Search - Richard [Classical] Wagner, Franz [Vienna] Schubert, Robert Schumann :: Lebendige Vergangenheit: Frida Leider II

Frida Leider was the greatest Wagner soprano of her day, roughly the 1920s and '30s. Her fame has been eclipsed by such successors as Flagstad and Nilsson, but recordings reveal her to have most of their strengths along with more vocal warmth. Listen to her Immolation Scene from Wagner's Gotterdammerung, and you hear a truly extraordinary performance--a huge, shining voice used with consummate intelligence and verbal pointing, pinpoint intonation, and wild abandon kept in firm control. Her Walkure duet with Friedrich Schorr, "Nun zaume dein Ross," is another highlight among many on this disc, all of whose Wagner items were recorded in her prime. The songs, too, from 1941-42, with Michael Raucheisen accompanying, are beautifully done. --Dan Davis