Klemperer Recordings of Wagner Operas

Some readers may recall that, when I wrote about the first volume of the Warner Classics Remastered Edition of recordings of conductor Otto Klemperer, I observed that the account of instrumental music by Richard Wagner was “relatively modest.” It amounted to three CDs of instrumental excerpts, along with Felix Mottl’s orchestration of the Wesendonck Lieder sung by mezzo Christa Ludwig. Sadly, the second volume is just as modest. There are four CDs this time, but the last of those CDs includes reproductions of seven of the tracks that had been included in the first volume!

The first two CDs account for the only full-length recording of a Wagner opera, Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman). The recording was made in 1968; and it included two of my favorite operatic vocalists, soprano Anja Silja in the role of Senta and bass Martti Talvela as her father, Daland. (It is also worth noting, as an aside, that many, if not most, of my generation first came to know this opera’s overture through the television program Captain Video!) The opera is in three acts, but Wagner originally intended them to be performed without interruptions. He subsequently prepared a version with three separate acts, and that is the version that Klemperer recorded. These days the uninterrupted version tends to be preferred, at least for staged performances.

The original content on the remaining two CDs consists of a “beginning and ending” account of Die Walküre (the Valkyrie), the second of the four parts of Der Ring des Nibelungen (the ring of the Nibelung). The first CD consists of the entire first act, which involves only three characters: Sigmund (tenor William Cochran), Sieglinde (soprano Helga Dernesch), and her husband Hunding (bass Hans Sotin). The new material on the second CD consists of the conclusion of the opera, which is sung entirely by Wotan (baritone Norman Bailey). All of this content was recorded at All Saints’ Church in the Tooting district of South London. The first act was recorded in 1969, and the Wotan episode was recorded the following year.

Cover of the Urania album of Klemperer’s “Hungarian” Meistersinger album (from the Amazon.com digital download Web page)

These recordings were made relatively late in Klemperer’s life. Both his health and his age were beginning to get the better of him. A decade earlier Wieland Wagner had made plans for Klemperer to conduct performances of both Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Unfortunately, Klemperer had a bad habit of smoking in bed; and a fire got the better of him. His slow recovery obliged him to cancel both of those projects. There does not appear to be a complete Tristan recording, but Meistersinger was recorded during a performance by the Hungarian State Opera in 1949. Unfortunately, only excerpts of that performance, which was sung in Hungarian, were released for public distribution.

This is one of those situations in which we just have to make do with what we can get.