Wagner: Der Männer Sippe (from Die Walküre) (Sieglinde's Narration)

2013 sees a series of Wagner reissues on Eloquence from complete operas and highlights to Wagner singer portraits and even an audiobook!

This is a 31-year retrospective (1956 – 1987) of great Wagner singing on Decca and Deutsche Grammophon featuring fourteen extracts from nine operas with seven great singers. Wagner’s heroines make for some of the most pivotal moments in his operas and this anthology highlights almost every aspect of his women – suspicious and inflexible (Fricka, here taken from a recital recording by Regina Resnik), redeeming (Elisabeth and Brünnhilde), passionate (Sieglinde), transfigured (Isolde). We hear the great voices of Joan Sutherland (who sang a number of Wagnerian roles before establishing her incomparable reputation in the bel canto repertoire), her idol, Kirsten Flagstad (here singing Kundry), Flagstad’s Scandinavian successor Birgit Nilsson (in two of the greatest opera scenes – Isolde’s Liebstod and Brünnhilde’s Immolation), and at the start of this recording, the splendidly Italianate singing of Susan Dunn as Elisabeth and Sieglinde. The illuminating notes on the music and the singers are by Wagner scholar Peter Bassett and the booklet includes a photo gallery of the singers.

Expressiveness and intelligent acting: For Herbert von Karajan he was the ideal Wagner singer. But René Kollo didn’t only shine as a heroic tenor. He also possessed immense versatility, reaching a large audience both as an expressive actor on the opera stage, and with his concert and television appearances and in his roles in operetta films. And for all these different activities, he never forsook his credibility as a “serious” singer. This Electrola recital with Kollo features Christian Thielemann on the rostrum – still at the outset of his career in 1992, but in the meantime one of the leading conductors of Wagner and Strauss.

The third volume of The Flagstad Recitals couples music by Wagner and Mahler. Flagstad’s LP of Wagner scenes recorded with Hans Knappertsbusch is complemented by the “Todesverkündigung” from Act II of Die Walküre with Sir Georg Solti as well as the “Immolation Scene” from Götterdämmerung from a Norwegian broadcast performance conducted by Øivin Fjeldstad. Also included are the two Mahler song cycles Flagstad recorded with Sir Adrian Boult and the Vienna Philharmonic.

In his booklet notes John Steane asks us to “remember (for it is easy to forget) that in this recording we hear the voice of a woman over 60. It is still possible to feel, as Desmond Shawe-Taylor did when hearing her years earlier in a concert performance with Furtwängler, that the ‘sumptuous, saturated tone-quality of this sort has almost vanished from the world’.”

‘It is wonderful to hear how the great soprano can produce the softest flute-like tone on a high G, fining it down to vanishing point’ [Mahler: ‘Ging heut’ morgen über’s Feld’ from Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen] Gramophone

[Wesendon-Lieder] “…beautifully played on this disc, as is everything else, by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Knappertsbusch. Flagstad's deeper insight into the music shows particularly in ‘Stehe still!’ and ‘Im Treibhaus’ but she is very well suited by all five songs." Gramophone

[Kindertotenlieder] “That glorious voice is heard here in a very fine recording, and Sir Adrian and the Vienna Philharmonic form a happy combination. And in any case, Flagstad sings these particular songs most beautifully; Lieder on this scale finds in her a fine and sensitive interpreter. Incredible that she was 62 at the time." Gramophone

“Flagstad was a superb Sieglinde, and her glorious voice is perfectly suited to the rich inspiration of the Wesendonk-Lieder … one of the finest Brünnhildes of our time” The Penguin Guide to Bargain Compact Discs

Acclaimed and cherished as one of Australia’s finest operatic artists, Nance Grant had a voice possessed with beauty and power, an ease of technique, a perfection of phrasing and taste that cemented her place in the hearts of Australian music lovers. This long overdue tribute presents one of the great sopranos from down under - in recordings previously thought lost.

Nance Grant chose to stay close to her family in Australia rather than pursue an international career, even though Sir Edward Downes insisted he could ‘fill her books’ with performances in Britain and Europe. So this double album offers those who never had the opportunity to hear her, the gift of discovering a voice of magnitude and generosity, and for those who grew up hearing her on stage, the chance to reacquaint themselves with her artistry.

The original tapes from radio broadcasts of the 1960s and ’70s have been carefully restored to give more than a hint of the majesty of Nance Grant in a characteristic range of repertoire. The recordings represent significant landmarks in the development of opera in Australia: the emerging Victorian State Opera’s enormously successful Idomeneo, re di Creta, and Maria Stuarda under the direction of Richard Divall; Australian Opera’s Ariadne auf Naxos, Fidelio and Tannhäuser with Sir Edward Downes; and one of the first of the Australian Opera/ABC collaborations presenting concert performances of Wagner operas, with Grant as Sieglinde in Die Walküre conducted by Leif Segerstam.

The programme also pays homage to Nance’s considerable concert career, including a complete song recital - Greig, Richard Hageman and Richard Strauss - with pianist Geoffrey Parsons, Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, and an excerpt from Mendelssohn’s Elijah.

Transfiguration is acclaimed star soprano Camilla Nylund’s much-awaited first album of arias.

This CD portrays the lyric-dramatic soprano with famous arias and scenes from operas by Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner, including the grueling final scenes from Tristan und Isolde and from Salome.

The featured arias reflect the lyrical and dramatic facets of Camilla Nylund’s current roles at such venues as Staatsoper Dresden, Vienna State Opera, and Bayreuther Festspiele.

The Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra is led by their chief conductor Hannu Lintu.

CD booklet also includes full libretti.