Decca’s double slice of Wagner history

Two landmark Wagner recordings have been released on the budget Decca Eloquence label and are well worth consideration for the avid collector.

The late Sir Neville Marriner conducting in Brisbane in 1998. Picture: Paul Wager

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Two landmark Wagner recordings have been released on the budget Decca Eloquence label and are well worth consideration for the avid collector.

The first is the last hurrah of the great Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad, considered by many who heard her to be the greatest Brunnhilde of all time.

You can judge for yourself on the four-disc Gotterdammerung set (a snip at $29.99), a rare digital remastering of the 1956 Decca original for which Flagstad was persuaded to come out of retirement to reprise her signature role.

The original live version for Norwegian radio was incomplete and Decca arranged to record the missing scenes as well as clean up some minor blemishes — if they were thought to be integral to the character of the original performance — but it would take a highly trained ear to notice the difference.

The resulting long-play set caused a musical sensation and it is still as spectacular today. The diva had just turned sixty but her voice retained most if not all of its golden magnificence, and she is paired with a superb Siegfried in Swedish tenor Set Svanholm.

PAIRING

Orchestra and supporting cast, under the baton of Oivin Fjeldstad, are all very good and the sound quality is remarkably good, once your ear adjusts to mono.

Kirsten Flagstad in Wagner's Gotterdammerung.

Tristan und Isolde was Decca’s first digital operatic recording.

The Flagstad set makes a nice pairing with the re-release of Decca’s first operatic recording using digital technology, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (also $29.99). Aficionados will love this because it was recorded in 1980-81 under the watchful eye of Sir Reginald Goodall, one of the finest and most influential Wagnerians of his day.

The Welsh National Opera production features a wonderful Isolde in Scottish soprano Linda Esther Gray, who was then just making her mark with both a rich and beautiful voice and glamorous stage presence.

Although she steals the show on this four-disc set, she has an excellent Tristan in English tenor John Mitchinson.

And fans of choral music will be pleased that Decca-Eloquence has released some of their fine L’Oiseau-Lyre recordings, including an inspiring coupling with Philips of two recordings of six Bach cantatas by Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

The stellar vocal cast includes Janet Baker, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and John Shirley-Quirk. Not to be missed. You can pick up this double disc set for $14.99 at Fish Fine Music.