Wagner: Tristan und Isolde / Nilsson, Sawallisch, Bayreuth Festival Orchestra
Orfeo
CD
$37.99Jun 08, 2018
Nobody mastered and shaped the great roles of high drama in the post-war period as effortlessly as Birgit Nilsson - this is her stupendous breakthrough as Isolde at Bayreuth with the musical colleagues she so highly respected. Birgit Nilsson, the young Swedish singer, had, together with Sigurd Bjorling, been recommended by Leo Blech to Winifred Wagner back in 1948 “because her sons felt eager and obliged to establish a new ensemble,” or so Wolfgang Wagner commented in 1994. Nilsson declined an offer to portray Sieglinde in Die Walkure in Bayreuth in 1951 due to an engagement at Glyndebourne. After much negotiation, she was first engaged at the festival in 1953 when she assumed the soprano part in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It was this production from 1958, however, that cemented her place in Bayreuth history. Wolfgang Wagner observed in his memoirs: “The way that Birgit Nilsson and Wolfgang Windgassen, in collaboration with Karl Bohm and Wieland Wagner, became the perfect duo in the title of Tristan… had been part of my design several years previously, and so I was delighted to have conferred the ‘minor orders’ on these two great artists.”
Featuring a front-line cast (Rysanek, Frick, Suthaus, Hotter, Nilsson, etc...) that sends Wagner aficionados into states of reverie at the prospect of listening once again to the authoritative, superlative singing casts one could assemble in the 1950's, this amazing performance of the second opera in the "Nibelungen" tetralogy also proves that conductor Herbert von Karajan live was, like the singers, in a class of his own in the 1950's as well. His few surviving Wagner recordings from this period, like this La Scala 1958 Die Wälkure, are a must for every Wagner connoisseur.
Richard Wagner: Der Ring Des Nibelungen - Siegfried (Bayreuth, 1962)
MYTO Historical
CD
$13.99Mar 11, 2016
For the first time, the complete Beyreuth Ring from 1962 is being released on this magnificent 4-volume collection. This legendary performance is conducted by Rudolf Kempe, and features Otto Wiener as Wanderer, Hans Hopf as Siegfried, and Birgit Nilsson as Brunnhilde. Siegfried is the third of Wagner’s four music dramas that make up his epic Der Ring des Nibelungen.
This live recording of Wagner’s great opera Tristan und Isolde was recorded in August of 1958.; Wolfgang Windgassen, who champions the role of Tristan, was known for his powerful voice and successful performances in Wagner operas. He is often considered the most accomplished Wagner tenor of the twentieth century.; Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson was also a Wagner specialist, along with works from Strauss. Her voice is remembered for its force and brilliance in the upper register.
The German conductor Hans Knappertsbusch and the Bayreuth Wagner Festival were nearly synonymous propositions in their respective performative and historical grandeur by the 1950’s, an era also looked back on from the present as a golden age of Wagnerian singing. + Furthering these propositions is the splendid Ring cycle of 1957, which hosted Knappertsbusch and a cast of incredible singers including Hans Hotter, Birgit Nilsson, Astrid Varnay, Ramon Vinay and Wolfgang Windgassen, amongst others, spread across these four 24Bit/96kHz re-mastered volumes from Walhall Eternity.
