I always have professed a fondness, even an obsession, to hearing Verdi in German, especially as sung by Martha Modl, who masterfully imposes an expressionistic interpretation both dramatically and vocally on two roles in particular: Lady Macbeth and Eboli.

I had previously extolled her live recording of Lady Macbeth (though at that time she was in her dramatic soprano phase, though she continued to sing mezzo parts outside of the Wagnerian repertoire during the 1950s), but, and she sing this role many times, especially in Vienna, her Eboli in German is so exciting. And remember Verdi based Don Carlo on Schiller.

In this recording, she ranges from a fierce, searing anger at herself (not an abstract beauty) to a grave, plaintive remorse in the cavatina, and ends on notes of not just triumph, but a sense of this is truly my end personally and socially. Her the voice is in its prime, and one can also revel in what her friend and colleague Astrid Varnay called her “deep, black” middle and lower registers. What a shame no complete recording of her singing this role exists.