On Tuesday, December 17, 1996 at 12:00:00 AM UTC-8, Stefan wrote:
enm...@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu (Malcolm Richardson) wrote:
Having purchased volume 1 (1933-36) of the history of the Vienna State >opera series, I would also be interested in comments on the later volumes. >I found this volume containing the earliest material to be rather like >electical Mapleson cylinders, with all kinds of odd and very short cuts >ending and beginning suddenly and the perfomances variable and most of the >best of them found elsewhere with better sound, like the Melchior >Gotterdammerung excerpts. I can't say I'd walk across the street to hear >poor-sounding fragments of performances by Charles Kullman or Anny
Konetzni and other so-so singers of the the time, either, not to mention >the Vienna State opera chorus. The Flagstad Immolation Scene under >Weingartner is worth the price of the set, however. And I say all this as >someone who can listen to 30s broadcasts with pleasure, if they are >pleasureable broadcasts. However, the reviews in Fanfare made some of the >later volumes sound more attractive.
One further question for anyone owning this set: there's an Aida scene >supposedly with Lauri-Volpi, but I'd be willing to bet money that it's >really Pertile singing, in any case not Lauri-Volpi.
--
Malcolm Richardson
enm...@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu (Malcolm Richardson) wrote:
Having purchased volume 1 (1933-36) of the history of the Vienna State >opera series, I would also be interested in comments on the later volumes. >I found this volume containing the earliest material to be rather like >electical Mapleson cylinders, with all kinds of odd and very short cuts >ending and beginning suddenly and the perfomances variable and most of the >best of them found elsewhere with better sound, like the Melchior >Gotterdammerung excerpts. I can't say I'd walk across the street to hear >poor-sounding fragments of performances by Charles Kullman or Anny
Konetzni and other so-so singers of the the time, either, not to mention >the Vienna State opera chorus. The Flagstad Immolation Scene under >Weingartner is worth the price of the set, however. And I say all this as >someone who can listen to 30s broadcasts with pleasure, if they are >pleasureable broadcasts. However, the reviews in Fanfare made some of the >later volumes sound more attractive.
One further question for anyone owning this set: there's an Aida scene >supposedly with Lauri-Volpi, but I'd be willing to bet money that it's >really Pertile singing, in any case not Lauri-Volpi.
--
Malcolm Richardson
I bought all 24 volumes -- sometimes I got vaguely desperate - but the overall impression was tremendously gratifying. But you learn more about let's say orchestral playing practices and performing traditions than
about the actual performances sometimes. Then suddenly comes a revelation Anny Konetzni is out of her ordinary mezzo'ish self as Ariadne with free gleaming top notes, or you discover Rose Merker another GREAT hochdramatische you never heard of or you get to hear the original
version of large chunks of Carmina Burana with solo singers instead of chorus. And there are treasures like the excerpts from Palestrina with
Witt and Rethy (she is fabulously well represented in everything from Lauretta to 3rd Norn and she only made operetta records after the war)...
(Youtube upload):
"Mozart/R. Strauss - Idomeneo - Excerpts - Sabel, Böttcher, Réthy, Konetzni - Strauss (1941)"
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