The best moments in this performance come early in the opera and are the ones most of us tend not to pay much attention to: They’re during the dialogue between the parents near the end of the first scene. Here the orchestra and singers seem entirely engaged, the action and situation have energy, and the vocal interchanges are filled with urgency. Elsewhere, it’s hard to describe what’s wrong with this set; there’s a suffocating expertise about the whole affair, as if it were a wartime broadcast being offered as home entertainment, with all the preparation in place and the knowledge that it would never be heard again. The spooky forest scenes are utterly devoid of atmosphere and conductor Fritz Lehmann seems unable to differentiate between moods of any sort: This is automaton leadership. Rita Streich is a lovely Gretel but Gisela Litz sounds as if she’s auditioning for Maddalena in Rigoletto. As suggested, Marianne Schech and Horst Gunter make a nice set of parents. The almost unknown Res Fischer (so spectacular as Klytemnestra in a ’50s Elektra recording with Astrid Varnay released just last year) inflects well but sounds like an annoying old-lady neighbor and sings with less “face” than any Witch on record. There are many better recordings of this opera available–Tate leading Bonney and von Otter on EMI, or even an odd Kurt Eichhorn-led, 30-year-old Moffo, Donath, Fischer-Dieskau, Ludwig, Auger, Popp set on RCA.
