Search - Wagner, Flagstad, Nilsson :: Wagner Gala

Stupid title, excellent content

L. Johan Modée | Earth | 05/04/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Wagner Gala" - what a stupid title! Suitable for a Walmart edition, perhaps? But there is in fact a DG recording with Abbado with the same title (Wagner: Gala (Tannhaüser, Lohengrin, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Die Walküre)). All the same, I suppose that this sort of title gives many people the impression that there is nothing of serious interest here. Or that the intended audience is the potential opera beginner, lost in a record outlet. The opposite of all this is true, even if I don't know what intentions Decca had when they edited and baptized this edition.



What we have here is the Indian summer of Hans Knappertsbusch (aka Kna) and Kirsten Flagstad, also including some performances with the new star of the beginning 1960s, Birgit Nilsson, and George London, at the peak of his career. It is a collection of Wagner recitals, recorded in 1956, 1958 and 1959, as some sort of kind gesture from Decca to the great Kna, who just had been rejected in favour of George Solti for the Ring project (Wagner - Der Ring des Nibelungen (Ring Cycle) / Sir Georg Solti).



Flagstad was past her prime, over 60 at the time of the recordings here, but she shows nonetheless why she must be ranked as one of the greatest Wagner sopranos of all time. London, whose career ended in 1967, gives a fine performance here as well. Both were to appear later in the Decca-Solti Das Reingold.



The Liebestod that is featured here must be considered as the greatest on disc. Nilsson is famous for her Liebestod with Karl Böhm in the Bayreuth Tristan (Tristan Und Isolde). But this earlier performance with Kna shows her strong ambition in the beginning of her career, and together with Kna's better understanding of Wagner this is just a sublime occasion. (Check Youtube for the concert takes!)



In sum: stupid title, mixed but great content. Essential for all Wagnerites."