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.
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.