Search - Mozart, Schock, Lipp :: Die Zauberfloete (Cologne 1954)

Keilberth and Schock strikes again

Theodore Shulman | 03/06/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is one of the best "Zauberflöte"-recordings.
With a glorious Rudolf Schock as Tamino and a fantastic Wilma Lipp and The Queen of the Night.All the singers on this recording are incomparable!"

Two bad flaws

Theodore Shulman | NYC | 01/11/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Keilberth is fine; Theresa Stich-Randall is a treat although not exactly child-like; Erich Kunz, Josef Greindl and Wilma Lipp are all strong as (almost) always. Hans Hotter in his prime is a great Sprecher.



Unfortunately the flaws are serious. For all his celebrity value Rudolf Schock is wrong--too loud, too exaggeratedly heroic, always threatening to oversing, and somehow also unserious like he's doing operetta. Even worse is the execrable Annelies Kupper, at once tinny and hooty as the First of the Three Ladies. (The more I hear of her the more I wish I could go back in time and prevent her parents from getting together. I searched ten years for a recording of Josef Greindl doing Haydn's DIE SCHOPFUNG and she ruined it.) A bad First Lady is a very serious defect.



The recording omits the spoken parts. Instead, motherly narration. I hate that. It made sense in the days of phonograph needles which had to be picked up and delicately placed on the rotating record if you wanted to skip the spoken parts. Totally inappropriate for a CD. Erich Kunz has a great sense of humor and you miss a lot of it without the spoken stuff. Also, Greindl was a terrific speaking actor who later played Moses.



So yes, this should be in your library, but it should not be your only ZAUBERFLOTE. (That should be the 1949 Munchen performance under Furtwangler with Walther Ludwig and Gertrud Grob-Prandl. It goes in and out of print and the sound isn't great but it's an unbelievable performance packed with genius-superstars. If you need image as well, the video performance conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch is the One. Young Kurt Moll and lovely Lucia Popp.)"