Customer Reviews

Fidelio

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Anyone who has heard the legends surrounding German conductor Hans Knappertsbusch knows that "Kna" favored under-rehearsed, spontaneous performances and slow tempi. Well, yes, and those idiosyncrasies mark his recordings as well as "live" radio broadcasts that have survived. His 1961 Westminster studio recording of Beethoven's "Fidelio" has always been reckoned something of a failure for these very reasons, but I think it's time for a reappraisal, especially now that Deutsche Grammophon has cleaned up the sound so remarkably for this new reissue. Sure, Kna's tempos are often times slower than the norm, but this just underscores how attentive he is to giving his singers space to breathe (as well as carefully underlining Beethoven's harmonic structure).

And what singers! Every member of this cast is world-class, headed up by the remarkable Sena Jurinac. Vocally secure and possessing an incomparably creamy legato, Jurinac was a true dramatic soprano and a memorable singing actress. Too few of her stage performances are available today and this, along with a wonderful Octavian on the Decca/Erich Kleiber "Rosenkavalier," showcases Jurinac at her best. Singing Florestan to Jurinac's Fidelio/Leonore is the American tenor Jan Peerce. Peerce was approaching the end of his operatic career when he made this recording and his voice at times sounds a bit worn. But that quality fits the role of the falsely imprisoned Florestan to perfection in a performance otherwise notable for a truly remarkable intelligence and sense of humanity. (It's amusing to recall that, about 15 years earlier, Peerce recorded the same role with Toscanini for RCA. Thus, Peerce has the distinction of working for both the fastest and the slowest "Fidelio" conductors on record!) The evil jailer Pizarro is a fabulously memorable Gustav Neidlinger, while the smaller roles are filled by such stalwarts as Deszo Ernster, Maria Stader and Murray Dickie. (The only performance that disappoints is that of a woolly-sounding Frederick Guthrie as the Royal Minister.) What we wouldn't give to hear such a cast today!

But Knappertsbusch is the real star of this production and, if you're prepared to live with those slow tempi (and some sloppy ensemble now and then), he has many thought-provoking things to say about Beethoven's only opera. Note that the performance includes the Leonore III overture interposed before the final scene of Act II. That's the way many conductors performed "Fidelio" fifty and a hundred years ago after Gustav Mahler introduced the trick around the turn of the last century. People still debate whether it works as a musical device but, in Kna's hands, the performance of the interpolated overture helps transform a story about particular people living in a particular place and time into a universal epic of human love and freedom. Very moving.

This performance is gripping. Sena Jurinac was just a little to small, vocally, to sing Wagner's heroic-soprano roles, but she's just right for Leonore's music and her acting is very powerful. She is nicely matched with jan peerce, in a rare german performance, and the rest of the cast is excellent, especially Gustav Neidlinger's effortless Pizarro and Maria Stader's sweet Marzellina.

Denzo Ernster is the token human in a cast of supermen and superwomen, but he conveys Rocco's personality well.

Knappertsbusch as usual pays careful attention to the personalities of the individual singers. Occasionally he seems to drag, but only occasionally.

It's a good thing they let you edit your reviews, so I'm sorry, call me a revisionist, but I'm back up to five. Even in the remastered Andante recording, Furtwangler's Theatre an der Wein from 1953 seems too rushed in comparison. Kna's control and pacing, while in the typical Kna fashion is just a bit too slow, has an uncanny phrase-shaping ability. He was simply THE master, here, in Bruckner, and in Wagner, of the long-line. The final act of Fidelio has to be the slowest on record, yet, as my wife keeps saying "that's out of control" her way of pointing out the frenetically joyous quality of the music. It ain't about speed-it's all about articulation. I'm sorry for changing my mind on this, but I now feel this is truly the best Fidelio period.

This is a "Fidelio" quite different from but equal in performance value to the Vickers-Ludwig set or the Furtwaengler-Flagstad set.

Knappertsbusch's concept of the piece is idiosyncratic but, in its own terms, as valid as Toscanini's speed-freak approach or Furtwaengler's outright romanticism.

The three main principals are a triad of surpassing wonder! Jurinac is luminous. Neidlinger out-Alberichs Alberich as Don Pizarro. Peerce, of all recorded tenors, achieves just the right frazzled heroic sound of a noble man unjustly imprisoned, forgotten and facing death in the dark.

Appart of the typical bad sounding myths, this is the best in every aspect, included the Leonore III magnificently conducted and played. The alternative is Harnoncourt's. Klemperer's Vickers, sounds to me too "lacrimoso".