Richard Wagner: Tannh?user
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CD Details
Performer: Eberhard W?chterPerformer: Gerd Nienstedt
Performer: Josef Greindl
Composer: Richard Wagner
Conductor: Wolfgang Sawallisch
Orchestra: Bayreuth Festival Orchestra & Chorus
Performer: Anja Silja
Performer: Else-Margrete Gardelli
Performer: Franz Crass
Performer: Georg Paskuda
Performer: Gerhard Stolze
Performer: Grace Bumbry
Performer: Wolfgang Windgassen
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1993-01-19
Music Label: Polygram Records
Music reviews of Richard Wagner: Tannh?user
Music Review: The authentic Bayreuth spirit
Rating: 4 Stars
While I acknowledge its many virtues, I am not quite as enthusiastic about this live performance as some previous reviewers for a variety of reasons. First, there is the coughing which, as is so often the case, belies the reputation of the Bayreuth audience for rapt attentiveness, then there is the variable quality of the singing - Windgassen too often sounding bleaty and weary, Greindl past his best, and Stolze having the wrong vocal personality for Walther - and finally Sawallisch's conducting, which, while flexible and affectionate, generates little of the tension Solti achieves in his fine studio version - especially in the overture. Having said that, this is still an excellent souvenir of Wagner singing undoubtedly superior to that which we hear today. I like Grace Bumbry's vibrant Venus, although I think that Christa Ludwig sounds more the femme fatale in the Solti, and Silja is pure and touching as Elisabeth, just as she is in the near contemporary "Lohengrin". Crass and W?chter deploy their virile, resonant voices very effectively. The sound is clear and atmospheric, if inevitably less full and rich than a studio recording.
On balance, I still prefer the Solti set as it features a young Ren? Kollo whose glottal tics and mannerisms are mostly under control and who sounds more the conflicted aesthete/sybarite than Windgassen, a more seductive Venus and a grand Landgrave in Hans Sotin. Solti's reading is more energised than that of Sawallisch, though also less tender in the duets.
This version is currently available only as part of the 33 disc bargain Decca live Bayreuth set. Apart from a tepid "Meistersinger" (with singing compromised by the inadequate Jean Cox, although Ridderbusch's Sachs is lovely) and a "Parsifal" whose etiolated tempi divide opinions, this is a very attractive box which includes the whole of the famous B?hm "Ring". For a single purchase, I would recommend the Solti "Tannh?user" above this one, but if you have it as part of the bargain box, you need have few regrets.
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