The Daphne exists (I think) in a complete version released on Preiser as does a Magic Flute from Salzburg on Myto.

there are many bits and pieces on the May live cylinders from Vienna, mostly very fine but occassionally Reining’s voice poops out at a climatic passage (the quintet from Meistersinger, etc)

I was fascinated by the way both Reining and Hilde K
sang on the Koch Swann set from Vienna; like the similar Lemnitz (but how repulsive that woman was), they use a creamy tone that was completely unpressured. This was something very, very unusual to me. To hear Hilde sing the Kaiserin without pushing her sound at all was very different to someone who first heard this kind of music using the very different approach of a Rysanek.

Reining’s sound was more round and lyrical than Hilde’s and much less slithery than Lemnitz. I was very taken after hearing her various excerpts on the vienna set and bought the recordings I mention above plus the much more well known Arabella and Ariadne. If it weren’t for her occasional mishaps, I would find these pretty much ideal.

Much more off the beaten track are a German wartime Trovatore (an exquisite D’Amor Sull’Ali) and a very fine Euryanthe.

Scheppan is indeed on that wartime Meistersinger – understand the dilemma – the same year Furtwangler conducted it there, but Abendroth’s recording is complete, unlike Furtwangler’s. And he has the better cast (Schoffler, Kunz!).

The Arabelle is from Vienna 1947.

Hilde Scheppan is on the Abendroth 1943 (?) from Bayreuth? Well, I made a habit of banning all 1939-1945 recordings from Germany / Austria. Actually with one exception – the Welitsch Salome Schlussgesang from the Austrian Radio under von Matacic. It is IMHO one of the greatest vocal recordings ever made and Welitsch sings like a genius. It is on a different universe than her other recordings, and I know most of them (Karajan, Reiner, various live ones). So that’s the only exception…

How I wish the Varady/Donath/Sawallisch set used perhaps Weikl or Brendel as Mandryka!

Now watch the Vicar enlighten us as to how Miss Joan Carlyle was better in both soprano roles…

For Eva, in the end though, I prefer Hilde Scheppan, closely followed by Elisabeth Grümmer.

Another great Eva – and having the benefit of being very much alive, is Barbara Haveman.

I also love her Arabella for Böhm.

For those intrigued, try the 1944 ARIADNE with Seefried, Noni and Mrs. Claggart in his guise of Melanie Frutschnigg a/k/a/ Mela Bugarinovic.

Also the DAPHNE excerpts on that Vienna live series on Koch.

And here’s something for the future. Emma Vetter, who needs to work on her German but apparently has the goods:

BTW are you familiar with the Toscanini Meistersinger from Salzburg? The sound is terrible, but Andante managed to somehow make it listenable. Reining is perfection personified as Eva. The sheer sound is unbelievably beautiful and the musicianship and verbal acuity makes her the best Eva I have ever heard. Betty tried to emulate it in Bayreuth but it worked partly, maybe because the heart wasn’t really there. One of my opera-buff friends discovered Reining lately and we keep fawning over her recordings

I heard Christine Schaefer’s US debut as Sophie in 1993 in SF with von Stade and Flott and she was not distinguished then either. Lulu seems to me her only really successful part… and others have sung in better, Patricia Wise for one.

Bill – was not Reining anti-Nazi?

I think that Karajan always conducted cut performances of Rosenkavalier but the Boehm DGG 1958 Rosenkavalier recording from Dresden is supposedly uncut and was recorded in Dresden in the unheated bombed out Lukaskirche in December of 1958 which Seefried says was a “chilling experience”.

Maria Reining was beloved in Vienna (also after the war as she apparently had been neo-Nazi)- if her Kleiber Marschallin does not show her at her best, the 1944 live Boehm Ariadne certainly does, and one must remember she made her debut in 1931 and her farewell Feldmarschallin was in 1956 followed a week later by a final farewell as Elisabetta in Don Carlo, only two years after the Kleiber recording was made.

Jurinac was so popular in Vienna when she started there in 1945 (engaged by Boehm in 1944 for the season which was cancelled as the Staatsoper was bombed )that she sang 158 performances in her first year alone at the Staatsoper in Exil – far too many, but wonderful for those fortunate enough to have been there to see and hear her at her freshest.

Cerquetti/Farrell your postings are much appreciated.

There appears to be a slight confusion between versions and media.

1. 1969 Solti with Crespin, Minton, Donath. My ‘first’ Rosenkavalier and in many ways an excellent version. Of course the VPO are not shitty in any imaginable way! I love all the ladies and wish the conductor would trust the score more and be more ‘in the background’.

http://www.amazon.com/Rosenkavalier-24BT-Otto-Wiener/dp/B000YCLR7O/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1262963840&sr=8-4

2. The Solti CG VIDEO has Te Kanawa, Bonney and Howells. The playing is rather ghastly and so is, I’m afraid, Solti. He was going through a VERY bad patch in the early 1980s.

http://www.amazon.com/Richard-Strauss-Rosenkavalier-Haugland-Schlesinger/dp/B00014NE4Y/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1262963840&sr=8-3

3. The Haitink is on EMI CD and is a very good set, again with Te Kanwa but von Otter is the Octavian and Hendricks, woefully miscast and stolid, totally ruins practically every scene she appears in as Sophie. A shame, really. The playing, courtesy of Staatskapelle Dresden, is incredibly glorious, as it is on the Bohm set.

http://www.amazon.com/Strauss-Rosenkavalier-Hendricks-Grundheber-Haitink/dp/B000002RS8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1262964064&sr=8-1-catcorr

There is no Haitink / CG version that I know of, audio or video, commercial or otherwise.

Here’s a snippet of the Solti / Schlesinger 1984 Rosenkavalier from CG. Sloppy and vulgar.

The Te Kanawa/Bonney recording from CG is conducted by Haitink, and strangely engineered. I find it hard to listen to for that reason. The Solti recording is with the Vienna Phil, and the playing (IMHO) is far from “shitty.”

John Dickie, a lyric tenor and character tenor, the son of Murray Dickie, has died at the age of 56 – he sang 987 performances in Vienna at the two houses during his career.

Walter Raffeiner, a tenor eventually singing Wagner, and most associated with the Frankfurt Opera, has died at the age of 62.

On stage Streich did not have a large voice at all = its purity projected well – when I saw Streich as Sophie together with Ludwig as Oktavian the immense sixe of Ludwig’s voice slightly overpowered Streich and there seemed to be a bit of unevenness in volume (Ludwig did not modulate her voice sufficiently that evening – was better with other stronger voiced Sophies) – but Seefried does – Streidh and Seefried sing off each other just as they were in actual conversation. Breathtakingly lovely. Schech was a Marschallin of the older school – Konetznis, Reining – unfussy, singing straight – Schech sang a fair amount of Wagner but also (maybe thanks to Dr. Boehm and originally Rysanek was to have been the Marschallin in that recording but was ill) kept her voice (not always as controlled as the Schwarzkopf group) in check. Radiant – perhaps not – heartfelt -yes absolutely. Plus you have Kurt Boehme and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Faninal.

I would not call Gueden underrated – surely not in Vienna – hers has been he Sophie I have probably seen the most frequently of all – it is a bigger sound than some others – Gueden’s Violetta, for example, was wonderfully successful (outsinging even di Stefano) though certainly not an Italian sound. But vocally and interpretively nothing was missing.
Jurinac was so beloved in Vienna – later in her career her voice was somewhat frayed – but I place her along with Seefried and de los Angeles as three of the most beautiful soprano voices I ever saw on stage. all with glorious middle registers and very even vocal production (and later all experiencing difficulty with higher notes). Streich and Seefried were both originally scheduled for the EMI Rosenkavalier recording under Karajan along with Schwarzkopf – Karajan wanted Seefried to be sure but Legge had Seefried (who was pregnant) put out in favor of the lesser known (at the time) Ludwig. Ludwig in an interview thought there was some difficulty also at the time between Seefried and Schwarzkopf perhaps as Legge had used Schwarzkopf for the Karajan Cosi when Schwarzkopf had not really sung the role on stage and Seefried for 13 years had been the only Fiordiligi in Salzburg and Vienna. Both Seefried and Schwarzkopf were under contract with EMI but about that time, Seefried, seeing no future at EMI with Schwarzkopf’s husband the main casting director, switched her allegiance to DGG.
Streich was also pregnant when the EMI recording of Rosenkavalier was made – and Stich-Randall was engaged. No matter – I think all 3 Rosenkavalier recordings of the 1950′s – Kleiber’s on English Decca, Karajan’s on EMI and Dr. Boehm’s on DGG are splendid and indicative of Rosenkavalier performances of that era (and Lisa della Casa who sang all 3 Rosenkavalier roles in the 1950′s was not involved in any of these recordings, nor Rothenberger).

I was thinking also that the the Rosenkavalier I saw on Wednesday with Fleming / Graham which was being filmed with cameras all over the auditorium may have altered the interpretations of Fleming / Graham slightly – with all the possible closeups which might be shown on Video – Fleming / Graham may have been acting in that particular performance more for the camera than for the audience. Sometimes Fleming was singing in the first act face forward rather than looking directly at Ochs with whom she was conversing – it seemed strange to me at the time and maybe it is why I found her characterization less than perfectly natural that evening.

Gueden is a gorgeous singer, certainly- is she particularly underrated, do you think? I’ll get shot down in flames for this, but she is one of my favourite Gildas on record.