Track Listings (5) - Disc #1| All Artists: Alban Berg, Leif Segerstam, Stockholm Royal Opera Orchestra, Carl Johan Falkman, Katarina Dalayman, Klas Hedlund, Lennart Stregard, Marianne Eklof, Ola Eliasson, Sten Wahlund, Ulrik Quale Title: Berg: Wozzeck Members Wishing: 0 Total Copies: 0 Label: Naxos Release Date: 4/23/2002 Genre: Classical Style: Opera & Classical Vocal Number of Discs: 2 SwapaCD Credits: 2 UPC: 730099607629 |
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Search - Alban Berg, Leif Segerstam, Stockholm Royal Opera Orchestra :: Berg: Wozzeck
 | Alban Berg, Leif Segerstam, Stockholm Royal Opera Orchestra Berg: Wozzeck Genre: Classical
You know of Wozzeck's reputation as a 20th-century masterpiece. But you're also aware of its complex, atonal musical language, so you're reluctant to invest heavily in a recording. Well, as it has so often before, Naxos co... more » |
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Amazon.com You know of Wozzeck's reputation as a 20th-century masterpiece. But you're also aware of its complex, atonal musical language, so you're reluctant to invest heavily in a recording. Well, as it has so often before, Naxos comes to the rescue. At a super-budget price, this is a vivid account of Berg's haunting masterpiece--his setting of Georg Büchner's play Woyzeck, a tale of madness, jealousy, and murder. The recording collates three staged performances at the Kungliga Teatern in Stockholm. There's plenty of atmosphere but no loss of presence in the voices; indeed, the balance favors them. Leif Segerstam draws from the Royal Opera Orchestra a reading of commitment and clarity that relishes both the surreal and the ravishing: sample Katarina Dalayman's passionate singing in Act 1 Scene 3, for example. Her contribution as Marie is outstanding, as is Ulrik Qvale's Doctor. Playing Wozzeck, Carl Johan Falkman is hardly required to caress the ear. From the outset, he hurls himself into his manic persona with all the vocal imagination one could wish for. Nowhere do we gain the benefit of live performance more than in the horrifying climax, the closing moments nearly unbearable. --Andrew Green Similarly Requested CDs
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CD ReviewsFabulous performance of Berg's masterpiece! madamemusico | Cincinnati, Ohio USA | 07/13/2002 (5 out of 5 stars) "This superb performance of Wozzeck, recorded during live performances in February 2000, finally gives us a modern digital recording of Berg's masterpiece on par with the famous Karl Böhm recording of the `60s. In that performance, we had such stellar names as Evelyn Lear (Marie), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Wozzeck), Fritz Wunderlich (Andres), Karl Christian Kohn (Doctor) and Gerhard Stolze (Captain); here we have a cast of singers virtually unknown outside Sweden, yet every one of them is superb. Soprano Katarina Dalayman, in fact, has a larger, brighter, more soaring voice than Lear, and Sten Wahlund (Doctor) reveals a luscious bass-baritone with a hint of the kind of darkness that Gottlob Frick possessed. (P.S.: Ignore the editorial review...Ulrik Qvale sings the Captain, Herr Hauptmann, not the Doctor.)What pulls this performance together, however, is the superb conducting of Leif Segerstam. One of the greatest and most underrated composers of the 20th century, Segerstam's studio recordings of other composers' works have generally been disappointing (witness his Mahler and Sibelius symphony cycles), but in live performance he is generally superb, as he is here. (I can still recall hearing him conduct a "Boheme" at the Met with Pavarotti 28 years ago; it was light, lithe and magical in its effect.) Every nuance of Berg's difficult score is handled with consummate ease and, like Böhm, he makes the music flow naturally instead of sounding forced. I would give this recording six stars if it had a libretto: "Wozzeck" is one opera you really DO have to follow line-by-line in order to enjoy its full flavor."
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