Plan 9 from Otter Space
Some songs just steadfastly repel the crossover treatment. Some years ago Karita Mattila came to grief on “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” and now Anne Sofie von Otter doesn’t do much better. (Why does it always sound like they coached this number with The Opera Milf?)
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(The entire concert, which includes some quite creditable singing and ring-a-ding-dinging from Peter Mattei, may be found here.)
Lucia Popp : Now we are talking about one of the late greats. So often overlooked here, but what a track record of great performances and recordings left behind as a legacy. Not the cold flashy glitzy type of Diva , but someone who delivered consistent spot-on excellence: a warm credit to her memory. Many a singer could take a lesson, listening to her remarkable unerring sense for proper vocal support throughout her range.
The mention of….. “and the great Goodall, yes a very great conductor” (comment 75#) by Marshiemark11, makes one chuckle. Good grief! Oh! The silly exaggerated zeal of only from those ‘attempting to portray themselves as the very most perfect of Wagnerites’ This English school band standard conductor took a ridiculous 5 hours and 15 minutes actual running time duration for a live recorded Gotterdammerung. Ditto: similar results for all his other recorded snail-like intrusions into Wagner. Injecting each of them with his own special crippling form of inflicting viruses. He certainly gave credence to all those cartoons down through the years, that depicted Wagner as all night ‘pack your bed’ torturous snooze fests.
A litmus test: take Goodall’s final scene from his recorded Gotterdammerung where Brunnhilde rides her horse Grane into the flames till the end of the opera. Play the same scene with Mackerras in (recorded highlights)with the same singer as Brunnhilde.
All forms of inner detail,its expected proper resolve and delineation are missing. It simply shows Goodall straightaway, is that old type of English conductor of the tired slow ‘rump de dah’ school. Best suited to conducting English provincial orchestras playing unfamiliar British ‘cow-pat’ compositions. Where the audiences would not know the difference of the heard shortcomings : whether conductor, orchestra or composition. I suppose this is what his fans mistakenly call, Goodall’s sense of ‘profundity’.His conducting suggests nothing more than a clapped out smoke-blowing ‘pinging’ car, struggling to pretend to be a virtuoso speed machine.
Old Sir Reggie was a fantastic Beetoven conductor, the 1976 Royal Opera Fidelio is one of the most beautiful, slow indeed but very majestic, with great sweep and grandeur, the Abscheulicher is very beautifully delineated, a very deliberate tempo for Komm Hoffnung which allows the very young Behrens to soar with her unqualled top to a glorious B. Goodall also leads a very tragic, portent-laden Grave Scene and a very dramatic Leonore-Pizarro confrontation. Does old Reggie make one forget the great Dr Karl Boehm? No of course not!, Dr Karl had/has no equals for Fidelio, such as the many outings he did with the radiant Rysanek at the Met, and later with his beloved Behrens in Munich and the Met.
I do not have much of an opinion on Goodall’s Wagner, as he unfortunately had a horrific Brunnhilde for most of his outings, not to mention those horrid recordings, with the unspeakable Rita Hunter, what a vile singer, so at least judging from his taste in singers would have to question his Wagner outright.
For Wagner the conductors would have to include first and foremost Karajan, followed by Sawallisch, magnificent in Munich in 86-89. Furtwaengler will always be the Emperor of Wagner conductors but that is so before my time.
Oh, brother.
Marshiemark11;You stated … “with the unspeakable Rita Hunter…what a vile singer”. Marshiemark11: you are romancing,Honey! I heard Hunter live, often both right up close or from a good distance back. Hunter was only one of the few true ‘full punch’- powered- on pitch – ‘no stress Wagnerians’ since WW2 : that could be compared with the likes of Varney, Flagstad and Nilsson. after which we had those fake, pushed up back throat, toy sounding, guttural ‘miss a gear here & there ‘ impostor things like Hilda Ballbaarings or Wildchild Mired – who you appear to love..
I would take Christa Ludwig under Klemperer any time to listening to Bohm’s form of Fidelio. Bohm’s live Tristan had distorted speeds in Act 2, his live Bayreuth Ring is ‘rough erratic conductor-crude’. The only thing in common between ice cold Bohm and your ‘little snail- slow Reggie’ was their repulsive and nasty mutual liking for Fascism with a capital F. Beethoven’s compositions (let’s not be opera queens here and think Beethoven wrote just something called Fidelio!) needs at all costs across all his compositions – performers that have a sense of inner personal humanity. Something proven absent from the personalities of your two chosen nominated candidates.
I think you have being reading too many fan magazines and clutched them to your breast. Then transfixed, and stupidly moonstruck – uttered to yourself “she smiles back you know, and I shall love her ‘ ….. ‘ till the day I die” .As one of of your collection of ‘Attila -like’ guttural squawkers, screeches on the player in the background. I once met a afflicted young creature who stated “There has not being a proper singer since Melba” and he was totally serious. But then it was an ‘antiques queen’ as well. Another, who on cue, religiously always burst into tears every time he played Richard Tauber. It then had to script-like, relate how the man died of throat cancer. Gee, Opera turns up strange attitudes from time to time. No wonder others laugh at us, for even appreciating it, in the first place.
85, “Hunter …. that could be compared with the likes of Varney, Flagstad and Nilsson.” First, it is VarnAy!!!!!
I also saw Hunter live, at the Met (10th row orchestra), in Walkuere, unfortunately! It was the transcendental night that I heard Rysanek for the first time, as Sieglinde. Imagine the contrast, one of the greatest singers of the 20C, with this huge gigantic whale with the voice of a mosquito for Brunnhilde. Hunter was execrable; the voice was a top heavy, annoying little whistle, with no heft, no bottom, and worse, no sense of the grand Wagnerian line. It was more than anything a most irritating experience to have to endure THAT to get to the Rysanek parts. In the middle of Act III we left and stayed outside until the end, to go back to cheer for Leonie, went back in time to see the “roasting turkey” from the back of the orchestra. It was laughable! Predictably Leonie got a terrific, overwhelming ovation, so did the great James King, Hunter hardly got ANY applause, she was lucky, she deserved boos. I also had to suffer her, God knows for what reason, as Norma, it was actually worse, all the above faults, plus execrable coloratura!!!!!, for a voice that resembled most Cristina Deutekom, she had lousy, blurry “shakes” that tried to pass as coloratura., that night she WAS booed, and loudly. She was then summarily kicked out of the Met for good! And that is supposed to compare to Flagstad, Nilsson and Varnay????? Res Ipso Loquitor
85, “Beethoven …. needs at all costs across all his compositions – performers that have a sense of inner personal humanity”
It must be terribly frustrating to know that YOU would never be able to perform Beethoven according to this standard!
@71 re: Trudeliese Schmidt (is she really Ingrid Caven’s sister?!)
I saw her only once, as Cherubino in the mid ’70s, and was not impressed; in comparison to her colleagues, Janowitz and Popp, she was rather ordinary. Of course, it’s a long way from Cherubino to Erwartung.. a few more than six degrees of separation there.
86, yes whatever2 I know already you will tell me it is: Res Ipsa Loquitur
That hasty Submit button!
Well Marshiemark11 (comments 86 & 87) ,is getting hot under the collar and spitting chips. When she wishes to nickpick me for a slip on the E key instead of an a spellng Varnay, it spelt an E… Varney. Denotes: an Queen Bee obsessive. I strongly wonder if Marshiemark11 was the same bat who once on the English Gramophone’s blog ‘wait for it folks!’…..printed every single record detail and every number of Cherry Strudel Cake’s encyclopedic output. Perhaps it was her sister Marshieamark. Her blind zeal at all costs, for the likes of Hilda Ballbaaerings, Wildchild Mired and Loonie Ratsak clouds her judgement. Specialists playing butch roles -like ‘poor little bruised women- raddled voiced & over emotionalized to the hilt – to make up for shortcomings :their lack of full-on real ballsy vocal heft. Well it is an approach some may like, others will hate.
Perhaps the secret is Marshiemark11 fancied herself as the raddled trio’s’ self sacrificing dresser, their maid, their press agent and their entire fan club rolled into one, Ms. Marshiemark11.
As for Marshiemark11′s comments about appreciation of Beethoven and the non suitability of people like meto perform it – holding sane attitudes we do: is simply breath-taking. Darling the elastic on your $1 spotty bloomers just gave way!
As for Rita Hunter,a person who had serious on going health problems…. by you referring to her, as Walkure’s “roast turkey” betrays the nasty tack you are coming from. Further: your comment of her as “the voice of a mosquito”, clean your ear wax out and get a good hearing aid.