Search - Wagner, Bohm, Bayreuth Festival Orchestra :: Gotterdammerung

Twilight Of The Gods, Zenith of Birgit Nilsson's Career

Rudy Avila | Lennox, Ca United States | 10/08/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This mid 1960's recording is a document of soprano Birgit Nilsson's powerful performance of Brunhilde in Wagner's Gotterdammerung. At this time, she was a world famous opera sensation, mostly for her portrayal of Wagner heroines, though she had sung in diverse repertoire including Verdi, Puccini and Strauss. This recording is a memento of her definative Brunhilde sung opposite Wolfgang Windgassen's Siegfried, Theo Adam's Wotan and performed under the baton of Maestro Karl Bohm, principal conductor at Bayreuth, Germany. This recording sounds fine but it is not as lustrous and fresh as the remastered digital sound of the Box Set available on the Phillips label which contain all the operas in the "Ring of the Nibelung" series- Rhinegold, Walkure, Siegfried and Gotterdammerung. This Gotterdammerung is still quite good and there is much to admire here.



Wolfgang Windgassen was an orthodox Wagnerian tenor, singing in the traditional Bayreuth style, a technique enforced by Cosima Wagner. It is a style that is harsh, dramatic, compelling and iron-like. There is very little lyrical beauty and Cosima Wagner ignored even Richard Wagner's own requests of having his singers sing in the Italian bel canto manner. Wagner knew that beautiful voices are the aesthetic appeal and also provide a spiritual dimension to his operas. Windgassen may not be my favorite Siegfried, but there are so few tenors that take on this role in this particular final opera that one has no choice but to listen to Windgassen's rendition. And it really isn't so bad. He is paired well with Brunhilde though for the most part of this opera he has gone down the Rhine river on a perilous journey that results in his tragic death. The musical score is awfully rushed, perhaps for dramatic or intense effects, but gone is the beauty of the lyrical lines written to some portions - like the echoes of the Rhinemaiden's song in the finale or the romantic themes associated with Siegfried and Brunhilde's love. In my most humble opinion, George Solti's version is superior in that it maintains a harmonic balance between electrifying drama and beautiful music. However, this one is'nt deplorable and the draw here is the fact that Birgit Nilsson is singing in her prime and doing a supreme, unsurpassed performance. She is forever Brunhilde, the Valkyrie, the fallen goddess, the woman in love. Her voice is lazer-sharp, high, intense, even if she loses some beauty because she opts to "Immolate" herself for the sake of high drama."

Is this Josef Greindl's last recorded performance?

Theodore Shulman | NYC | 04/01/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This 1967 Bayreuth GDAM conducted by Bohm may be Josef Greindl's last recorded Hagen, which role he began singing sometime before 1950 and owned for at least seventeen years, out-Hagening even Gottlob Frick and Ludwig Weber. Never has he sounded so nasty and nasal, so snide and snarling, so cunning, nor so monstrous, as tonight.



Is he getting old? It's hard to tell because his tone has always resembled the sound of an old man, even in 1943 when he was in his early thirties. And of course you maximize that aspect for Hagen: "Fruhalt, fahl, und bleich...." But you can hear his true age here when he summons the warriors to the wedding--he's audible over the orchestra but he no longer overwhelms them with his thundering top-resonance as he used to do. He seems to be reminding himself not to press, not to go for the wall-of-sound. One thing's for sure--he has not gotten bored with the role! He's still a genius actor with a gift which too many genius singing-actors lack--the ability to sound crude and savage.



Unlike most basses and baritones, who tend to abandon their high ranges as they age, Greindl went up to the Wanderer and even Don Alphonso, which is a high lyric baritone. I'd give anything for recordings of these efforts. UPDATE: Ordered from HouseOfOpera dot com, a FLIEGENDER HOLLANDER with him as Dutchman. Several recordings are available with him as Daland, but this is one of his late-in-life experiments.



Getting back to GDAM: the rest of the cast are all excellent, particularly Anja Silja showing a little uncharacteristic heaviness as the Third Norn, a trio of distinguished veteran-but-still-playful Rhinemaidens, big dumb growler Thomas Stewart suitably unsympathetic as Gunther, and Gustav Neidlinger (PeaceBeUponHim) summarizing his twenty-year transformational gig in his role, proving once again that it is possible to shriek, howl, and moan like a baby, spontaneously, but with education, musicality, and line. Compare him with predecessors Alois Pernerstoffer and Adolf Vogel, or understudies Toni Blankenheim and Franz Andersson. Weaklings and serial-grunters, in comparison with Neidlinger, the Alberich of Alberichs!



Oh yeah Birgit Nilsson and Wolfgang Windgassen are good too. Windgassen is uncharacteristically wild in some places. Martha Modl sounds a little used-up and she's not a mezzo but she sure brings celebrity value."