Gotterdammerung-Best Buy Of The Year For A Brand New CD Set

[stenka razin]

Trust me on this one. I have complete and supurb Ring cycles from Solti, Karajan, Bohm, Sawallisch, Janowski, Haitink, Barenboim, Levine, Furtwangler (RAI and La Scala), Krauss and Keilberth. So, you might think that I have had my fill of Gotterdammerungs..........As you can see I am a Ring fanatic.
But, along comes the Halle label and former English National Opera conductor, Sir Mark Elder with an impressive Gotterdammerung on 5 CDs which lists for about $35 (libretto on 5th CD). I obtained my copy of the 6CD special super jewel box for $20 plus tax recently. Elder has a fine cast of today's finest young Wagnerians and the perforamnce is very good indeed. The main reason besides the extraordinarily low price was the chance to hear new and fresh voices recorded live over 2 days in Manchester. I recommend this 5 CD set enthusiastically. You will love it as a supplement to your favorite Gotterdammerung.

Your comments would be appreciated, my fellow CMGers.

[Seán]

Trust me on this one. I have complete and supurb Ring cycles from Solti, Karajan, Bohm, Sawallisch, Janowski, Haitink, Barenboim, Levine, Furtwangler (RAI and La Scala), Krauss and Keilberth. So, you might think that I have had my fill of Gotterdammerungs..........As you can see I am a Ring fanatic.
But, along comes the Halle label and former English National Opera conductor, Sir Mark Elder with an impressive Gotterdammerung on 5 CDs which lists for about $35 (libretto on 5th CD). I obtained my copy of the 6CD special super jewel box for $20 plus tax recently. Elder has a fine cast of today's finest young Wagnerians and the perforamnce is very good indeed. The main reason besides the extraordinarily low price was the chance to hear new and fresh voices recorded live over 2 days in Manchester. I recommend this 5 CD set enthusiastically. You will love it as a supplement to your favorite Gotterdammerung.

Your comments would be appreciated, my fellow CMGers.

WOW, and my ambition is to get the Solti recording, that's some collection Mel, well done.

[John F]

The cast is:

Katarina Dalayman (soprano) – Brünnhilde
Lars Cleveman (tenor) – Siegfried
Attila Jun (bass) – Hagen
Andrew Shore (bass-baritone) – Alberich
Peter Coleman-Wright (bass-baritone) – Gunther
Nancy Gustafson (soprano) – Gutrune
Susan Bickley (mezzo) – Waltraute

Delayman has been singing Brünnhilde at major opera houses, and Gustafson is well known in other repertoire, particularly in Janacek operas at Glyndebourne. I've heard the name of Andrew Shore, but never heard him sing. Otherwise they are indeed new, and Lars Cleveman is definitely a qualified Siegfried:



At 52 he's not exactly new, and he looks like a middle-aged businessman (or a car mechanic) and hardly acts at all, but that may be the production concept. He's also a founder of the Swedish rap group Dom Dummaste, surely a first for a Heldentenor, though Peter Hofmann crossed over into rock decades ago.



I think that's Cleveman in the dark glasses, rapping and strumming on a guitar. Just what Bayreuth needs for an updated version of the Sängerkrieg auf der Wartburg, coming up in 2011...

[stefanher]

Andrew Shore has been a stalwart bass baritone at the ENO for some years now & has recorded in English the title roles of Wozzeck, Barber of Seville, Falstaff & Don Pasquale amongst others. I have his Wozzeck & he was very impressive though short of the standards of Walter Berry & Mack Herrell (anybody tell me more about him)? So a seasoned campaigner.

This set has been raved about in the UK press & I've been waiting to see some US reaction to it as the locals tend understandably to be patriotic to UK artistes!

[John F]

The basics about Mack Harrell (sp) are in this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_Harrell. I'll add a little more.

Harrell's operatic career benefitted from an alliance between the Metropolitan Opera and the Juilliard Foundation, which supported the Met financially during the Great Depression on condition that more American singers be added to the roster. Harrell got his Met contract and debut by winning the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air in 1938, but then and later he nearly always sang secondary and even smaller parts - always a Masetto, never a Don Giovanni or even a Leporello - no doubt due to the rather bluff sound of his voice. When the general manager of that period retired and the cosmopolitan Rudolf Bing came in, Harrell's Met career was all but over, though Bing did cast him in "The Rake's Progress" as the Met's regular baritones and basses wouldn't have been interested in Nick Shadow, essentially a character role and musically more challenging than rewarding.

His intelligence and musicality made him much respected, and since he was based in New York as a member of the Juilliard School faculty, he was a natural choice to sing Wozzeck with the New York Philharmonic.

[Beckmesser]

The basics about Mack Harrell (sp) are in this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_Harrell. I'll add a little more.

Harrell's operatic career benefitted from an alliance between the Metropolitan Opera and the Juilliard Foundation, which supported the Met financially during the Great Depression on condition that more American singers be added to the roster. Harrell got his Met contract and debut by winning the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air in 1938, but then and later he nearly always sang secondary and even smaller parts - always a Masetto, never a Don Giovanni or even a Leporello - no doubt due to the rather bluff sound of his voice. When the general manager of that period retired and the cosmopolitan Rudolf Bing came in, Harrell's Met career was all but over, though Bing did cast him in "The Rake's Progress" as the Met's regular baritones and basses wouldn't have been interested in Nick Shadow, essentially a character role and musically more challenging than rewarding.

His intelligence and musicality made him much respected, and since he was based in New York as a member of the Juilliard School faculty, he was a natural choice to sing Wozzeck with the New York Philharmonic.

I thought I would just add that Mack Harrell is the father of cellist Lynn Harrell.

[stefanher]

When a singer of his standard has to sing comprimario roles you know you've got an opera house like no other... I knew he was Lynn Harrell's father- is he still performing or did he burn out slike some other wunderkinder recently referred to in this forum?

[John F]

Still performing, but the calendar on his web site is pretty empty.

http://www.lynnharrell.com/about/

He also teaches at Rice University in Texas.