This disc was nominated for the 2000 Gramophone magazine award for "Best Recital Recording." The enthralling singer-actress Julia Varady has remarked that "as a singer...

This disc was nominated for the 2000 Gramophone magazine award for "Best
Recital Recording."
The enthralling singer-actress Julia Varady has remarked that "as a singer one must consider Richard Strauss as bel canto." This pronouncement raises the expectation that upon listening to this recording of Varady singing excerpts from four Strauss operas one will hear both long connected melodic line and a variety of carefully modulated vocal colors-hallmarks of the "beautiful singing" of the 19th century.
After a careful glance at the demanding music she has selected to perform here, her statement would be wishful thinking for most dramatic sopranos. But Varady is no run-of-the-mill soprano. Indeed, the singing on this recording is both dramatically compelling and terribly beautiful. Her Salome is both disturbing and beguilingly youthful, while her Ariadne has a tragic heft befitting her plight. The opening Ariadne's "Es gibt ein Reich" sails on one long breath. While Varady always declaims the text clearly, she avoids any preciousness of declamation that would interrupt her vocal line.
Varady's partner on the conducting podium is also her partner in life--the legendary baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Sharing so many of the same vocal virtues, one can only hope that they are as ideally suited in married life as they clearly are in musical collaboration.