The early-1940s were the high noon of Traubel’s career. Brought in first as an American counterpart to Flagstad at the Met, she effectively succeeded to the Norwegian soprano’s repertory when Flagstad returned to her native land in 1941. Listening to her again at the height of her powers, one is once more astonished and delighted by the strength and security of her singing, by her inborn musicianship and by her perfect diction (she had German antecedents). Nothing in this taxing programme holds any terrors for her; singing Wagner is made to seem the easiest thing in the world.
There is a deal of interpretative strength, at least in her Isolde. Robin Holloway in Opera on Record (Hutchinson: 1979) said that in the Narration and Curse she combined the attributes of Flagstad and Nilsson and approved of her “steely warmth”, a nice paradox that exactly describes her Isolde. Also, with Rodzinski conducting, there’s no hanging about in the modern vein, either here or in the Liebestod: this is a hot-off-the-stage reading that really lives. Her versions of Elisabeth’s “Dich teure Halle” and Brunnhilde’s Cry display her fearless attack and refulgent tone at their best.
Where something more reflective is called for as in Elsa’s Act 1 solo and the Act 3 duet, with Kurt Baum as her partner, both from Lohengrin, Traubel is to an extent found wanting. Hers is a straightforward, no-nonsense art, not an interior one. Three of the Wesendonk Lieder show the same attributes, the same drawback. Stokowski is the intense conductor here with his Philadelphia players at full throttle. The transfers of all the originals suggest that they were made from intractable material, the sound being confined even for its day, but Traubel rings through undaunted.'