How softly and gently
he smiles,
how sweetly
his eyes open -
can you see, my friends,
do you not see it?
How he glows
ever brighter,
raising himself high
amidst the stars?
Do you not see it?
How his heart
swells with courage,
gushing full and majestic
in his breast?
How in tender bliss
sweet breath
gently wafts
from his lips -
Friends! Look!
Do you not feel and see it?
Do I alone hear
this melody
so wondrously
and gently
sounding from within him,
in bliss lamenting,
all-expressing,
gently reconciling,
piercing me,
soaring aloft,
its sweet echoes
resounding about me?
Are they gentle
aerial waves
ringing out clearly,
surging around me?
Are they billows
of blissful fragrance?
As they seethe
and roar about me,
shall I breathe,
shall I give ear?
Shall I drink of them,
plunge beneath them?
Breathe my life away
in sweet scents?
In the heaving swell,
in the resounding echoes,
in the universal stream
of the world-breath -
to drown,
to founder -
unconscious -
utmost rapture!
Montserrat Caballé (s), Isolde; Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, Alain Lombard, cond. Erato, recorded September 1977
by Ken
We're in I-forget-how-many-levels of digression from our serial remembrance of Montserrat Caballé. As of last week's post ("Word is that 'Today we are not shocked by Salome.' Really?") we've been drawn in -- by way of Caballé's (in my experience) unique recording of Salome -- to what seems to me the inescapable shockfulness of the 40-year-old Richard Strauss's breakthrough opera, which even when we're done we're going to have to pursue, without a Caballé connection, into the equally inescapable shockfulness of the Strauss opera that followed it, Elektra.
So this week I thought we'd pause that and return for a moment to just-plain-Caballé, and a recording I'd been saving for the final installment of this series, whatever and whenever that happens. Which, actually, we've now just heard: that Erato studio recording of Isolde's "Liebestod," which for me shows beautifully what Caballé could do when the big, beautiful voice was really well controlled technically and interpretively. It is, I think, just a gorgeous performance, and gorgeous in the ways that were specifically hers.
SO, AS LONG AS WE'RE HERE --
I thought we might as well bring back Liebestod performances we've already heard (I'm now enmeshed in what turns out to be the monumental job of technically rehabilitating the 2000 post that was the source for a number of them) and adding a couple more. We've got an assortment here: a couple of the all-time great Isoldes (Flagstad heard in her shimmering prime, Nilsson in what's still my favorite Tristan recording of hers), some singers who sensibly never essayed the complete role plus some who didn't but you wish had.
WAGNER: Tristan und Isolde: Act III, Isolde, "Mild und leise wie er lächelt" (Liebestod)
Kirsten Flagstad (s), Isolde; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, cond. Recorded live at Covent Garden, 1936
Helen Traubel (s), Isolde; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fritz Busch, cond. Live performance, Nov. 20, 1946
Eileen Farrell (s), Isolde; New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Recorded live, Feb. 26, 1969
Birgit Nilsson (s), Isolde; Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. DG, recorded live, 1966
Christa Ludwig (ms), Isolde; NDR (North German Radio) Symphony Orchestra, Hans Knappertsbusch, cond. Recorded live, Mar. 24, 1963
Helga Dernesch (s), Isolde; Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. Live performance from the Salzburg Easter Festival, Mar. 25, 1972
Margaret Price (s), Isolde; Staatskapelle Dresden, Carlos Kleiber, cond. DG, recorded 1980-82
Jessye Norman (s), Isolde; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Klaus Tennstedt, cond. EMI, recorded Dec. 1987
Deborah Voigt (s), Isolde; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Christian Thielemann, cond. DG, recorded live, 2003
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