A Pair O’ Cheap Opera Recordings from Uncle Karl

Posted by: Todd A on 20 December 2003

December 22, 1972 was a pretty good night, at least in Vienna. On that evening, Karl Bohm conducted Salome, with Leonie Rysanek in the title role. Someone saw fit to record the show. Bless them.

I picked up Opera d’Oro’s affordable reissue of this event for a mere $20. Okay, so it’s not the cheapest recording of this opera out there, but that’s quite alright given its quality. It is stupendous. The slightly shorter than average performance (about 98 minutes of music) captivates completely from start to finish, never offering even a moment of rest. Bohm paces the whole thing quite briskly and forgoes excessive emphasis on details to attend to the line. This is indeed one concentrated act of brilliant perversion, or decadence if you will.

Rysanek makes a fine Salome, feisty and a little off-balance. (Okay, she’s nuts.) Perhaps Rysanek’s voice doesn’t sound convincingly young enough (whose does, really?), but she dominates the proceedings effectively enough, and I can see shy Herod wants her dead at the end, always a good sign. The other cast members are mostly bystanders, though Eberhard Waechter’s is strong enough as Jokannen to allow for a satisfyingly intense duet (the duet is one of the highest of the high points), and he spews forth his religious proclamations with a nice amount of zeal. Hans Hopf’s Herod has a few good moments, too. (Who can resist his line about how it would bad for the dead to come back to life?) The only letdown is the mono sound. (Either that or history’s narrowest stereo recording.) It is thin, with excessive focus on the voices which can become hard at times. But that matters not: this is a great performance and should be heard by all devotees of this opera.

The other opera? Well, tomorrow, if all goes well, I shall listen to Bohm’s 1971 Wozzeck. I shall report back.

"The universe is change, life is opinion." Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Posted on: 21 December 2003 by Todd A

I listened to Bohm’s 1971 Wozzeck also on Opera d’Oro, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Bohm’s approach to the music makes it sound more romantic, less modern and edgy; it sounds almost like an extension of Strauss in some ways. To some extent, this approach eliminates some of the impact of the work, but on the plus side, the work moves forward quite smoothly. A smooth Wozzeck? Who’d a thunk it?

As to the singers, Geraint Evans plays the tormented soldier, but he is relatively weak in the role until after Marie is murdered. Then he sounds good and deranged. Better is Anja Silja’s Marie. I like her better here than in Dohnanyi’s studio version. She is more searching and indignant, as appropriate. When she warns Wozzeck that it’s better to kill her than hit her, she is convincingly angry. And her lament at being unfaithful is well conveyed. Better still are Helmut Melkert as the Captain and Hans Kremmer as the Doctor. They are malevolent souls, reveling in their torture of Wozzeck. The Doctor is quite demented, and their duet is quite chilling. The rest of the cast do a fine job.

Once again sound is an issue. It suffers from the same maladies as Salome, but it also includes what sounds like sung passages from another opera (or two) at a low level in the background at times. Perhaps there was a problem in the remastering or the tapes Allegro used have faults, or something, but the out of place singing is definitely audible. It is a minor blemish.

Overall, Abbado’s is still my favorite version out there, and at the bargain basement level, Leif Segerstam’s 2000 recording on Naxos is impossible to beat, but still, this deserves a listen by fans of the opera. I’m glad it’s in my collection. Now I’m anxious to explore Bohm’s recordings of Strauss and Berg on DG. (Well, I’ve heard his Die Frau Ohne Schatten already and like it quite a bit.)

"The universe is change, life is opinion." Marcus Aurelius, Meditations