Richard Wagner

The Frankfurt Opera concludes Vera Nemirva’s highly praised production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle with this performance from January 2012. Featuring soloists such as Susan Bullock, Lance Ryan, Johannes Martin Kranzle, Claudia Mahnke and others, conductor Sebastian Weigle again conducts the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra with the Frankfurt Opera Choir in this last installment, Götterdämmerung.

This 10-CD set sees prominent German coloratura lyric soprano Erna Berger perform arias and scenes from operas by Mozart, Puccini, Verdi, Leoncavallo, Donizetti, Rossini, Gluck, Strauss, Flotow, Nicolai, Wagner, as well as Berlin recitals, operetta and film hits.

When Erna Berger (1900-1990) gave her last public recital at the age of 68 her voice still radiated that same youthful, girlish brilliance that first brought her to the listening public’s attention. Her first great stage successes came in Berlin in the 1930s and 40s, when she triumphed in the works by Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Puccini, Verdi and in German light opera. After World War II, when the doors to international opera houses were again opened to German artists, Erna Berger was one of the first to be heard at the New York Metropolitan Opera. Although turned 60 she made her debut there in young female roles such as Gilda in Rigoletto and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier. When Wilhelm Furtwängler invited her to sing Zerlina in his 1953 Salzburg Festival Don Giovanni, he is said to have commented, “She is still the best we have”.

Recorded in 1983

This re-release on Capriccio contains music picked by HR-brass. As with most brass band ensembles, they stand in the old tradition of music with ‘trumpets and drums’. HR-brass has taken a stand with their own CD on the subject of marches. This disc includes a varied programme from 10 Marches to miss the victory by Mauricio Kagel and demilitarised zone by HK Gruber to Beethoven’s Marschlied from “Egmont” and Wagner’s Funeral March from “Götterdämmerung”.

Drawing on the romantic spirit in music, Schubert’s moving setting is of a poem by Goethe which compares a rushing waterfall to the soul of man, while Strauss’s gorgeous Mittagsruhe depicts the peace of a summer noontide. Narrative vocal traditions are heard in Sibelius’s nationalist Vapautettu kuningatar, Bruckner’s heroic Helgoland, and Grieg’s Landkjenning, which tells of the 10th century Norwegian king Oleg Tryggvason. Das Liebesmahl der Apostel anticipates the religious ecstasies of Wagner’s Parsifal, while Debussy’s early cantata Invocation resonates with Gallic sparkle.