From: coren@speed.osf.org (Robert Coren)
Subject: Re: Various _Goetterdaemmerung_s 
Keywords: Janowski, Karajan, Solti
Organization: Open Software Foundation
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 23:31:56 GMT

In article <Bz3tMv.HF9@news.udel.edu>, conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad) writes:

I was wondering where you were. :-)

> In article <1992Dec10.155514.3888@osf.org> coren@speed.osf.org (Robert Coren) writes:
> >Act II: Karajan. I confess to having loaded the dice here a bit, in
> >choosing what I expected (accurately, as it happens) to be my least
> >favorite of the three recordings for my least favorite of the three
> >acts. 
> 
> Really?  You don't like this act?  To each his own, I guess, but I find
> this one of my favorite Wagner acts -- tight, insightful, dramatic.

You and just about everybody else, it seems. I really let myself in
for it with this casual remark. I didn't say I didn't like it; I said
it was my least favorite of the three acts of _Goetterdaemmerung_, all
of which are pretty wonderful. I don't know why; I just don't enjoy it
quite as much as the other two (except for the first scene, which is
fantastic).

> >Jess Thomas is really not an acceptable Gunther, 
> 
> He sure wouldn't be if he were singing the part (he being a tenor), but
> I find Thomas Stewart quite all right in this role.

Oops.

> I wish he were
> smoother with it (as he is when he sings Wotan earlier in the cycle),
> but I find it quite a stretch to call him unacceptable.

I found him forced and ugly. I suppose if de gustibus really non
disputandum were, this group wouldn't have much to talk about at all. :-)

> 
> >but no performance of
> >this opera is going to stand or fall on its Gunther anyway. Gundula
> >Janowitz is a fine Gutrune, but the above goes double for Gutrune.
> 
> Gee, and I find Janowitz as wimpy a Gutrune as any recording has --
> barely audible, totally uncharacterized, and a real disappointment after
> her freshly imagined Sieglinde for HvK.

Hmm... I think I remember having a similar assessment of her Gutrune
on the basis of Act III, which is the only one in which she gets to
display any character to speak of anyway. I haven't listened to my
Karajan _Walkuere_ in so long that I have no recollection of it.

> >One thing I rather like is the real amusement in the voices of the
> >Vassals on "Gross Glueck und Heil lacht nun dem Rhein". But I wish
> >someone somewhere would have to courage to follow Wagner's directions
> >and have the Vassals enter a few at a time, gradually building up in
> >numbers. Does anyone know of a recording in which this was done? (Jon?)
> 
> I don't recall that effect one way or the other.  The places to look,
> though, would I suspect be Janowski and Haitink,

I don't remember this about the Janowski, but I could be wrong. Of
course, that *would* be the one I picked for the Act that doesn't have
the Vassals in it. :-)

> >it's practically impossible to produce truly
> >beautiful sounds with the power that's required for these roles.
> 
> You've really got to hear some of the older Wagnerians before you say
> this last, Robert.

I had a feeling you were going to say something like this. :-) Well,
I'll see what I can do. I usually shy away from "excerpts" recordings
-- I like my _Ring_ on Wagner's terms -- but it seems to be the only
choice for most of these folks.

> 
> >Fischer-Dieskau is out of his depth as Gunther, and has to shout most
> >of his notes. (I used to think that this was appropriate, since
> >Gunther is also out of his depth. I don't think so any more.) 
> 
> This is his weakest act; the writing in his earlier scenes allows him to
> sing at a more comfortable level, I think.

Well, maybe. I don't think F-D, whom I greatly admire, has much
business singing Wagner at all. HvK's use of him as Wotan in R is quite
puzzling. (Mind you, I haven't listened to this in quite a while either.)
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