Of the Wagnerian Golden Age Melchior's Epochal Assumption Highlights the Met's 1941 Tristan, a Memento of the Days When Wagner's Operas Were Actually Sung

Melchioras Tristan: Crowning Glory of the Wagnerian Golden Age Melchior's epochal assumption highlights the Met's 1941 Tristan, a memento of the days when Wagner's operas were actually sung.

by Conrad L. Osborne

THIS RECORDING, a by-product of a Metropolitan Op- least when the composer was Wagner, offered as a era broadcast of over thirty-five years ago, is in no matter of course certain values we have since sense competitive with other available Tristans. Its learned to live without, the most important being sound is very good by standards familiar to those competent vocalism from rise to fall of curtain (and who collect "pirated" air -check recordings, and quite the fall, incidentally, can be distinctly heard at the poor by any other criterion, including that of com- end-an evocative noise for those of us with lots of mercial recordings of the same date (1941). It is not Thirty-ninth Street mileage). sold through retail channels, and costs $100, in the Longtime readers must forgive me if I tax their pa- form of a contribution for that amount or more to the tience liy again giving pride of place to Melchior's Metropolitan Opera. Tristan. I do so not merely because it was never re- These considerations free us, I hope, from the con- corded complete commercially (as was Flagstad's sumer -comparison aspects of reviewing, always so Isolde), but, because of all the magnificent individual desirable from the collector's viewpoint, but often assumptions of the Wagnerian Golden Age (1925-45, felt as limiting by those of us who must do the com- give or take), this is, for me, the greatest-and I do not paring. I should like to make it clear that reservations except the Isolde and Briinnhilde of Flagstad, even expressed here do not constitute any negative recom- the Sachs of Schorr. (I speak only of the aural evi- mendation. Those who acquire the set will do so dence now. I saw Melchior's Tristan once, as it hap- primarily because they wish to make the contribu- pens the very last he sang. I remember how fat he tion. The cause is clearly worthy, and I don't believe was, how silly he looked on the couch, how con- anyone interested in a memento of the Met's great stricted the battle -worn voice sounded at moments. I Wagner days will be seriously disappointed. The in- also remember being stirred, thrilled, moved by the dividuals and organizations (including several impingement of the tone at its best and the obvious unions and RCA Records) who have contributed sincerity of intent.) services or waived rights to make the release possible Let me argue the case for a moment, using as refer- have certainly earned some goodwill. ence this recording, the 1936 Covent Garden per- "A memento of the Met's great Wagner days" this formance under Reiner (Flagstad's London debut, truly is, and in some ways the most fitting-for de- with Sabine Kalter, Herbert Janssen, and Emanuel spite the efforts of the accompanying booklet to rep- List, a private recording), and the extensive excerpts resent the performance as one of the half -dozen peak that were recorded commercially. occasions of Metropolitan history, this is a rather I imagine that few lovers of singing will deny Mel- run-of-the-mill Wagner performance of that time. chior's superiority in realizing the heroic aspects of Kirsten Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior are in good, Wagner's tenor roles, if only because no other voice representative form, but not quite their very best; the of which we have extensive evidence has been ca- supporting cast is only decent by the then -prevailing pable of repeatedly and reliably fulfilling the de- standard; Erich Leinsdorf is simply a good, straight- mands of the more brilliant, strenuous pages of the forward, no-nonsense young conductor; the orches- scores. But as the present performance reminds us, tra performs at about its expectable level, the chorus this reliability was based on the most thoroughgoing (in its very brief excursions) a bit below its. classical technical discipline, in terms of both sheer Just another Saturday afternoon in the season of vocal mechanics and shaping of the vocal gestures. 1940-41-it's just that those Saturday afternoons, at However much the vocal line of Tristan may emerge

OCTOBER 1976 91