Irmgard Seefried Volume 2: Opera Arias

She is appropriately bright and jolly in the Wildschütz scenes, and wistful and concerned in the Freischütz […] her Octavian may well be her best complete role on disc. — Fanfare, September / October 1984 More…

Release Date: 10th Nov 2014
Catalogue No: ELQ4807228
Label: Eloquence
Series: Irmgard Seefried
Length: 76 minutes

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Mozart: Così fan tutte ossia La scuola degli amanti, K.588 / Act 2

Work length5:02

Irmgard Seefried (soprano), Nan Merriman (soprano)
Berliner Philharmoniker
Eugen Jochum
Recorded: 1962-12
Recording Venue: UFA-Tonstudio, Berlin

"Sorella, cosa dici?" -"Prenderò quel brunettino"

Track length5:02

Weber: Der Freischütz / Act 2

Work length7:43

Irmgard Seefried (soprano)
Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Eugen Jochum
Recorded: 1959-12-21
Recording Venue: Herkules Saal, Munich

"Wie nahte mir der Schlummer" - "Leise, leise, fromme Weise!"

Track length7:43

Weber: Der Freischütz / Act 3

Work length4:55

Irmgard Seefried (soprano)
Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Eugen Jochum
Recorded: 1959-12-21
Recording Venue: Herkules Saal, Munich

"Und ob die Wolke sie verhülle"

Track length4:55

Thomas, Ambroise: Mignon / Act 2

Work length7:11

Irmgard Seefried (soprano)
Orchestre Lamoureux
Jean Fournet
Recorded: 1963-11-19
Recording Venue: Salle de la Mutualité, Paris

"Kam ein armes Kind von fern"

Track length2:44

Entr'acte - "Dort bei ihm ist sie jetzt"

Track length4:27

Lortzing: Der Wildschütz / Act 1

Work length3:55

Irmgard Seefried (soprano)
Bamberger Symphoniker
Christoph Stepp
Recorded: 1966

"Auf des Lebens raschen Wogen"

Track length3:55

Lortzing: Der Wildschütz / Act 2

Work length6:46

Irmgard Seefried (soprano), Ernst Haefliger (tenor)
Bamberger Symphoniker
Christoph Stepp
Recorded: 1966

"Ihr Weib?"..."Mein teures Weib!"

Track length6:46

Strauss, R: Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59 / Act 1

Work length11:42

Irmgard Seefried (soprano), Marianne Schech (soprano)
Staatskapelle Dresden
Karl Böhm
Recorded: 1958-12-16
Recording Venue: Lukaskirche, Dresden

"Wie du warst!"

Track length11:42

Strauss, R: Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59 / Act 2

Work length8:20

Irmgard Seefried (soprano), Rita Streich (soprano), Ilona Steingruber (soprano)
Staatskapelle Dresden, Chor der Staatsoper Dresden
Karl Böhm
Recorded: 1958-12-16
Recording Venue: Lukaskirche, Dresden

"Rofrano! Rofrano!" - "Mir ist die Ehre widerfahren"

Track length8:20

Strauss, R: Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59 / Act 3

Work length20:32

Irmgard Seefried (soprano), Kurt Böhme (bass (vocal)), Marianne Schech (soprano), Rita Streich (soprano), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone)
Staatskapelle Dresden
Karl Böhm
Recorded: 1958-12-16
Recording Venue: Lukaskirche, Dresden

Nein, nein, nein . . . Die schöne Musi!

Track length8:22

Marie Theres' .. . 'ist ein Traum

Track length12:10

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About

After Irmgard Seefried’s death in 1988, her contemporary Elisabeth Schwarzkopf – never one to dish out compliments lightly – commented: ‘All of us envied her, because what we had to achieve laboriously worked for her so naturally and as a matter of course, because she knew how to sing from the heart’.

Freshness, spontaneity, natural warmth of feeling, allied to a voice of gleaming beauty and a delightful stage presence: these were the hallmarks of a much-loved soprano who for three decades charmed and moved audiences in the theatre and concert hall, her face as expressive as her voice. As John Steane memorably put it in Gramophone, ‘it was as though she wore her own spotlight’.

Born in the Swabian town of Köngetried in 1919, Seefried was ‘discovered’, aged twenty, by Herbert von Karajan in Aachen, where she made her operatic debut as the Priestess in Aida. In 1943 she sang Eva in Die Meistersinger for the Wiener Staatsoper, initiating an association that lasted until 1976. It was in Strauss and Mozart that Seefried was most admired.

Issued over eleven single-disc volumes, Deutsche Grammophon / Eloquence pays tribute to Irmgard Seefried, bringing back to circulation several recordings that have never previously been issued on CD. The music ranges through opera and oratorio, with an especially generous offering of art song from a range of composers, including Schubert, Schumann, Wolf, Hindemith and Egk. The notes for the series have been written by that leading connoisseur of the voice, Richard Wigmore.

Volume 2 showcases Seefried in further operatic roles including such rarities as Lortzing’s Der Wildschütz and Thomas’s Mignon in which Seefried performed the mezzo role of the waif Mignon on stage, in German translation (then the norm in German opera houses), and recorded two of her arias. With her viola-like warmth of tone and dramatic immediacy, Seefried was Jochum’s unhesitating choice as the heroine Agathe in Der Freischütz. Octavian – which she often played opposite Schwarzkopf’s Sophie or Marschallin – became another signature role and the disc presents nearly 40 minutes of music from Der Rosenkavalier in the 1958 Dresden recording conducted by Karl Böhm.

Reviews

September / October 1984

She is appropriately bright and jolly in the Wildschütz scenes, and wistful and concerned in the Freischütz […] her Octavian may well be her best complete role on disc.

September 1993

It is almost possible to see the adolescent fire in this young Octavian’s eye, as he rails against the arrival of day or declares himself lord of the Marschallin’s bedroom […] The best of her portrayals, like the Octavian, combine vocal certainty with ardour, freshness and energy. There is an uplifting Agathe from Der Freischütz, singing her first aria with a lovely youthful impulsiveness

Irmgard Seefried Volume 2

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