This is part of a Richard Wagner Edition from Philips that also includes the complete (mature) oeuvre in video versions, all but The Ring and Hollander different from those reviewed here on CD only. The best news is the first issue of a splendid performance of Lohengrin. This was not recorded live during the Festival but in the previous June, while a video of the Werner Herzog production was presumably being taken (a similar procedure was followed by Philips in 1985 for the Kupfer staging of Der fliegende Hollander, a recording also included here). This explains why you can hear the gentle splash of water at the start of Act 2, which was set by Herzog beside a lake. I saw and heard this staging twice, in 1987 and 1988, and was on both occasions impressed by the production and musical interpretation. The underrated Schneider conducts a straightforward, no-nonsense reading in the best Kapellmeister tradition, avoiding the extremes of tempo interpretation of such higher-powered conductors as Barenboim and Levine, recently dominant in Bayreuth. Schneider obtains playing and singing of the highest calibre from the Bayreuth orchestra and chorus, sustains the long and sometimes tedious-seeming paragraphs of Acts 1 and 2 without ever allowing boredom to intervene, and brings extraordinary tension to such forward-looking scenes as Lohengrin's arrival, the Ortrud-Telramund dialogue and the psychologically intense duet for Elsa and Lohengrin in Act 3. This is an interpretation ranking not far below Kempe's classic EMI version now on CD.
Elsa was one of the roles with which Studer made her name on the international scene; she sings it here once more with refulgent tone, understanding of the text and comprehension of Elsa's dreamy then troubled personality. Particularly affecting is her desperate appeal to Lohengrin at the end of Act 2 beginning ''Mein Retter!''. But she hasn't quite the radiance and peculiarly German quality evinced by Grummer for Kempe or by Muller on the wartime version under Heger recently issued by Preiser. The Canadian tenor Paul Frey is often a sensitive, chivalrous Lohengrin, even if his voice hasn't quite the Heldentenor strength of Volker (Preiser). His voice is surprisingly similar to that of Jess Thomas (Kempe). As with that estimable American tenor, he is good at suggesting the upright, elevated nature of Lohengrin and his mission but, like his predecessor, sometimes lapses into wooden phrasing—the start of the love duet is a case in point. Both he and Studer seem here a shade tentative, wanting in inner passion.
Evil is reasonably well represented. Wlaschiha is among the most vital and nasty of Telramunds, keenly projecting the character's chip-on-the-shoulder malevolence of the words, though he misses that touch of nobility gone wrong that Uhde (on the old Bayreuth/Decca set, 2/54—nla) and Fischer-Dieskau (Kempe) manage. Schnaut has an imposing, powerful soprano so that the highest reaches of her role are more easily encompassed than by some recent, mezzo interpreters, but you only have to listen to Klose (Preiser) and Ludwig (EMI), both admittedly mezzos but with fine high registers, to realize how much more can be made of the words than Schnaut achieves. Schenk is a well-routined King, Schulte a superb Herald. Incidentally, it is careless of Philips not to realize that Schneider observes the traditional (Wagner's) cut just before Lohengrin's Farewell: the passage is printed in full in the booklet.
This set is well worth considering in a somewhat sparse field of available versions, although as it takes four CDs as against EMI's three, it isn't such a bargain as might first appear. It comes close to rivalling the old Kempe set. That said, I do miss the added frisson here and on the companion Hollander, of those performances actually recorded live at Bayreuth. You need only turn to the 30-year-old Tannhauser to hear that extra excitement occasioned when singers are actually performing on stage. I was amazed to hear sound so fresh and immediate, indeed ideally so, better balanced than the new Lohengrin! This has always been a recommendable version (indeed, it appears as such in The Good CD Guide), and its tremendous vigour and fervour struck me anew as a thrilling experience, in fact what recordings should be about. Right from the Overture and the Venusberg scene, with Windgassen and the young Bumbry in each other's arms as the knight and Venus, this is an enthralling performance conducted by Sawallisch with a winning combination of sensuousness and fervour—listen to the strings introducing Elisabeth at the start of Act 2.
The young Silja's peculiarly fresh, open singing makes her a vivid and individual Elisabeth, appropriately youthful and eager in tone and manner. Windgassen is as committed a Tannhauser as any on disc. The late Eberhard Waechter has a fitting memorial in his Wolfram here, his Act 3 solo inspired indeed. So, at its new price, this is a performance worthy of anyone's attention, even if one has to make allowance for Greindl's unsteady, curiously pitched Landgrave, though his long experience in Wagner makes him at times a deeply moving interpreter—listen to the long address, here far from the bore it sometimes becomes.
Even more desirable is the viscerally exciting and inevitably tragic Tristan of 1966. Nobody who encountered this Wieland Wagner staging conducted by Bohm will ever forget its single-minded, unified concept with all the singers inspired to give of their best. It has received so many encomiums in these pages that no more are now needed. Newcomers should just acquire it at its new, more attractive price. They will never regret the purchase. Nilsson, Windgassen, Ludwig, Waechter and Talvela, all at the height of their powers, under Bohm's inspiriting direction make as superb and involved a set of soloists as on any version.
The rest of this package needs to be treated with more caution. I dealt at some length with the Boulez Ring in its video form in May. It is a reading that has for this listener matured with the years, but it is better heard when accompanied by the Chereau staging with which it was so indissolubly wedded. Then the vocal inequalities in Dame Gwyneth Jones's Brunnhilde can be more easily overlooked and the harshness of Jung's Siegfried forgotten when enjoying his appealing stage portrayal. Many but not all of the assumptions are worth hearing, but they are also encountered more suitably as part of a sight-and-sound unity. So, here the recommendation is to save up for the video or Laserdisc issue.
I have reviewed the Meistersinger too recently (11/91) to repeat my views. Suffice it to say even at a reduced price this isn't competitive with either of EMI's sets conducted by Karajan, the 1951 itself emanating from Bayreuth. Where Parsifal is concerned, I very much regret that the 1962 Knappertsbusch version, an interpretation for all time, wasn't chosen in preference to the more unequal Levine. With the exception of Meier's unrivalled Kundry, the older set is also better sung. So this is certainly no bargain for all the special quality of any Bayreuth account of this work. Indeed, in spite of my reservations, all these sets benefit from the unique Bayreuth sound and from inspired playing and singing from the Bayreuth forces of various vintages.
As you may have already surmised, I am not recommending this vast project as a whole. The versions of Tannhauser, Lohengrin and Tristan und Isolde are all absorbing, so these are well worth considering as separate versions of these operas, and the Hollander is not far behind—not ideally cast but strongly executed on all fronts. The other sets are best avoided as finer alternatives are available. What we now need badly on CD are transfers of the 1953 Bayreuth Lohengrin and 1955 Bayreuth Hollander from Decca, and the 1951 Bayreuth Parsifal from Teldec, all memorable performances to complete the picture of recording there.'