Leontyne Price Sings Strauss Arias

Richard Strauss (Composer), Leontyne Price (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Leontyne Price
• Composer: Richard Strauss
• Audio CD (May 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: RCA Victor Gold Seal
• ASIN: B000003EZU
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #265,666 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #53 in Music > Classical > Opera & Vocal > Divas > Price, Leontyne

Track Listings

1. Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow), opera, Op. 65 (TrV 234): Empress' Awakening Scene

2. Der Rosenkavalier, opera, Op. 59 (TrV 227): Marschallin's Monologue

3. Die Ägyptische Helena (The Egyptian Helen), opera, Op. 75 (TrV 255): Act 2. Arie der Helena. Awakening Scene

4. Guntram, opera, Op. 25 (TrV 168): Fass' ich sie bang

5. Ariadne auf Naxos, opera, Op. 60-I (TrV 228) (original version): Es gibt ein Reich

6. Salome, opera, Op. 54 (TrV 215): Interlude

7. Salome, opera, Op. 54 (TrV 215): Final Scene

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Splendor in the Skies: Leontyne Price sings R. Strauss, May 21, 2006

By 

Donizetti's Kid "ebolene" (NYC, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Leontyne Price Sings Strauss Arias (Audio CD)

America's "diva di tutte le dive" soprano Leontyne Price rarely sang the German operatic repertoire onstage - "Die Kluge" "Die Zauberflaute"/"Ariadne auf Naxos" - throughout her illustrous and brilliant career. Thankfully, she included arias and scenas in her concerts and recitals, Richard Strauss' "Awakening Scene" (Egytian Helen) and Salome's "Final Scene" most often. Both are included in this vocally sumptuous RCA studio recorded CD collection of Strauss arias. Recorded in '72/73, Leontyne Price's "juicy lyric" soprano had developed into a formidable spinto with a stronger, darker middle, and a powerful, sterling upper register that seemed positioned to delve into the heavier musical waters of R. Wagner & Strauss. However,the American diva resisted the temptation to abandon the glorious legacy of her Italian-based repertoire(where she reigned supreme). In this concert, Leontyne Price's essaying of the "Frau" scene is simply stunning - dramatically urgent - with requisite power in the middle of the voice off-set by the thrust and freedom of her upper register. Indeed, her thrilling high Dflat has not been bettered(equalled by Leonie Rysanek). The Rosenkavalier monologue is sung sensitively with lovely vocal shadings, but lacks the ruminative quality that informs the finest of the Marschallins. Ms. Price sang the role of "Ariadne" onstage with the San Francisco Opera and at the MET successfully (if not definitely). Ariadne's "Es gibt ein Reich" is sung here with a majesterial, dark-toned beauty that glows in the penultimate section of the aria. Strauss' Salome is a 16 year-old woman-child, usually sung by "drammatische sopran" like the great Birgit Nilsson, due in part to the heavy orchestration. In Ms. Price's hands, Salome's tragically premature and short journey to adulthood is vividly captured, the voice cast in silver rather than steel, alternately viperish, kittenish, perplexed, and finally triumphant. The soprano's vibrant tone is lyric in nature, throbbing with appropriate girlishness, largely missing from more noted Salomes. Leontyne Price was the first artist to record the "Guntram" aria. The quasi-Wagnerian music, complete with heavy orchestration, poses no apparent terror for her, as she sings it with remarkable abandon, plush, creamy tone in the middle yielding to a gleaming, ringing climax of laser-like high notes. The excitement is palpable throughout. Finally, we are treated to a Price specialty, "Zweite Brautnacht", an aria that showcases the full arsenal of this magnificent voice. The exquisite vocalism throughout this entire collection reminds the listener of the incomparable soaring beauty, throb, and ease that made Leontyne Price the reigning Verdi soprano of her generation - and a sterling constellation in Strauss' rarified firmament.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars PRICE IS ALWAYS NICE, March 2, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Leontyne Price Sings Strauss Arias (Audio CD)

A LIITLE OUT OF HER ELEMENT HERE. THE GERMAN ISN'T ALWAYS GERMANIC BUT MISS PRICE ALWAYS GIVES 100% IN MUSICIANSHIP AND CARE. IF YOU LOVE PRICE YOU NEED THIS CD. 5 STARS BECAUSE SHE HAD SOME OF THE MOST GLORIOUS UPPER REGISTER SOUNDS. SHE IS NEVER PHONY. SHE WORKS IT !ES GIBT EIN REICH IS A LITTLE SLOW FOR ME BUT WHO CARES. IT'S THE AMERICAN DIVA ASOLUTTA.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than even Leontyne suspects!, August 28, 2000

By 

J. Anderson (Monterey, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Leontyne Price Sings Strauss Arias (Audio CD)

A great recording often manifests silently from inside the genuine humility, even doubts, of the artists laboring to create it. I suspect that is as apt a characterization as any of the effectiveness of this album. Leontyne Price has always been, to my mind, a marvelously transparent singer; one feels immediately her approach, and indeed her own trepidation on the high wire, as it were. This collection of Strauss is a model of that transparency. She is outside her safe zone here, albeit willingly and with customary copious voice, but it is, at least for those intimately familiar with Leontyne Price's voice, a land of no coasting and no boasting. And it is a remarkable triumph, with a fetching choice of material, and an incomparable version of the final scene of "Salome". The quixotic magic of Price's Salome is something to experience, her work with Leinsdorf has never been more collaborative, and the Boston Symphony really sizzles! The superb aria from "Ariadne" is a perfect 'calling up' of the Salome, directly preceding it as it does and alerting the countryside of the imminent eruption of Salome's arresting disintegration to come. Absolutely splendid work from a prima donna of deservedly legendary status, with the additional treat of first-rate orchestral playing.