This “find”, a BBC recording of a live 1961 performance at Covent Garden of Georg Solti conducting what is now his first recorded Walküre (the Decca set was 1965), is a mixed blessing. Since most heavy-duty Wagnerians are familiar with the Decca recording–it was a dazzler when it was released and remains so–hearing an earlier take by Solti, with a couple of the same cast members, is fascinating. It doesn’t replace the Decca (it’s in mono, to begin with, albeit superb mono) but true believers will listen carefully.
Unlike many great conductors, Solti plays for the drama at hand rather than the great architecture of the entire Ring, as is to be expected with a live performance that was not meant to be part of a recording or a cycle. As a result, there is the occasional feeling of stop-start; just pausing long enough before the Todesverkundegung is not a transition, and listeners will note other spots where the scene simply changes. Some of the organic movement that Furtwängler, Barenboim, and others offer is missing. (The very first Walküre recording I ever owned–the Leinsdorf on RCA–had much the same approach, and I loved it and still do. These performances are highly theatrical.) But the thrills and beautiful moments remain.
Few conductors could dig in and drive the opening storm the way Solti did, and the rapture he finds in the first act’s final moments leave you breathless. The second-act Fricka/Wotan argument is terrifying–things obviously hadn’t been going well in Valhalla for some time–the Wotan/Brünnhilde scene is gloomy, but a bit dull, the aforementioned Todesverkundegung taken hypnotically slowly and tenderly until the turnaround, which blazes. And the finale is brutal. The Ride is fantastic and tight (the mono sound here is no issue at all) and Sieglinde’s outburst is epic. Wotan’s Farewell is emotionally shattering, if played a bit quicker than usual–I’d like to think Solti was helping Hans Hotter get through it somewhat more easily.
The singing holds some surprises. I recall seeing and hearing Anita Välkki at the Met in the ’70s; like everyone else in the house, we kept lamenting that she wasn’t Nilsson. Hearing her now, I would travel a mile for her: rock solid, with a handsome, womanly sound, impeccable pitch, and plenty of sassy attitude in her opening “Ho jo to hos”, real curiosity later, spunk when she turns in Siegmund’s favor, and warmth and contrition in her last scenes. Since I loved the Leinsdorf set with Rita Gorr as Fricka, I thought she would be the same here (they were recorded within the same year), but she is even better–more determined, arrogant, and disdainful. I even think she makes Christa Ludwig seem second best; it’s a monstrous 15-minute confrontation.
I believe there are five recorded versions of Jon Vickers’ Siegmund, but this is his finest. The soft singing never fades into either crooning or falsetto; there’s always body in the tone. He is warm and loving with Sieglinde in all of their scenes, proud with Hunding after his initial insecurity, and ecstatic in the first-act finale. His cries of “Wälse!” are epic–almost on a Melchior-like level. He’s a one-of-a-kind singer. Claire Watson’s Sieglinde is youthful and focused–no Jessye Norman or Regine Crespin womanly roundness to the sound. She’s a bit faceless until her final scene, when she delivers a passionate but still girlish “O hehrstes Wunder”, which is quite moving. Michael Langdon makes an imposing, scary Hunding by sheer dint of his strong, pitch-dark sound; to that natural asset he adds a snarl that could scare the mightiest of Wälsungs.
Hans Hotter, with perhaps a dozen Wotans committed to disc, most of them from live, Bayreuth performances from the ’50s, is still a potent figure with plenty of voice. (He sang the role for another 10 years, including on Solti’s Decca recording.) I almost prefer this to his younger performances–his misery after being slapped down by Gorr’s Fricka is palpable, perhaps the first intimation that this god is losing his power. He sings with teeth clenched, utterly defeated, in his exchange with his daughter, his confidante. The upright, dignified, but barely able to contain its emotion Farewell, as mentioned above, is taken a bit quickly, but it loses no power. Some of the wooliness is present in the tone, but the wobble is not. The performance is towering.
And so, if it’s a compelling, persuasive, theatrical Walküre you’re searching for, one that doesn’t ruminate quite like some or gloss over the sharp edges like others, and the mono sound doesn’t get in your way, this one makes a superb case. It doesn’t make me tremble the way Keilberth’s 1955 (Bayreuth) reading does (I might say the same for Böhm’s on Philips), but it is vibrant and a great piece of storytelling.
