Wagner - Tristan und Isolde
Moser; Voigt; Lang
Chorus and Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera / Thielemann
DG 474 9742 (3CD)

Release date June 2004
100 Years of Bayreuth on Record - Recordings from 1900-1930
Various Artists and Ensembles
Gebhardt JGCD 0062

Release date May 2004

As you may have noticed, sound-only opera recordings have become as rare as A Very Rare Thing in recent times. Those that do appear tend to be made live, as in the case of Christian Thielemann's new Tristan, taped in Vienna last year. Inevitably, there are some stage noises - Isolde's "... und was auf ihm lebt/ den wehenden Atem/ den lass' ich euch Winden zum Lohn!" is accompanied by a mighty crash of what sounds like metallic rods, and there are occasional shuffles and coughs from the audience - nothing very worrisome. The pit/stage balance is fine, with voices almost always kept in focus. And what of the voices? Deborah Voigt has already recorded the Act II duet as well as Isolde's Narration and Liebestod (all for EMI). The presence of an audience brings an extra intensity, and her gleaming top notes are thrilling. Moser, a rather emotionally blank Parsifal in Edinburgh a couple of years back, sounds far more engaged here. Only a rather cowled, covered tone separates him from the greatest practitioners of the rôle. Petra Lang is an admirable Brangäne, Peter Weber is - plausibly - a bit of a ruffian as Kurwenal, while Robert Holl brings the Act II monologue close to the world of Bach's Passions. Thielemann drives the music hard, and occasionally (as at the climax of the Act I Prelude) allows balances to go awry in the intensity of the moment - not something that Karl Böhm, in his 1966 Bayreuth taping, ever allowed to happen. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is its usual magnificent self - it's an absolute pleasure to hear them play this amazing score. An Isolde of a radically different stamp, Pelagie Greef-Andriessen, features on Gebhardt's 100 Years of Bayreuth on Record. The Bayreuth tradition, as maintained with fanatical devotion by Cosima Wagner in the early years of the century, was fixated on the clear declamation of the text, at the expense of any other consideration. Many of the singers to be heard on Gebhardt's compilation sound like singing actors; the singers were obliged to suppress their natural vibrato and to eschew the full resonance of their voices in favour of a straight, narrow sound. Not surprisingly, most singers hated singing like that, and the practice eventually died out. These recordings, transferred with almost alarming presence, are of enormous interest to anyone interested in the history of singing, and indeed of Wagnerian performance. The main disadvantage for the listener is a sense of monotony - by cutting the resonance, the singers lose something of their 'characteristic' sound. However, you have to hand it to Cosima - at no point was I in any doubt as to what they were singing. Performances range from the superb (Emmy Destin in Senta's Ballad, the aforementioned Pelagie Greef-Andriessen's Isolde) to the execrable (it's somehow comforting to know that truly dire Siegfrieds have always been with us). The biggest thrill, however, is simply to hear these voices at all; it's somehow very moving to hear a recording of the wood-bird scene from Siegfried made as the preparations for the Battle of the Somme were being finalised.

Sandy Matheson