Way too much of Deborah Voigt's Bruennhilde is just plain embarrassing: pitchy, terrible or nonexistent enunciation (she is just not bothering with a shocking number of words), rushing, lunging at notes, poor connection with her lower register, etc., etc. She should be singing in the Sieglinde / Gutrune league, not Bruennhilde.
Also, I see why people wish Luisi had more weight in his conducting. The coda needs more majesty and more time to unfold than he is giving it. Why the big rush, Fabio?? You've got one of the greatest orchestras in the world in front of you. Slow down and let them enjoy themselves a bit more.
Jesus, you have nothing good to say about that Ring, do you?
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm getting sick of this character verification. I cannot read the damned things.
Maybe you missed this posting, which is immediately before this one.
ReplyDeleteI looked over the various settings, and blog owners have no control over the style of the Captcha. Sorry!
ReplyDeleteApparently, I did, but since the roles are tiny, it's sort of damning with faint praise.
ReplyDeleteThis time, I think it's ittard twili
Perhaps they loom larger in my mind than yours, or perhaps you've never heard a Ring with crappy Norns and/or Rheinmaidens!
ReplyDeleteThis is why I generally avoid the opera. The hard-core fans think everything sucks. It makes for some very unpleasant post mortems.
ReplyDeleteFor much the same reason, I've bitten the bullet and settled on the Bohm Ring, simply because I've been getting the installments for cheap. I'm sure everyone can find things wrong with it, but I don't give a crap anymore. I'll probably never notice.
now it's either ownlittor or ownliWor. I'll have to guess.
And what does "pitchy" mean? It sounds like she'd covered with pine tar.
ReplyDeleteYou read my blog regularly enough to know that I don't think everything sucks.
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't already bought the Boehm, don't. The singing AND conducting are nowhere near the best available. The orchestra plays well and the sound is good. But there are good reasons I listened to it once the year I bought it and not since.
Any 1950s Ring is better sung and better conducted. If you care about stereo, there's the Keilberth 1955 from Bayreuth. If you don't, get either Knappertsbusch from 1956 or Clemens Krauss. If you don't care about the orchestral playing and want great conducting, the two Furtwanglers are available cheap, but those Italian orchestras are not great.
"Pitchy" means "has problems singing on pitch."
I rest my case.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm telling you one recording is not very good and five are better, and I'm providing my reasoning, how does that constitute "thinking everything sucks"?
ReplyDeleteI'm willing to briefly discuss three additional recordings that I'd recommend before I'd recommend the Boehm, too, although one of them is out of print, last I looked.
The complete stereo Keilberth recording you recommend is anywhere from $77 to $153, Lisa. It's not worth it. Or, if I wanted to pay in installments, I could get the operas individually for about $50 to $70 each. I got Bohm's Rheingold used for $8, and Walkure for free. GD is being re-released next month for $11. Seriously, don't worry about me. I'll be fine.
ReplyDelete