Search - Weber, Grummer, Streich :: Der Freischutz

The 1954 live Furtwaengler "Freischuetz" from Salzburg

L. E. Cantrell | Vancouver, British Columbia Canada | 12/20/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"SOURCE: Live performance in the Old Festival Theater at the Salzburg Festival, July 26, 1954.



SOUND: Generally acceptable, if rough and ready mono. The solo voices are fairly well caught; the orchestra and chorus are less so. Although the month was July, it must have been flu season in Salzburg, as one particularly obnoxious jerk demonstrates right at the beginning of the overture and as others insist on reminding us throughout the performance. While this recording is better than some of the truly wretched things made at Salzburg during the 1950s, such as Furtwaengler's dismally recorded "Otello," it was not up to the broadcast standard of its time. Nevertheless, it is still good enough to be pleasing to a well-disposed listener--if that listener can somehow bear the annoyance of the coughers.



CAST: Max, Second Hunter in Prince Ottokar's Forest - Hans Hopf (tenor); Kaspar, First Hunter - Kurt Boehme (bass); Agathe, betrothed to Max - Elisabeth Gruemmer (soprano); Aennchen, Agathe's friend - Rita Streich (soprano); Samiel, the Demon Black Huntsman - Claus Clausen (speaker); Ottokar, a German prince reigning in comparative peace not long after the Thirty Years War - Alfred Poel (baritone); Kuno, Ottokar's Head Forester and Agathe's father - Oskar Czerwenka (bass); Hermit, a forest-dwelling wise man - Otto Edelmann (bass); Kilian, a rich peasant - Karl Doench (baritone); Four Bridesmaids - unidentified; Two Huntsmen - unidentified. CONDUCTOR: Wilhelm Furtwaengler with the Wiener Philharmoniker and Chor der Wiener Staatsoper.



COMMENTARY: This recording documents Wilhelm Furtwaengler's all-out, full-blown Romantic take on Weber's "Der Freischuetz." The great conductor had been attempting to present this most German of operas at the Salzburg Festival almost from the moment he had revived it after the War. He finally succeeded in 1954, just four months before his death. The performance is unhurried, almost stately, but always filled with insight and dark color.



The cast is a Who's Who of Post-War German and Austrian singers. The good, grey, and always stately Gramophone Magazine had this to say: "Furtwangler is enormously helped by having German soloists steeped in the traditions of the piece. Heading them is the unforgettable Elisabeth Gruemmer. She recorded the role of Agathe a couple of years later in the studio with Keilberth ... but here in the theatre with a greater conductor and in live circumstances she is supreme, a perfect performance of a difficult role but one made for her particular gifts." The Gramophone, characteristically, ignores a broadcast performance she and four other members of this cast made with Erich Kleiber in 1955. The exquisite Gruemmer is phenomenally good in both versions. On stage for Furtwaengler, she radiates passionate intensity throughout Agathe's long, long, challenging vocal lines. Before a disciplined audience in Kleiber's concert version, and in concert with that conductor's more lyrical vision of the opera, she focused on Agathe's musical values in what might be described as one of the great singing lessons of the century.



Rita Streich was nearly as impressive in the shorter role of Aennchen, although I think she was even better in the following year with the elder Kleiber.



Kurt Boehme was properly dark and menacing as Kaspar. He was better in the role than Kleiber's Max Proebstl for the odd reason that Proebstl was too elegant and suave a singer for the internally twisted huntsman. Boehme shifted over to the part of the Hermit in the broadcast version.



The good, grey Gramophone came down hard on Hans Hopf, charging that the tenor was "wooden, ill-pitched" and "clumsy," in short, the Gramophone entirely despised him in this opera. I disagree. The Gramophone was too harsh. I, for one, do not despise him in this opera, not entirely.



The remainder of the cast are essentially Vienna State Opera stalwarts. They are all fine.



By 1954, the Vienna Philharmonic had effectively recovered from the years of wartime attrition and hardship. They played their hearts out for the grand old man on the podium.



This might have been one of the great recorded performances of the Twentieth Century but recording technology and the Salzburg audience conspired against it. Despite all that, it is still worthy of five stars."