WAGNER: Heroines - Dunn, Janowitz, Sutherland, Flagstad, Nilsson, Resnik

This is a 31-year retrospective (1956–1987) of great Wagner singing on Decca and Deutsche Grammophon featuring fourteen extracts from nine operas with seven great singers. Wagner’s heroines make for some of the most pivotal moments in his operas and this anthology highlights almost every aspect of his women – suspicious and inflexible (Fricka, here taken from a recital recording by Regina Resnik), redeeming (Elisabeth and Brünnhilde), passionate (Sieglinde), transfigured (Isolde). We hear the great voices of Joan Sutherland (who sang a number of Wagnerian roles before establishing her incomparable reputation in the ‘bel canto’ repertoire), her idol, Kirsten Flagstad (here singing Kundry), Flagstad’s Scandinavian successor Birgit Nilsson (in two of the greatest opera scenes – Isolde’s Liebstod and Brünnhilde’s Immolation) and at the start of this recording, the splendidly Italianate singing of Susan Dunn as Elisabeth and Sieglinde. The illuminating notes on the music and the singers are by Wagner scholar Peter Bassett and the booklet includes a photo gallery of the singers.

RICHARD WAGNER
Tannhäuser:
Dich, teure Halle

Die Walküre:
Der Männer Sippe saß hier im Saal
Du bist der Lenz
Susan Dunn

Tannhäuser
Allmächt’ge Jungfrau

Lohengrin:
Einsam in trüben Tagen
Euch Lüften, die mein Klagen
Gundula Janowitz

Rienzi:
Gerechter Gott … In seiner Blüthe

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg:
O Sachs! Mein Freund!
Joan Sutherland

Parsifal:
Ich sah das Kind
Kirsten Flagstad

Der fliegende Holländer:
Johohoe! … Traft ihr das Schiff im Meere an
Gwyneth Jones

Die Walküre:
So ist es denn

Tristan und Isolde:
Einsam wachend in der Nacht
Regina Resnik

Mild und leise wie er lächelt

Götterdämmerung:
Mein Erbe nun nehm’ ich zu eigen
Birgit Nilsson

Richard Bonynge
Riccardo Chailly
Edward Downes
Hans Knappertsbusch
Ferdinand Leitner
Argeo Quadri
Georg Solti