|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Forgotten Ring,
By
This review is from: Ring of the Nibelung (Audio CD)
This recording was originally issued in Germany on lots of 10 inch LPs, and over here in the U.S. with some of the worst cover art imaginable. Now, divorced from such distractions, one can actually enjoy this effort. Gerald McKee may not be the best Siegmund alive, but his Siegfried is outstanding and in close league with far more famous tenors. He can actually sing more of it with less finessing (or cheating) than Windgassen. He even attempts vocal and musical coloring. Polke is a noble Wotan, a top note or two not withstanding. His voice is clear and he enunciates well. Kniplova is a strong and well sung Brunnhilde. She may not have the strength of Nilsson, but she makes her own points quite well. Fritz Uhl (of Solti Tristan fame), is an admirable Loge.
The rest of the cast was culled from the nearby German opera houses. Ursula Boese's Erda is lovely, and less cavernous thanks to clearer recordings of her role. Ruth Hesse is Fricka and Waltraute and she's excellent. Some people hate the conducting of Swarowsky, teacher of such renowned conductors as Mehta, but he allows the music to dwell comfortably without driving it (alla Solti) and without elongating it beyond limits (Levine - at times - and Goodhall). Only in the Fricka / Wotan scenes (Rheingold and particularly Walkure) does he allow things to get too relaxed. The Siegfried is one of the best ever. BTW, the steerhorns in Walkure and Gotterdammerung are real! as in Solti. (Probably the same ones.) The Vienna Opera Chorus repeat their Solti performances here. The recorded quality is a little in your face. It could use more depth. But the orchestra plays well and the orchestral balances are more natural (less spotlighted) than in Solti. Is this the definitive Ring? No. But I'll put it up with some much more famous ones and keep them all. I currently own Solti, Furtwangler (Rome and La Scala), Swarowsky and Keilberth, and my ranking for these classic recordings would change from week to week. Someone should re-issue this Ring over here soon, hopefully at a budget price.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
the mightiest Gotterdammerung,
By
This review is from: Ring of the Nibelung (Audio CD)
Anyone who wants a mighty Gotterdammerung has only one choice -- Swarowsky. Swarowsky builds each of the architectural units in the score as no one else does: keeping the same tempo throughout, but modulating the volume from an exquisitely quiet start, up to a massive climax at the end, a climax which still retains clarity of all orchestral choirs and of each of the orchestral and vocal soloists, so that everything in the score is heard, and everything is heard in just the right balance. Even the most ferocious of the climaxes, such as the one that constitutes Scenes 3&4 of Act 2 (extending from the "Hoiho" to the end of the "Heil dir"), and the eight-minute-long climax of the "Immolation Scene" at the opera's very end, is calm, without the usual speeding and slowing and speeding and slowing, etc., that cause other, relatively more melodramatic, conductors' renderings of this enormous climax to crumble into a mere sequence of pieces, rather than to impact the listener as one whole enormous mountain peak of ecstatic music.
The soloists are also very fine, and Nadezda Kniplova as Brunhilde is unsurpassed even by Birgit Nilsson. Kniplova's voice is less harsh, less ear-splitting, but that's not necessarily a disadvantage; and she, like all the rest of this phenomenal performance, is part of a magnificent and unified whole, not just a collection of soloists. The orchestra is also unsurpassed, just right in tone for the overcast brooding Wagner; and the acoustics are reverberant but not in a way that muddies anything up. The only other recording of this music that comes close to this one in quality is the Bohm 1967 (I think) Bayreuth Festival DGG live recording, with Nilsson: a performance which is a little more demonic, and a little less monumental, than Swarowsky's. But if I had to own just one Gotterdammerung, this would certainly be it, and I can't see any way in which this music can be more completely and convincingly conveyed than it is here. I would include this recording in any list of the great classical-music performances of the Twentieth Century.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
