“Trove Thursday” salutes the thrilling Ursula Schröder-Feinen who would have turned 82 on Saturday with a special double-bill: a complete Salome followed by a rare Siegfried Brünnhilde (not, by the way, from Bayreuth). 

With Patrick’s provocative ruminations which featured Leonie Rysanek, Hildegard Behrens, Catherine Malfitano and Karita Mattila, Our Own JJ’s “Parterre Saturday Afternoon” with Gwyneth Jones and my own 16-diva vocal-ID quiz, 2018 has become Parterre’s “Year of Salome”! Just one more example might provide a worthy companion to Schröder-Feinen’s immense Elektra posted here nearly three years ago.

The German soprano had a regrettably brief prime from roughly 1970-78; though she made no commercial recordings, many of her roles have come down to us through broadcasts and “pirates.” In addition to her three great Strauss portrayals including the Färberin, one may still experience her Kundry, Sieglinde, Ortrud, Isolde and even the Third Norn along with Fidelio’s Leonore, Rezia in Oberon and the Queen of the Spirits of Marschner’s Hans Heiling

Several of her roles can be heard on a special memorial CD issued by Orfeo of live excerpts from the Deutschen Oper am Rhein which was her home theater throughout her international career.

And there is, of course, this deliciously campy video soupçon of her Turandot.

Strauss: Salome
Grand Théâtre, Geneva
June 1975
Broadcast

Salome: Ursula Schröder-Feinen
Herodias: Astrid Varnay
Herod: Jaroslav Kachel
Jochanaan: Leif Roar
Narraboth: Georg Littay

Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
Conductor: Georges Sebastian

The half-hour chunk of the final scene of Wagner’s Siegfried begins with Brünnhilde’s “Heil dir, Sonne!” and arrives from an in-house recording that features an occasional sound flaw that can make listening a bit challenging but the exciting 1972 performance, abetted by Helge Brilioth and Erich Leinsdorf, is I hope worth the effort.

Both Salome and the Siegfried finale canbe downloaded by clicking on the icon of a square with an arrow pointing downward on the audio player and the resulting mp3 files will appear in your download directory.

More than 150 previous “Trove Thursday” podcasts remain available from iTunes for free, or via any RSS reader.