Despite gorgeous SACD sonics and magnificent playing (with one notable exception), this Wagner collection fails to satisfy completely. It begins well, with a light and lively Meistersinger Prelude, followed by a very attractively flowing Siegfried-Idyll. In the latter, Fischer times out at a bit more than 17 minutes, which is almost exactly the same as Klemperer, my reference version and—perhaps surprisingly—one of the quicker performances. Perhaps no work in the entire repertoire turns more deadly than the Siegfried-Idyll when taken too slowly; so all credit to Fischer for avoiding that trap, and to his string section for its luscious sonority.
After that, however, the remainder of the program dribbles downhill. Dawn and Siegfried’s Rhine Journey goes well enough, but Siegfried’s Funeral Music (here called a march, which it isn’t) is taken verrrrrry slowly, at times to the point of near immobility. Despite some wonderfully dark brass sonorities, the music doesn’t surge forward as it must. Brünnhilde’s Immolation Scene features mezzo-soprano Petra Lang, who seems ready to wreck her voice on this particular role. Here she is billed as a “soprano”, which she most certainly is not.
Lang has successfully done all of the Wagnerian mezzos, and has proven particularly compelling in the evil ones, which are of course the most fun: Kundry and Ortrud. But she also sings Sieglinde (that must be an experience), and although her voice isn’t especially dark and she has the high notes, the tone spreads in her upper range, and she simply lacks the heft to ride the orchestral climaxes. Her Brünnhilde is disappointing.
Adding insult to injury, and as you can plainly hear (sound clip below), at the point just after she rides into Siegfried’s funeral pyre the Budapest cymbal player bashes in a bar early and remains there for the balance of the passage in question. Why this was not fixed is a mystery. So although this disc has its moments, in the end it proves somewhat frustrating. Knowing what these forces are capable of, more’s the pity.
