In my 'Collection' article on this work three years ago I suggested that this performance, in a previous incarnation at a far higher price, was well worth investigating for Walter's revelatory traversal of the score. Newly arrived at the Met, he banished the notorious Bodanzky recitatives, restoring the original dialogue and Rocco's aria. Even more important, he galvanised his singers and players into an enactment of the then singularly relevant drama of oppression and freedom. Every vocal and instrumental line is imbued with meaning, rhythms are crisp and clear, speeds at all times finely judged, all preceded by an account of the Overture that aptly gives an anticipatory sense of what's to follow. In his reading, classical verities and romantic feeling are held in ideal balance, and the audience - unfortunately intrusive with its applause (we could also do without the announcer's nonsense) - obviously feels the import of a very special occasion. The inclusion of Leonore No 3 before the finale, once mandatory in performances of the work, is wholly justified by this performance, ennobling and inspiriting as it proves.
On this finely crafted base, Walter's singers are for the most part inspired to give of their best, most of all Flagstad, heard here in her best account of Leonore on disc. Hers is a grand, sincere reading, generous of phrase and with portamento not always refined in its verbal detail but - with Walter encouraging her - more subtly accented than on other occasions. And, of course, the sheer vocal opulence is compensation itself for any incidental failings. Maison offers a deeply felt, heroically sung Florestan, responsive to the searing intensity Walter gives to the Act 2 introduction, marred sometimes by uncertain phrasing and pitch, and odd German. Kipnis may sound a shade melodramatic in speech and song by modern standards, but his weight and security of voice, combined with textual insights, are worth the weight of the gold mentioned in his aria. Huehn is an adequate Pizarro, the Marzelline and Jaquino something more than that. Janssen's Fernando is strangely matter-of-fact for such a distinguished artist.
The sound catches the excitement of the occasion, but the voices are subject to some distortion under pressure. This cannot be a sole representative of the work in any collection (that might be Naxos's new set, under Halasz), but its value as a historical document is self-evident and the price should encourage anyone to hear Walter and Flagstad: indeed once you have encountered Walter in the piece, few others will do.'