In a recent BBC TV programme on Glyndebourne, Carol Vaness said that she was greatly encouraged by the sympathy and support she received from Haitink when recording Donna Anna in Don Giovanni (HMV SLS143665-3, 7/84). The importance to singers of such encouragement from their conductor is again evident in the promotional/rehearsal record (Not generally obtainable) that has come along with this new Zauberflote. Working with Price, Schreier and Melbye, Sir Colin offers constructive suggestions on phrasing and cooperates positively with his team in achieving the results he wants. Similarly, in a fascinating interview with Natalie Wheen that also arrived with the promotion kit, Davis emphasises the importance of letting the music breathe.
All this is relevant to consideration of Davis's Zauberflote, the only major Mozart he had not till now recorded. He gives wonderful support to his singers as in the opera house, he allows the music to breathe through leisurely speeds (only Beecham—HMV—takes the Pamina, Tamino, Sarastro trio so slowly), and—as his views make clear—he takes a philosophical attitude to the work. As has been the case since he first conducted the opera at Glyndebourne, back in the 1950s, he views the work solemnly. That doesn't exclude relaxation and joy in the Papageno episodes, but as a whole the reading leans more towards the Masonic rather than the pantomine elements in the story.
Confirming what he said to me (see page 319), he obviously enjoyed working with the Dresden orchestra, which produces for him, as an ensemble and in detail, its best form. From the Overture, it is clear we shall hear a big, dramatic performance. That is confirmed at numerous places, not least in the scene with the Speaker, which Schreier and Adam, so articulate and concentrated, do better than anyone since Wunderlich and Hotter for Bohm (DG 2709 017, 10/65). But then throughout Schreier's Tamino seems to me near-ideal. Jerusalem, for Haitink (HMV), may sing it more fluently, but beside Schreier's many vocal and verbal insights, the younger tenor seems plain. In the flute aria, listen to what Schreier does with the words ''Holde Flote'' and the sadness he brings to ''Nun Pamina kehrt davon''. The firm, musical, perfectly tuned, heroic Tamino deserves the Pamina of Margaret Price, who offers similar qualities. The two are ideally matched in the Second Act trial duet. Earlier, with her exact pitching and perfectly taken intervals, she makes the statement of ''Die Wahrheit'', the secure affirmation it should be, and except for a hint of aspiration, her account of the G minor aria (Davis's tempo ideal, like Haitink's) is voiced in a manner that even some of the full-toned sopranos of the past would envy. If, for all that I don't warm to the interpretation quite as much as to Popp's Pamina for Haitink, it may be an indication of a slight coolnes in Price's performance; this Pamina never quite suggests the uncertainties and vulnerability of her First Act predicaments. She isn't so communicative as Popp.
There is firmness and security at the opposite ends of the vocal scale. Kurt Moll sounds a more mature, grave Sarastro than Bracht (Haitink), and phrases both his arias with intelligence and a long breath. Luciana Serra may seem a controversial choice for Queen of Night, but as the character should suggest a foreign quality, the Italian accent occasionally discernible in her German isn't inappropriate. Her opening description of her daughter's suffering, ''Zum Leiden'', again at a very slow speed, is given an Italianate morbidezza. Intrusive aspirates detract from the pinpoint accuracy of Serra's coloratura and the steadiness of her tone.
Mikael Melbye is possibly the most amiable and attractive of the younger Papagenos now active in Germany (he is, in fact, Danish). His voice is mellow and pleasing; both arias are delivered eagerly, words forward and with a smile in the tone, an altogether more lovable performance than Brendel's (Haitink). He is the only singer allowed to speak his own dialogue. The others have been assigned actors—and that, for me, presents the main and serious drawback to this set. As usually happens when this procedure is followed, the speaking voices in no way resemble the singing ones; in the case of Pamina the contrast between Price's full voice and that of the light, soubrettish actress is, in the strictest sense, disillusioning. Then, again as in past cases, the players make a meal of their parts, not least the exaggeration of Papagena as an old woman. This may be intended to suggest a stage performance (Joachim Herz, the experienced East German director, was called in to produce); in the event I find the approach alienating and artificial. As we are given a very full version of the dialogue, the effect is the more troublesome, to say the least.
This East German portentousness is reinforced by the long and wordy essays contributed by Gotz Friedrich and Herz to the booklet. On the Haitink set, admittedly with a German-speaking cast, the dialogue is not only foreshortened, a sensible practice on records, but also spoken by the singers, a much more natural and unifying decision.
I have not mentioned Robert Tear's keen-edged Monostatos, the lively Papagena of the young American soprano Maria Venuti, or the superlative singing of the Leipzig Radio Chorus—their account of ''O Isis und Osiris'', beautifully shaped by Davis, is a highlight of the set. His Three Ladies are also superior to those on the Haitink version. The Dresden Boys are the equal of their West German rivals.
The recording, in Dresden's Lukas Kirche, is spacious and atmospheric, rather more so than what HMV achieved in Munic for Haitink, and that matches the performance, large-scale and serious.
As readers may have surmised. I do not consider that this set replaces the much-lauded Haitink one, a tauter yet paradoxically more easy-going performance, a little less satisfying from an orchestral point of view and not quite so happy in some of its casting. Indeed, I would not want to be without the performances here of any of the four main principals, all of whom seem positive and even inspired interpreters of their part, nor pass up many of Sir Colin's long-standing insights into the ever-interesting and elevated score. Yet the thought of having to sit through all that dialogue so aggressively delivered would certainly deter me from taking this version off the shelves so often as the Haitink, or indeed one or two other older sets, not least Beecham's.'