~~ Classical Music Mayhem!! ~~

I must apologise for the typos or spelling errors due to carelessness. The soprano at the Metropolitan Opera, NY.was Karita Mattila---I also misspelled the name Nicolaus Esterhazy , too.

Then I should have made it clear that Walter Berry was singing the role of Pizzaro. It was a single video clip, so I don't know where he was performing----he was very good in my estimation.

Previously I had seen him in mainly oratorial roles, except once when I discovered him in an operatic role as a manservant,together with DFD. He was absolutely hilarious, and I saved it to show others in my family, at the time. I must look it out again!

Regards,
Muriel aka Polly.

Well you can always go back to your original post, click on the 'edit' button at the bottom right of it, make the corrections and resubmit. Please don't type another post to correct the typos of a previous post, otherwise I'd have to do that for every post I have ever made!

I'll comment on some of the points you have raised later today.

Be assured Fidelio is as good as it gets for opera, though good productions are rare indeed.



I've now removed the broken link to the Mackerass overture, we have enough from that recording in any case. The orchestra sounds great but I'm not so keen on some of the singing. Try the Hanover Band rendition of the Fidelio overture I posted.

Whatever the critics say of Fricsay's recording, it is still the first choice as far as I am concerned. This was actually Deutche Grammophon's first stereo recording, and as such the audio is pretty good, certainly in this remastered form, though not always ideal. The overtures come off splendidly in all respects (the CD also contains Leonore III as a filler, and some filler it is too!).



A flawed recording, some great performances of the sung parts, but the spoken dialogue is replaced by a new text spoken by a single narrator that reduces the whole production to something of a mockery. A wasted opportunity.



Well they use the term 'historic' to make allowances for the poor audio from the 30's. I don't imagine recordings produced today will be regarded as equally 'historic' in 60 years time. But I agree with your assessment of the two Leonore I videos, Mengelberg is more beefy, Toscanini more zippy. I think Mr T just gets the nod though.

pollyp78

I appreciated your praise for the singing from Walter Berry in Fidelio. He is a favorite of mine as well .The malevolence and snarl in his voice is the epitome of what Pizaro should be. At the time of that youtube.com clip he was singing at the Vienna Opera and he was still married to Klemperer's Leonore, Christa Ludwig. He was also a terrific Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni.


This recent excerpt from one of my favorite tenors Jonas Kaufman is excellent as well:





Best Regards

Digiti

Hi Digiti,
A late night browse just before I go to bed, was rewarded with seeing your comment and admiration for Walter Berry.
I do like him in whatever his role, having first met up with him when he was singing Oratorio with Karl Richter.
Then he is also very pleasing in "Mozart's Requiem" and I particularly liked "Tuba Mirum", where he sings together with the trombone! (I have earlier confessed to liking this combination of voice and instrument and of collecting renditions I like best)
Yes the comic role i had mentioned was of Walter playing Leporello. My old lady brain can't always recollect names at the time of writing or speaking, and then later they tend to pop up in my mind at the most outlandish times! DFD and Walter Berry were absolutely hilarious in the scene that I recollect----and I must hunt it down. It is on a par with the longer video of the "Cold Song", ( Herve Niquet), that I have kept by me. I am sharing that with the family as and when time permits. I had done that some time ago with the Walter Berry scene. Again, in both, the body language was great
without the quality of the singing suffering.
Regards,
Polly.
PS. Jonas Kaufmann is one of"my" men, too. I strayed into an area where he was perfornming the other night and was lost. I had a wonderful time! Thankyou for the link to the YouTube video.

Dear pollyp78,

You do not have to apologize. I have those senior moments as well being a baby boomer.
I guess I am in the minority here because I find the Klemperer Fidelio a superb recording. In fact any recording with that black bass Gottlob Frick is worth hearing. His greatest roles being this Rocco as well as Hagen in the Solti Ring, Kaspar in Der Freischutz, Daland in Dutchman or Osmin in Mozart's Abduction.

Another recording I like is this Beethoven Leonore:

http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Leonore ... 800&sr=1-1




All the best,

Digiti

Somehow I missed that youtube but I've embedded it now for greater visibility. The orchestra is weak in the mix to my ears, also I find Kaufmann rather dry here. Didn't warm to this performance.



I've thought about getting that recording in the past but I make do with this rendition of the 1806 version...
http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Leonore ... 682&sr=1-1

Rod,

I know you do not favor the Klemperer recording but how do you feel about Vickers who with James King were my favorite Florestans? I saw Jon Vickers in this role with Behrens at the Met many years ago conducted by Tennstedt. It was a superb theatrical experience.

Incidentally I have that entire Kaufman performance on DVD which is conducted by none other than Harnoncourt.

Regards, Digiti

I have a DVD of Bohm's Fidelio with King produced for the cinema. He's not bad there. I have another good DVD by Dohnanyi at the Royal Opera House with Josef Protchka as a very good if slightly portly Florestan. At present I can't remember what Vickers is like to be honest. Considering it's hype, the Klemperer recording is one of the biggest Beethoven let-downs I've experienced, perhaps the biggest.

Last night after listening to the Jonas Kauffman YouTube video CMM member Digiti introduced, my eyes, as always, strayed to the related videos down the righthand side. Ah, some videos of the Prisoners ‘ Chorus---good-oh

I saw one rendition which I remembered was very nice indeed and relistened as I downloaded it. It was “Chorus of Prisoners”, (contributed by EvaHartwig)
It was performed by the Philharmomia Orchestra and Choir, conducted by Otto Klemperer. The men’s singing was superb and the erster and zweiter gefanger sang their parts movingly, too. A lovely performance.

Off topic but in reply to your posting , Digiti, I too like Gottlob Frick’s dark,dark voice. I think that it was Wilhelm Furtwengler who called him “the blackest bass in Germany”.

I listen to a lot of the German male singers of his era, many of whom never achieved international fame due to the two World Wars and then the Iron Curtain. There was something about the quality of their voices, be they tenor , baritone or bass ,which triumphed over the hisses and crackles of the recording apparatus of the time. Beautiful voices!

Fritz Wunderlich and Dietrich Fischer Dieskau were younger and their careers became well established. It was such a pity that Fritz was cut off in his prime by his fatal accident. Fritz Wunderlich had a wonderful tenor voice---as they would say in Germany “Wunderbar”!!! I have been just listening to a recording where he sings with Gottlob Frick. They are a perfect foil to each other.

I am much older than the baby boomer generation, but am thankful for the small mercies of living to benefit from the electronic era and digital recordings. We are so lucky, aren’t we?

Regards,
Polly.

Polly[Muriel],

Fritz Wunderlich was to make his Met debut here with Gentele in charge but they both died before it came to pass which was a very strange quirk of fate.

Speaking of unknown German singers: Josef Greindl, bass was another of those black basses that came to the fore after the War in Bayreuth who never had much of a career in the U.S. I have gotten to know his work through the Krauss, Knappertsbusch, and Keiberth Ring recordings as well as a Fidelio excerpt on youtube.com.



I had kind words indeed to say about DFD's work on the Fricay Beethoven 9th recording in that thread in this forum.


One of reasons that Klemperer Philharmonia Chorus sounds so good is because Wilhelm Pitz was the choral director for that recording and at the same time he was in charge of the Bayreuth Festival Chorus.

I am glad I found someone with similar interests to mine concerning singers here in this forum.

Hopefully we have not hijacked this Fidelio thread too much by discussing peripheral topics.

Sincerely,

Digiti

Apparently a short snippet of the Wiener Akademie's Fidelio made it to YouTube:



Not sure if it's the same as their DVD release, but possibly so. Admittedly, the Wiener Akademie and Martin Haselbock aren't known for their fiery performance style... Still, I'd like to hear them in the overture. You may be able to order it here: www.sloppygermanurl.com.

Whatever their performance style I've never heard this version of the aria before, it sounds like a rearrangement of the 1805/6 aria. Reading online this DVD production was a compilation of bits of the three versions of the opera, not a good idea in itself but if this aria appears to have come from none of them! Put your money away Fidelio fans.

Another nice extract from the Royal Opera House DVD, the 'Introduction' and Florestan's (Josef Protschka) big aria "Gott, welch Dunkel hier" which open Act2. Provided, it appears, by the singer himself...

Re:- the excerpt from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Fidelio DVD. Josef Prolschka’s aria “Gott , welch Dünkel hier”

The scene opened with the orchestra sounding dark and ominous. Tonally the sound was rich and I found the brooding quality very pleasing , as it complemented the singer’s interpretation very well.

The soloist’s acting and wonderful vocal ability ably brought to life the dramatic and tragic situation which unfolds in Beethoven‘s opera.

I enjoyed listening and viewing very much.

Thankyou TMT for sharing this with us.

Regards,

Polly.