully the requisite shimmering
quality and otherworldly poise, despite the rather flat acoustic
of the Festspielhaus as recorded. Thielemann’s direction
is not unduly indulgent; he gave notice of his affinity with
operatic Strauss in his excellent rendition of the suite from
“Der Rosenkavalier” as an adjunct to a truly impressive
“Ein Alpensinfonie” on DG in 2000 and here he brings
out both the contrapuntal brilliance and the gorgeous, swooning
harmonies of Strauss’s writing in a performance which
demonstrates his mastery of the idiom. The audience is quiet
and the aural picture here is clean, clear and well-balanced
if rather “neutral” and lacking ambience, allowing
us to hear details without being very “present”.
So already in terms of conducting, orchestral playing and recorded
sound, this recording is competitive without necessarily jumping
to the head of the queue. That leaves the voices … and
that’s where my doubts creep in.
Yet two singers are simply glorious. Just in time, we finally
have a commercial recording, albeit live rather than studio,
of today’s premier Strauss soprano in her best role. To
my ears there is little indication of wear in Renée Fleming’s
smoky, creamy soprano and long experience as the Marschallin
has lent her interpretation more depth of expression. She sounds
mature but never middle-aged. The Marschallin should still be
a young woman in a loveless marriage dallying with a toyboy;
Fleming’s rich, long-breathed tones capture all her wry,
wistful, rueful resignation without turning her into a caricature
of a desperate matron. She is warm and poignant, often capitalising
on the tangy resonance of her lower register to balance the
floated top notes and she is especially touching at key moments
such as when she narrates getting up in the night to stop all
the clocks in her attempts to halt the march of time.
Just as impressive is Jonas Kaufmann’s preening Italian
singer, effortlessly delivering an impassioned account of the
retrospective aria in that wonderfully virile, baritonal tenor
- it’s a shame about the intrusive on-stage applause which
cuts across the end of his commanding command performance.
Hawlata’s Ochs is, for all its comic inventiveness, vocally
a disappointment. I am glad that he doesn’t take the modern
route of turning him into a menacing thug; he is essentially
a risible buffoon, somewhat broadly characterised in a manner
which is often coarse, whereas previous celebrated exponents
such as Jungwirth, Ridderbusch and, above all, Moll, allow us
to remember that he is still an aristocrat, albeit a boorish
one. The heavy Viennese accent is amusing but his bass is dry,
lacking the rotund low notes and either straining at or crooning
his top Fs and F sharps.
Likewise, the veteran Franz Grundheber’s Faninal is amusing
but vocally close to an embarrassment, his bass being so rocky
and hollow. Supporting roles are adequate without being striking
or especially pleasing on the ear.
However, the real problems start with the dreaded wobble which
afflicts the voices of both Sophie Koch and, more intermittently,
Diana Damrau. I recently reviewed Damrau’s Donna Anna
in the new “Don Giovanni” from a concert performance
in the same venue as this recording and by 2011 the vibrato
had begun to loosen distressingly. Here, two years earlier,
the tendency is merely incipient; she is true and musical but
without purity and steadiness of tonal emission still cannot
hold a candle to the likes of Kathleen Battle, Lucia Popp or
Barbara Bonney. Similarly, the continuous, obtrusive beat in
Koch’s mezzo-soprano makes her sound excessively womanly
in a bosomy fashion rather than boyishly impetuous. When Octavian
launches the famous concluding trio we should be swept along
on a warm raft of steady sound, not bothered by lumpy tone.
There is an egregious contrast between the sweet pulse of Fleming’s
voice and the puttering of her soprano companions. This is not
a constant issue and some may be far less sensitised to it than
I; I readily admit that the great climaxes still worked their
magic for me and I often forgot my objections.
Attractively packaged with a full libretto in two sections,
ultimately this is not another classic set but one which will
appeal primarily to the many Fleming admirers.
Ralph Moore
Marschallin - Renée Fleming (soprano); Octavian - Sophie
Koch (mezzo); Sophie - Diana Damrau (soprano); Baron Ochs - Franz
Hawlata (bass); The Italian Tenor - Jonas Kaufmann (tenor); Faninal
- Franz Grundheber (baritone); Annina - Jane Henschel (mezzo); Valzacchi
- Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke (tenor); Marianne - Irmgard Vilsmaier
(soprano). 