Customer Reviews

Renée Fleming - Strauss: Daphne

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Both Mlle. Fleming and Richard Strauss are favorites of mine. I have heard Mlle. Fleming in Rosenkavalier as well as Arabella on stage. This recording does not disappoint devotees of either the soprano or the composer. And the supporting cast -- particularly Johan Botha as Apollo -- provides glorious singing.
The Cologne WDR symphony orchestra does full justice to Strauss's heavy demands.

Maybe this is not one of R. Strauss greatest stage works, but it contains much ravishingly beautiful music. Obviously, there are those who don't like Fleming voice or singing, so it is beyond my comprehension why they buy a recording of an artist they dislike so much... I find Fleming singing here very beautiful and idiomatic. Strauss music really suits her voice admirably.

For years I was waiting for a modern recording of this Strauss' precious little jewel;just like in Gaea's words;"-This is your dream come true,perennial dreamer!".All these singers are great,the fabulous WDR crew,especially this amazing principal flute and horn section shine,Bychkov is a clever straussian conductor,Fleming has her Stradivarius throat to sing fast and delicate notes piano and pianíssimo that I just can't heard before by Güden and a special "bravíssimo" to this very well done Botha's Apollo;amazing "Jeden,heiligen Morgen",when Apollo reveals himself and humbles Leukippos."Bravi" to all of you,guys!Really,this set is a victorious,very desirable one.

SOURCE: Studio recording made in the Cologne Philharmonie, February 28 to March 12, 2005.

SOUND: Satisfactory contemporary digital stereo.

CAST: Daphne - Renee Fleming (soprano); Apollo - Johan Botha (tenor); Leukippos - Michael Schade (tenor); Peneios - Kwanchul Youn (bass); Gaea - Anna Larson (mezzo-soprano); First Shepherd - Eike Wilm Schulte; Second Shepherd - Cosmin Ifrim; Third Shepherd - Gregory Reinhart; Fourth Shepherd - Carsten Wittmoser; First Maid - Julia Kleiter; Second Maid - Twyla Robinson.

CONDUCTOR: Semyon Bychkov with the Men of the WDR Rundfunkchors and the WDR Simphonieorchester, Koeln.

DOCUMENTATION: Libretto in German and English. Short essay on the creation of the opera. Track list that identifies singers and provides timings.

FORMAT: Disk 1 - tracks 1-16, 72:35. Disk 2 - tracks 1 - 4, 27:08.

COMMENTARY: "Daphne" is one of a pair of one-act operas by Richard Strauss--the other was "Friedenstag"--that premiered as a double bill in Dresden in October 1938. Neither opera has ever been a part of anybody's standard repertory. For nearly all intents and purposes, "Friedenstag" was stillborn. There are a couple of bits in "Daphne" that are attractive concert pieces for big-time divas, so the opera maintains a sort of thin, half-ghostly existence. At long intervals, it earns a complete recording when a particularly prominent diva is in the mood for it.

There will always be fans who will argue that "Daphne" is a neglected gem, but to me it is just late, largely uninspired Strauss. It explores no new territories and is hobbled by lame libretto by Joseph Gregor, an oddly elusive literary figure, usually described dismissively as a Viennese stage historian and amateur poet.

A few years earlier, Strauss' great collaborator Hugo von Hoffmanstahl had died. His replacement had been the novelist Stefan Zweig, who happened to be both Jewish AND a pacifist, a man not likely to achieve great success in the Third Reich, even though Strauss had obtained written permission to use him from the hand of Adolph Hitler himself. The team of Strauss and Zweig had turned out "Die Schweigsame Frau," a good but Germanically ponderous version of a story set to music a century earlier as "Don Pasquale." After two performances, Strauss had been ordered to remove his Jewish collaborator's name from the playbill. He refused and wrote a letter to Zweig criticizing their political masters. The letter was intercepted. The opera was shut down, never to be performed again during the lifetimes of its creators.

The Strauss-Zweig partnership could not endure after that, and in any case, Zweig seeing which way the wind was blowing, fled to Britain, where he became a citizen. Strauss, not giving up on opera, needed a new literary collaborator. He chose Joseph Gregor for no better reasons, so far as I can tell, that he was there and that he was willing.

The myth of Daphne is straightforward. It explains why the laurel tree ("daphne" in Greek) is sacred to Apollo. Apollo, the divine archer, had taunted Eros about his little bow. The love god, annoyed, had fired a golden-tipped arrow of love into Apollo's heart and a leaden-tipped one of aversion into the heart of the nymph Daphne, daughter of the river god Peneios (according to Ovid, or of the ancient earth goddess Gaia, according to others.) Apollo pursued the nymph vigorously; the nymph fled precipitously. Eventually he caught up with her and just as he reached out to gather her in, she called out to her father the river god (or to Gaia) for help. Peneios (or Gaia) turned her into a laurel tree. The chastened Apollo thereupon declared the laurel tree to be his favorite forevermore.

For his libretto, Gregor kept Apollo as a Greek god. Daphne became a young girl who lives in a riverside village with her father Peneios, a fisherman, and her mother Gaea. She has a suitor named Leukippos whom she disdains (perhaps because he likes to dress up in drag ... don't ask). Apollo turns up and is attracted to the village girl. Leukippos tries to interfere. Apollo kills him with an arrow. NOW, Daphne regrets that she hadn't recognized her love for the dead shepherd. A chastened Apollo turns the grief-stricken girl into a laurel tree.

The vocal parts of Apollo and Daphne make up in fiendish difficulty what they lack in memorability. Gina Cigna, a great Turandot and Norma, sang Daphne in the Italian premiere of the opera in 1942. "I was flabbergasted by its tessitura," she said. "You kill yourself and in the end you have absolutely nothing."

This recording is a showpiece for Renee Fleming. The only significant question about that requires an answer is does she sing well? Yes, she does. She gives everything that a true Fleming fan might hope for, and that alone would justify a five-star rating for the great majority of those who might be contemplating the purchase of this recording. For my own part, however, Fleming has always struck me as a performer who wants too much to be loved. This brings about in her a profound disinclination to became engaged with the dramatic cores of the characters she portrays. Fleming has the voice and nearly all the tools of her profession, but she always remains Fleming and never Daphne.

Those reviewers inclined to get worked up over matters of non-English pronunciation are worked up over her German in this performance. This seems a small thing to me in a world where mush-mouthed Joan Sutherland was deservedly a fabulous star.

German-Canadian tenor Michael Schade is quite good as Leukippos, although he is capable of delivering more than Strauss' rather insistent writing allows him to do. Johan Botha as Apollo is more than adequate in a voice-mangler of a part. The rest of the cast and the orchestra are perfectly satisfactory.

Four stars ... in metamorphosis.

AsI write this, there are 17 reviews for the Byschoff /Fleming version and 8 for the Bohm/Hilde Gueden/James King version. This is because Fleming lovers will follow her to the end, remembering her stellar roles in other operas. I believe the magic of the this lyrical opera is lost with Fleming, although her voice is strong. The conducting is certainly poorer than Bohm's in bringing out the rich lyrical quality of the opera, particularly as the opera approaches its culmination and the laurel tree sings of the earth's sap flowing up the roots. In the 17 reviews there is little mention of the orchestration and in that lies the art of Strauss. Certainly one would have to hear the Fleming opera several times to get to its interpretation. Not so for the Bohm.

Gorgeous vocal music performed gorgeously. As is typical for Strauss, there is a lot of demanding and beautiful writing for soprano. The orchestration is lovely as well. Perhaps without the drama or tension of his best operas but this is not a second rate work like Danae. All performances, especially that by the consistently outstanding Renee Fleming, are excellent. The Orchestra has a lovely sound. Well worth owning if you are interested in opera.

I love this opera and have listened to almost all the recordings. The best is the Haitink, but this one is very fine as well. All the Fleming bashers are really making it sound like her German is awful here, but it just isn't true! I am not a completely uncritical fan of Fleming, and she can be a little over-emphatic here and there in this recording, but I had to admire her portrayal of Daphne. She sounds gorgeous, and as far as the critics of her German are concerned, I listened to several bits of this recording again followed by a close listen listen to the Gueden one, and Fleming is pronouncing everything EXACTLY the same way. Gueden even says "Daph-nay" the same way, because, the fact is, it is hard to sing a sustained short "e" sound: it just turns into a long "e" if you have to hold the note for any length of time. Also, for those who love the Gueden recording: I love it too, but I still think her voice is a little light for the role. The early Daphnes like Teschmacher and Reining had voices more like Fleming's. Botha and Schade are excellent, of course. The conductor brings out everything in the music the right way.
Anyway, another attractive aspect of the recording is that it is complete. I am a bit of a stickler about completeness, especially in works that I love, and I don't like the cuts Boehm made. I agree with the other reviewer who pointed out that the sound is better on this recording than on the Haitink one, another important consideration with operas as orchestrally rich as Strauss's. All in all, this is a perfectly fine first choice if you can't get the Haitink.

REVISION: 9/1/09--On further listening, I now prefer this Fleming recording to the Haitink. I think the sound is a lot better, Fleming's high notes are fuller and richer than Popp's, and Schade is much better than Peter Schreier. I think when I first got this recording, I was just so used to listening to the Haitink that it seemed better. Both are complete recordings of the whole score. I rate it 5 starts now, but amazon doesn't let you change that... :)

I was looking forward to this recording, it's time we had a new version of this wonderful Strauss work, but this is another middle of the road, overhyped Fleming recording.
Many opera lovers do care about the text, the drama, and hearing a singer that responds to the story rather than vocalizing through it. Fleming can spin nice musical line, get good high and very high notes (though here she does not fully hit the mark) but on this album she does not deliver anything else other than sound. It's like she is already a tree. Her German is mushy and meaningless to the point of absurdity. She even misspronounces the name Dahne, it should be Daph-na, not Daph-nay, someone should have pointed that out to her. And Fleming's sound is not just "too ripe" as Amazon review calls it, it's quite matronly, rather wrong for a young girl.
The orchestra is really good, and the two tenors cope with extreme difficulties of their roles admirably. I especially liked Michael Schade as Leukippos, who sings with a beautiful tone and sounds like he means what he sings. Too bad he gets killed so soon in the story! Johan Botha as Apollo is note-perfect, but he is little hard in tone, and does not offer much in terms of passionate delivery. Anna Larsson's Gaea is very, shall we say it, grave and appropriate, and Kwangchul Youn as Daphne's father is very good, with a powerful resonant voice.
The sound though is not that great, especially given that this is a digital recording. It also seems that the sound engineers captured Fleming's voice little too close, which is strange, because hers is a good instrument in terms of pure volume.
My overall impression of this album is not favourable. What a wasted opportunity. Fleming fans who like her "timber" may enjoy this album, but anybody interested in Strauss who does not have a copy of Daphne yet may want to listen to Robert Levine's advice and get the Bohm set instead.

Strauss' 'Daphne' is a rather short opera that is so mired in mythology that cannot be produced visually on the operatic stage. Santa Fe Opera has staged it with some success (as I recall the title role was sung by Roberta Alexander...), but in a story about a girl who refuses Apollo's advances and is transformed into a laurel tree - well, it takes a lot of imagination to make that work.

Which is not to say the opera is minor. Here is some of Strauss' most glorious writing condensed into a tight story. The performance here is beautiful with Semyon Bychkov conducting the very Straussian sounding WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln. the pacing is perfect and the consummation of the opera in the music of the transmigration of Daphne into a tree is stunning. Renee Fleming adds another Strauss role to her repertoire and excels in the melismata of the transformation. It is a dreamy creation of a myth. The fine supporting roles are well sung by Johann Botha as Apollo and Michael Schade as Leukippos.

Is this as important or as fine as Strauss' major works such as 'Der Rosenkavalier', 'Ariande auf Naxos', 'Salome', 'Capriccio', Die Frau ohne Schatten' etc - well, no. But there is some ravishingly beautiful music here and it does well deserve to be recorded. This is as fine a cast as could be assembled right now for getting to know 'Daphne'. Grady Harp, September 05

Not as well known as some Strauss, but will be after this recording gets around, to be sure. Renee Fleming again shows that she is one of the most intelligent singers today, with a voice that is unique, powerful, and beautiful. She has it all, and she gives all of it to this opera of metamorphosis, the Daphne myth. Her low notes are always striking, the way she floats out of a passage with a bveutiful trail of sound, perfectly pitched, so difficult to do. Her high notes here are spectacular, sparkling, and dramatic. She persuades you to care about all of this.


Buy this Daphne and all of her recordings; especially Herodiade, Rosmonda, Thais, Rusalka, and her DVD of Otello, Capriccio..and her pirated Il Pirata and Lucrezia Borgia..she is the diva of our time, and her German, by the way, is excellent.Forget all other recordings of it, esp. the Popp one. A wonderful artist, but not the voice for this high lying work.