Karl Böhm’s live recording of
Tristan und Isolde from
Bayreuth
in 1966 with the same two protagonists has long been favoured by many
critics
as the best all-round version of the opera on CD. It does though have its
controversial
features, the most notable being the very brisk rendition which the
conductor
gave in his performances that year, which sometimes gives the impression of
hustling
the singers. He was also conducting the
Ring at the time, and John
Culshaw
in
Ring Resounding complained bitterly about his “stupefying
indifference,
as if the conductor could not wait to get back to Salzburg or wherever he
was
going for his next engagement.”
This live performance of an earlier production from four years
earlier - surprisingly Böhm’s Bayreuth debut - takes longer over
each of the Acts: around three minutes in the First Act, six minutes in the
Second and two minutes in the Third. For that reason alone the recording is
valuable, because Böhm’s slower speeds allow both Birgit Nilsson
and Wolfgang Windgassen more latitude in the way they phrase their music.
Windgassen, at the height of his powers in 1962 - he was recording
Siegfried for Solti during the same period - is in fresher voice than
he was to be in 1966.
Indeed, one of the principal causes for enjoyment in this set is
Windgassen’s singing. Amazingly he never recorded Tristan in the
studio despite it being one of his principal roles,. His singing in reply to
Marke’s upbraidings (CD 2, track 14) is heartbreaking in its
intensity. He shows no signs at all of tiredness in the most strenuous
passages of the final Act. By his side Nilsson is a tower of strength as
always. She was well-established as the leading Isolde of her day by this
time - her earlier recording for Solti showed her still to a certain extent
finding her way in the role - and she never makes an ugly noise or fails to
provide heroic singing. She launches her high Cs at the beginning of the
Love Duet (CD 2, track 5) as though they were the easiest thing in the
world. Her introduction of the theme of the ‘love glance’ during
her Narration has real delicacy. Eberhard Waechter, who also appeared in
Böhm’s 1966 recording, is a superb Kurwenal, forthright in his
hymn of praise to Tristan in Act One and singing with real sensitivity at
the beginning of Act Three.
However when it comes to the other roles Böhm in 1966 had a
generally superior cast of singers. Kerstin Meyer here is a young-sounding
Brangaene, who floats her warning in Act Two (CD 2, track 8) with real
delicacy but by the side of the incomparable Christa Ludwig in the 1966 set
she sounds uninvolved. Josef Greindl never had a beautiful voice, and
although he does his best to shade word-meanings in his long monologue in
Act Two (CD 2, track 13) his higher notes give evidence of strain. Martti
Talvela in 1966 is incomparably superior. Nobody buys a set of
Tristan for the singing in the smaller roles, but Gerhard Stolze is
an unexpectedly touching Shepherd with his natural propensity for rasping
Sprechstimme held firmly in check. Georg Paskuda is a full-voiced
Seaman (CD 1, track 2).
This brings us to one of the major problems with this production:
the recorded sound itself. Presumably this comes from broadcast tapes, but
the voices are always very present and forward and the orchestral tumult is
often rather poorly served by the microphones. The Bayreuth audience is a
real stinker, coughing and hacking their way through the quietest moments.
The cor anglais solo at the beginning of Act Three, although very present,
almost becomes a duet with the unmuffled noises coming from the auditorium.
When the Philips engineers came to record their live set in 1966, they had
access to a whole series of performances and dress rehearsals and were able
to reduce the unwelcome interruptions to an absolute minimum. Here we get
the sound raw and unvarnished, and the results could, I imagine, become
absolutely intolerable with repetition.
There are two other live Böhm performances available. The one
from Orange has the ‘dream cast’ of Nilsson and Jon Vickers in
the title roles, but suffers from the ‘usual’ cut in the Love
Duet. The other, taken from a single performance in the 1966 Bayreuth
season, has a most unfortunate tape edit in Act Three just after the
Shepherd’s “Ein zweites Schiff” where two or three seconds
of silence are introduced - or at least it did in the Frequenz transfer
which I once owned. Although I would generally prefer this 1962 Bayreuth
version as a performance to the 1966 one because of Böhm’s more
relaxed approach to tempo, the general superiority of his later cast and the
incomparably better recorded sound inevitably means that the 1966 version
should be preferred. However for those who would like to hear the individual
members of the cast in this version, with Windgassen in fresher voice and a
less frenetic approach to the score, this Myto recording will have its
value.
Presentation is, as usual with these historic recordings, minimal:
no texts, translations, or notes, simply cast and track listings. One major
advantage of Böhm’s speeds is that each Act can be fitted
complete onto a single CD without any breaks in the dramatic or musical
continuity. Among studio recordings only Pappano manages to do this.
Personally I prefer a rather slower treatment of the score, even if this
means annoying breaks in the music between CD sides: Karajan, Goodall or
Bernstein. Others will welcome Böhm’s more urgent approach, and
will regard Culshaw’s observations as misguided. There is certainly no
lack of dramatic punch here.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Masterwork Index:
Tristan
und
Isolde
