This edition reconstructs the Bayreuth Festival casts until 1906 – the end of the Cosima era – as comprehensively as possible, and presents the complete extant vocal legacy of early Bayreuth: 93 singers in more than 300 recordings!
Some singers are comprehensively documented (Ernst Kraus), of others only rudimentary fragments have survived (Hans Breuer). Of important festival singers there are hardly any recordings of roles they sang in Bayreuth (Johanna Gadski) or no Wagner recordings at all (F. von Kraus). Frequently only fleeting snippets have survived (Luise Reuß-Belce). Some recordings were made very much later, when the singers had long since ceased appearing in Bayreuth and when they were in vocal decline (Theodor Bertram).
An additional drop of vermouth is the totally inadequate studio orchestra, drastic cuts or helter-skelter speeds due to the limited playback duration of the records as well as subsequently composed concert endings and the primitive recording technology…
And yet: in their totality these documents give a sharp, vivid idea of the style of singing favoured during the Cosima era.
We have endeavoured to arrange the recordings as ”opera highlights” with the casts up to 1906 to reconstruct, easy listenable, ficticious performances with an additional factor: if singers who had made their debut in Bayreuth by 1906 appeared there later on in roles which they recorded, they were also included (Clarence Whitehill as Amfortas 1908, Paul Knüpfer as Pogner 1912…). Recordings which could not be slotted into the ”opera highlights” are added as bonus titles.
