This was the last work Karajan conducted and produced during his controversial seven-year period in charge of the State Opera. When he directed it in the Vienna Festival of 1964, he had already tendered his resignation, so the event inevitably had a valedictory air. Everyone at the time agreed, and this recording confirms, that the musical side of things could hardly have been bettered. The Vienna Philharmonic, especially the strings, respond to their departing director’s incandescent interpretation with playing of the highest calibre in every department, and Karajan himself gives a reading that makes the most of both the piece’s dramatic and musical possibilities. But there is one major drawback, namely the extreme cuts imposed on the score over and above what was customary, the most debilitating in Act 2, which is foreshortened and rearranged in a quite arbitrary way. In that sense it makes comparisons irrelevant: collectors will probably want this recording for the conductor and/or the singers, not for the work itself.
And what singers Karajan had assembled for the occasion, a troupe of the most important Strauss singers of the day all in their prime. Rysanek’s Empress appears on CD for the third time; in pristine voice she proves again the leading exponent of the part in the opera’s history. Ravishing tone, deep eloquence and innate musicality inform all her singing, and her performance makes a fitting memorial to this revered, recently departed artist. Her Emperor is Jess Thomas, a tenor at the peak of his abilities, the lyrical and heroic demands of the role kept in nice balance.
Christa Ludwig, when in her quasi-soprano phase, sings the Dyer’s Wife as securely and meaningfully as any interpreter on disc, unstinting vocally and dramatically, even if there are a few tell-tale moments of strain in the upper reaches of the part. She is partnered by her then-husband, Walter Berry, a Barak of warm human sympathies with tone to match – their Act 3 duet is a moment to treasure. Grace Hoffman’s Nurse is suitably malevolent, also happily steady, even if she doesn’t articulate the text as clearly as some other mezzos. It is a pleasure to hear the young Popp in a variety of parts. The recording gives a good facsimile of the stage/orchestra balance and there’s not too much extraneous noise, but inevitably in this of all works one misses stereo spread, available even on the much earlier Decca/Bohm set (Decca, 10/91).
Still, this is notable more as an addition to the Karajan discography than as a record of Strauss’s opera. The set is sure to be sought after and as such it will give much pleasure. '