Hoffnung Festival
In celebration of the 239th birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven (thanks, Camille!) La Cieca invites the cher public to share their favorite versions of the “Abscheulicher!” from Fidelio — or, for that matter, other personal Beethoven faves. La Cieca’s pick after the jump.
Well, I’ll take the easy one:
28 years old. Sigh.
Wow, this is just fabulous! Brava, Silja.
The new threaded comment format lends itself very well to this type of discussion. We can discuss each video individually.
Made even more wonderful by the fact that she was doing THIS at 19.
there used to be a video of her in costume doing this aria. anybody knows where it went? It no longer is on YT.
And some of my favourite singing by any dramatic tenor:
Not from “Fidelio”, but great singing, nevertheless!
Also not Fidelio, but just gorgeous:
Wunderlich = Wundervoll!
You beat me to it on this one. A stunningly beautiful piece of singing, with that unique Wunderlich tone that manages to be at once pure and slightly dirty at the same time…there’s something of sex in that sound.
I doubt anyone who has ready much of what I’ve posted before will be surprised by this choice of Leonore (can’t find her Komm Hoffnung on YouTube but I decided as a kid that it’s my funeral music). Anyway, have the Act I trio instead, with the added bonus of some Popp.
Ooops, embedding fail.
Here we go:
Thank you!
Beethoven may not have written many operas, but it is hard to beat this trio. Totally sublime
Who knew the young Bea Arthur sang Leonore?
Sorry, but all of Fidelio/Leonore mostly just makes me laugh!
Pre-Maude, post-Mame.
Have always enjoyed this concert aria! “Ah! Perfido.”
i’ll see your wunderlich and
Happy Birthday to my Immortal Beloved, the greatest of the greats.
Could someone do me the kindness of posting Frida Leider’s Abscheulicher? I am too retro to understand how to import the YouTube videos. Just a little 19th century lady coughing up her lungs.
Much obliged.
do you have the mp3? send to us at the Parterre and we can do it
Squirreley dear — I truly am retro. I don’t really even know what an mp3 is.
Frida is on YouTube. I’ve already heard her sing it, and it is peerless. It would be nice for everyone to hear her interpretation, from 1928 with Sir John Barbirolli.
I’ll take another stab at trying but I don’t understand modernity.
I understand. Sometimes I don’t even know what a parterre.com is.
When people emphasize their disconnect from modern technology, as Camille does, I always wonder if they’re independently wealthy or something and just have other people to wait on them hand and foot. I’m truly puzzled by it.
Alto, I think it’s just an alternative lifestyle. Or an alternative reality. I thought of going off the grid many times, but it would be much easier if I had never gone on in the first place.
Retro is cool.
Just see how many people are re-embracing vinyl ( as in records) after having abandoned it in favor of CDs.
But mp3 allows you to load up on a few operas for plane trip across the country – rather awkward with vinyl.
I too am embracing vinyl – for evening attire!
Squirrel, I see — and saw — the alternative-lifestyle aspect, but that’s why I ask if they don’t have to worry about making a living. It’s hard to think of occupations that don’t require or at least greatly profit from efficient electronic communication.
And, Pernille, who are all these people who are “re-embracing vinyl”? Seriously. I’ve been hearing this for at least fifteen years in casual remarks. Yes, I know a few people do it, just as some insist on using oil lamps instead of electric lights. But there must be more of the latter than the former.
My favorite section of Beethoven music EVER is this, the sublime and magisterial 2nd movement of the 5th piano concerto. With Uchida and Ozawa, no less. I love watching this woman play.
I love this movement. Although at 0:34, I find myself singing “There’s a place for us…”
Another immensely gifted artist: Christa Ludwig, specifically from that excerpt album that included a killer Recognition Scene from Elektra.
But, really, Dame G at that point when she was in full control, and Silja. Even lip-syncing, they come to us from deep inside the song. And people wonder why there are so many cranky old opera queens.
I found her on You Tube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEdHa4AemLI
Ludwig has always been my favourite, until I discovered Frida’s Hoffnung, in the last couple years. This is just absolutely wonderful and I thank you gratefully, Big Q, for posting her interpretation as I didn’t know it existed.
What you say about the marvelous Dame Gwyn and amazing Anja is truth, for me. As far as the ‘cranky old opera queens’, well, after viewing this on the rebound from last night’s Elektra, I think there is more than ample justification for being cranky, bitter, vitriolic, and just plain pissed off.
One sees there was something called bel canto at a time not so long ago, and now what we usually get is can’t belto.
for Camille -- a nice one!
Lieber Squirrel,
Vielen Dank.
You don’t know how much it means to me.
May I send you some Christmas acorns, c/o our Dear Doyenne?
Sorry it clips off at the recit, but that’s how it goes.
I am skeptical of taking acorns from people, but most anything else sent to me c/o La Cieca is of course welcome.
Well then, it’s either a pair of mittens or a bottle of Jack Daniels.
Something to keep you warm whilst on the beat this winter.
Don’t forget that snazzy fedora, either.
and, once again, thank you for being so sweet. I really humbly and gratefully appreciate it as I AM RETRO!!
OK, the Leider is pretty much ideal to my ears — very close to Flagstad. Thanks Camille for suggesting it and Squirrel for posting it.
The web team has an ongoing fantasy about learning to play this: (please note we did not imply playing it well.
Embed oops!
not bad:
Better than not bad, I’d say. Pretty damn good.
Danke, meine geliebte Leonie
Lotte Lehmann or Leider for Leonore. Patzak, Voelker or Ralf for Florestan and Schwarzkopf for Mazelline. Furtwaenglier or Walter conducting. And we cannot forget either Kipnis or Moll as Rocco.
Thanks all for some beautiful clips and here is one of my absolute favourites, the last minutes always leave me crying helplessly. It’s music by a dying soul unashamedly clinging to life.
And this is one of these introductions by Lenny that would send shivers down your spine
“One might say it goes beyond anything the human brain has ever created.”
Thank you Mmes. Cerquetti/Farrell for this great gift on this day of days.
I am so grateful as I have been playing nos. 127 and 131 all last week, first Cleveland, and now Takacs, and this is the big ne plus ultra of everything gone on this past week. Mo. Bernstein, wherever he is, must know he is remembered for this.
I have so many versions but I’ll stick with two: Busch, still the best, and Talich. Can’t figure out which piece I love best, 132 or 131!
Well a number of chamber musicians I know prefer the warmer sound of vinyl to digital. And I understand their point. I wouldn’t want it to be “either-or” but I’m still hanging on to some of my vinyl recordings for that reason.
Apparently there are vinyl fans in popular music as well. Recent newspaper articles suggest so, and I think public radio even had a feature about some group ( I don’t follow that kind of music) that is releasing new vinyl ( with a free mp3 download with the purchase)
oops, that was supposed to be a reply to Alto in thread 9. Sorry.
No doubt, the vinyl retro-lution is upon us. It’s having a huge comeback in pop music.
I buy LPs just because they are nice fetish-items, and for nostalgia, and they sound good enough. But I must admit that the oft-cited “warmer sound” is really bunk in my opinion. CDs have them completely beat in fidelity and warmth, plus the benefit of far fewer variables (quality of needle, turntable, balance of arm, etc.) that can go wrong.
My baby brother designs pro-audio equipment and assures me the “warmer sound” of LPs belongs on the list with “one size fits all” and “facial quality toilet tissue.” He also laughs at people who buy Monster Cable, and he collects 78s which, as fetishes go, trumps LPs (no disrespect intended).
I’m going to be predictable and post Jessye’s recording, which I had not heard before today. With the exceptoin of the final high B, the aria sits very well in her voice. And dramatically, she has everything the aria requires — intensity in the opening, nobility in the middle, and a heroic quality in the final section. And her tone just suits Beethoven’s music really well. Now, I’m off to listen to the Leider and Bernstein clips…
Since msot of my favourite versions of the Fidelio aria have already been posted, I’ll just say that I think between them, Jones, Leider and Rysanek get most of the role pretty perfectly. Fidelio is one of Norman’s better opera recordings, since the role is good for her voice and she seems to sympathize with the situation. Mattila was effective if smudgy. The late Inga Nielsen recorded a fairly decent stab at it, with the pretty perfect Goesta Winbergh. Never cared for Ludwig, too heavy. Nilsson was interesting in the Koeln radio broadcast under Kleiber, and sounded utterly different from the 1960s onwards Nilsson: the centre of the voice was noticeably lower than later on, resulting in much more beautiful and intersting sound IMHO. Jurinac is always surprisingly cold in this.
I know I will be murdered for this, but I absolutely love Charlotte Margiono’s Leonore. She sounds like a perfect Beethoven singer, if ther is such a thing, with this humane quality in the voice, the contact with the text, even the evident effort is part and parcel of Beethovenian aesthetics. I know, I know, the size of the voice doesn’t even begin to compete with the Wagnerians, but remember Beethoven’s orchestra had some 60 players in all, and the theatres were much smaller. For me her Ah! Perfido is also absolutely essential, the most beautiful and moving recording of the aria. Now shoot me.
I searched youtube for Margiono’s Leonore or Ah! Perfido in vain, so here is an aria from the cantata on the death of Joseph II, beautiful music and lovely piece of singing
And here is clearly a forerunner of “Gott, welch ein Augenblick”
Like floating in the heavens.
After this I can only say is
“Seid umschlungen, Millionen!
Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt!”
Thank you, La Cieca, for making this possible and thank you, all you wonderful people who have posted this clips. Squirrel, thank you again, for your kind assistance. So lovely of you to help me in my incompetence.
Never heard of Margione before. Beautiful stuff. And you’re right, her voice suits Beethoven perfectly.
I was prepared to dismiss Leider because I had such great memories of Jones and Rysanek, but Frida L. blew me away. What a great voice!
Love the posts so far! In honor of her passing, the Act 2 Quartet from Fidelio with Soderstrom!
(I like her Abscheulicher, too, but there are enough of them here already!)
I´m kinda surprised I had to go as far as posting Christa´s version myself, cause I consider the only recording of this aria that makes sense out of Beethoven´s crazy vocal writing.
1. She finds and incredible balance of words and music right from the opening. She is actually speaking and singing at the same time, and neither loses yields to the other.
2. The arpeggio at ’sie wird´s erreichen’ sores effortlessly
3. the horn player is awesome
4. its dramatically coherent, the only version that doesnt bore the listener at any point
5. when she growls down there in chest voice its simply intoxicating (and connected to the rest of the instrument)
6. the last note
7. she said she always ended up in the doctors office after singing this role. meaning, this music wasn´t just a fun sing, it was a huuuge sacrifice of her vocal capital that she didn´t mind giving to us.
8. done
Fretwell is the touchstone here; in recent years Elizabeth Whitehouse has owned the role.
My fav was always Hildegard Behrens, which I am surprised nobody posted or mentioned until now.
But i´m really amazed by Christa Ludwig, whose version I didn´t know until now (thanks bob villa!!). The B in the end sounds so efortless! It´s really unbelievable how well she makes it sound! And it´s like you said, there is no second where the listener gets bored.
Yes Werther, of course it’s really shocking that no one had yet mentioned the greatest Leonore of the last quarter of the last century. The favorite Leonore of Karajan, Solti and Dr Karl Boehm no less. One of the German Obituaries called her the greatest Leonore of all time!!!!
Thank you, Mr. MarshiemarkII for remedying this oversight.
Her Leonore was always a favorite of mine.
I do so hope you will be finding time enough to care for yourself in light of the loss of your beloved Hildegarde. May her wonderful soul rest in peace.
Great clips! Thanks a lot
Charlotte Margiono -- who will sing her final opera performance next month, I already ordered the flowers -- is my favorite living Fidelio too.
Could not find the Helen Donath -- Edda Moser duet from Leonore on youtube, unfortunately.
People who heard her live still rave about Gré Brouwenstein. Fabulous, like everything else she did:
The greatest Flagstad version for me is 1938 Bodanzky live from the Met.
Thanks, Mr. Buster. Gre was something special; I love her Elisabeth in Tannhauser.