Wagner: Leb wohl, du kühnes, herrliches Kind! (from Die Walküre) (Wotan's Farewell, Wotan's Abschied)

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 50-year retrospective (1950 – 2000) of great Wagner singing on Decca and Deutsche Grammophon featuring twelve extracts from eight operas (including all four operas of the Ring cycle) with nine great singers. Wagner’s knowledge of heroes derived from two sources: the myths of ancient Greece, and the sagas and poetry of northern Europe. In both traditions, heroes possess god-like attributes which set them apart from non-heroic mortals and reinforce the view that they are superhuman. They often have gods as parents or grandparents. But Wagner humanizes his heroes, most notably Siegmund (sung inimitably by Jon Vickers in the legendary Decca recording of Die Walküre with Erich Leinsdorf), and the naïve Siegfried (with Wolfgang Windgassen singing both the Siegfried and Götterdämmerung Siegfrieds). Other great heldentenors represented on this collection include James King and James McCracken. Celebrated bass-baritones are also represented here: Paul Schöffler (singing Wotan’s Farewell from a rare 1950 recording), Ernst Haefliger (as the Dutchman) and most recently, Matthias Goerne (Wolfram). The insightful notes are provided by Wagner scholar Peter Bassett and a photo gallery of the singers is also included.

Celebrating the 200th Anniversary of Wagner in 2013, David Zinman conducts the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich performing Scenes and Orchestral Pieces from “The Flying Dutchman” and “The Ring of the Nibelung”.

David Zinman is one of the world’s finest, most respected conductors, whose passion for music, dedication to furthering careers of young musicians and as an orchestral builder makes ‘music a better world’.

This CD features famous international Wagner baritone Egils Silins who can be heard as “Dutchman” and as “Wotan”.

Zinman has extended his contract with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich until 2014, where, since 1995 as conductor and music director, he has raised the standard of the orchestra to an international level.

Zinman’s previous recordings on Sony have been received with superb critical acclaim.

In January 2006, David Zinman, received the prestigious Theodore Thomas Award, presented by the Conductors Guild in New York’s Roosevelt Hotel. The award is presented biannually to a conductor, in recognition of outstanding achievement and extraordinary service to one’s colleagues in advancing the art and science of conducting, reflecting honour on the profession.

George London was born in Montreal, Canada; when he was fifteen the family moved to the United States. His original surname was Burnstein (he also used Burnson for a time) and his forebears were from Širvintos in Lithuania. He began his singing studies in Los Angeles, and by the 1940s was touring with a trio that included Frances Yeend and Mario Lanza. His début in a leading role was in Rigoletto for San Francisco Opera in 1946. Three years later, in Vienna, he sang Amonasro in Aida, a role that also launched his Metropolitan Opera career in 1951.

It was while London was singing the four villains in The Tales of Hoffmann in Vienna that Hans Knappertsbusch decided to recommend London to Wieland Wagner for the 1951 Bayreuth Festival. Seven years later, Knappertsbusch recorded four great Wagner scenes for Decca with George London. The recording appears here in its entirety, supplemented with one of the great scenes from their 1962 performance of Parsifal (recorded ‘live’ at the Bayreuth Festival it went on to become one of most venerated recordings of this opera) and the closing scene of Rheingold in which London appears on the celebrated Solti recording as Wotan.

London’s vocal health began to deteriorate rapidly during the 1963–64 season; eventually the problem was diagnosed as paralysis of the vocal cords. Efforts to restore the voice proved fruitless, and in due course London had to accept that, at 46, his singing career was over. The operatic world had suffered a great loss. He died after a series of heart attacks in March 1985. George London is remembered as an exceptional and intelligent artist who combined a great voice and superb musicianship with a commanding stage presence.

Looking back at Tristan und Isolde twenty years after its composition, Wagner told his wife Cosima: ‘My model was Romeo and Juliet – nothing but duets!’ He was invoking Bellini’s opera I Capuleti e i Montecchi, which he had conducted many times as a young man. Indeed, there had been much in the Italian master’s legacy that had impressed the young Wagner, including the ‘long, long, long melodies’ that Verdi described, and the technique of melodic sequence in which a phrase is repeated with rising pitch and heightened effect. The erotic potential of such procedures is famously exploited in the ‘night of love’ in Act II of Tristan und Isolde. And while this might well claim to be Wagner’s best-known duet, this innovative 2CD set, compiled by Australia’s Wagner expert Peter Bassett (who also contributes the notes) brings together a collection of dialogues, musical conversations and duets from the major Wagner operas.

The recordings are among the finest ever made. The singers are a Who’s Who of great names from the sixties, seventies and eighties – Fischer-Dieskau, Janowitz, Vickers, Thomas, Price, Kollo… with conductors like Karajan, Kleiber and Jochum directing these revelatory performances. The breadth and diversity of the emotion on this double album is matched by the generous playing times: more than two hours and forty minutes of music on a 2CD set.

The purpose of this present collection of recording is to provide a document showing the vocal techniques of the ‘golden generation’ of Wagner interpreters.

It begins with a true icon of Wagner’s music: Kirsten Flagstad who performs not the famous 1952 recording of Brunhilde, but a 1948 version recorded in the Abbey Road studios), and carries on with Eileen Farrell (an American singer of rare versatility), George London singing Wotan and a serious list of other top quality performers.

The recordings are all taken from the period 1941-1959 and this release gives us a unique collection of the sheer quality of these Wagner performers, all of them ‘stars’ of their time.

Simon Estes, the American bass-baritone, had an extraordinary beginning to his career. As a young medical student in Iowa he was fascinated by show tunes and loved singing, but knew nothing about opera, until a voice teacher heard him and lent him some opera recordings. This was the turning point. He auditioned and won a full scholarship to the Juilliard School in New York in 1963, and two years later he began his operatic career singing Ramfis in Aida at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin. Many other major roles followed, including Philip II (Don Carlos), Boris (Boris Godunov), John the Baptist (Salome) Gounod’s Méphistophélès (Faust) and Porgy (Porgy and Bess). He also became renowned for his striking performances in Wagner’s operas. He became the first black male artist to take a major role at Bayreuth when he sang the title in role in Der fliegende Holländer, giving an astonishing performance, and he continued in the role for several seasons. He was also praised for his intelligent, articulate interpretation of Wotan.

This CD includes a selection of extended extracts from Der fliegende Holländer (Dutchman), Die Walküre (Wotan) and Parsifal (Amfortas), where Estes is joined by soprano Eva-Maria Bundschuh (Brünnhilde), and bass Heinz Reeh (Titurel).

Gustav Neidlinger was particularly well-known for his Wagnerian roles and sang for 20 seasons at the Bayreuth Festival. He also made guest appearances at the world’s great opera houses. He retired from the stage in 1977.

Hermann Uhde was a German Wagnerian baritone. In December 1961 Audrey Williamson wrote in Opera magazine: “On the opera stage the connection of intellect and passion is seldom. This is why stage singers like Hermann Uhde deserve the greatest appreciation; they uplift the opera to the highest level of musical drama.”