Burmeister vs. Adam (plus Birgit & Bohm)

Just before Tower closed, my boss Bryan was cleaning out the back room and found a huge box of promos that a former employee had stashed there and forgotten about. He called me into his office and offered me several items from this "Fafner's hoard" including the complete Karl Bohm recording of Wagner's RING Cycle. It's been sitting here on my shelf ever since. I've been intending to do the right thing and play it straight thru but I've never gotten around to it. Today when my hike got curtailed due to rain I came home and saw the box glowering: "Play me!" I pulled out a disc at random: first part of WALKURE Act II. OK, that's a thrice-familiar chunk of the RING...and the brilliant opening orchestral passage seized my imagination at once.

Theo Adam's commanding Wotan sets the stage for Birgit Nilsson's inimitable Battle Cry; having heard Nilsson quite often at the Met I've always felt that recordings don't really capture her voice. But this one sort of does. And I do recall an interview where she was asked if she ranked the Solti RING among her best recordings and she replied that she preferred the Bohm, leaving the interviewer somewhat aghast. Her gleaming sweeps up to top Bs and Cs set off the central section where she playfully warns Wotan that his wife Fricka is wending her way hither in a towering rage. Brunnhilde slips away to avoid the impending domestic squall.

Who is Annelies Burmeister? Of course I've heard the name often enough over the years but I can't say I've ever actually been aware of hearing her voice before. Well, she is one heck of a no-nonsense Fricka. It is not a particularly opulent or distinctive sound; the top can be a bit tight. She isn't terribly subtle nor does she wheedle or toy with Wotan as some Frickas do. What Burmeister provides is a very solidly sung portrayal: she deals from strength. Fricka arrives with a stacked deck of cards and as Burmeister plays them one by one, Theo Adam's Wotan doesn't stand a chance. It's a very satisfying performance of this scene.

Brunnhilde/Nilsson returns and tries to find out what's transpired. Adam, who's had to grovel to his wife, now unleashes a thunderous tempest of emotions ideally seconded by Dr. Bohm. Adam is a real bass-baritone. He spans the range, secure on top and without ever letting the bottom fall out. Calmed by Brunnhilde, Wotan begins his long monolog. Adam is a more authoritative than poetic Wotan. Handsomely supported by Bohm - who keeps the underlying flow of leitmotifs fastidiously aligned to the narrative - Adam sings with generous power and a sense of majesty.

This RING was recorded at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus (above) in 1967, the same year I saw my first RING opera at the Met: RHEINGOLD with Theo Adam as Wotan and Herbert von Karajan on the podium. There's an upcoming blog piece about that fantastic weekend which further included the stellar "Met premiere" cast of FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN under Karl Bohm and the singular Nilsson/Caballe TURANDOT.

Photos of Adam & Burmeister in costume for the Wieland Wagner/Bayreuth production of WALKURE.

Comments

[Dmitry]

This is an interesting performance. Bohm's tempi are quite fast - his is one of the fastest RINGs on disc. My main issue with it, however, is Wolfgang Windgassen's Siegfried (and Loge.) I've never been fond of this singer - dry voice and always singing just under the pitch - and here he is barely bearable to my ears. But Bayreuthians worshipped him - for reasons I'll never quite understand.

[Philip]

Windgassen would have been quite old at the time of this RING, and with an awful lot of mileage on his vocal cords. So far in listening to the first disc of RHEINGOLD you are correct: he sings flat and sounds tired. I can't imagine him getting thru the Siegfrieds on this kind of form. But I do like him very much on the 1953 Keilberth LOHENGRIN.

You're right: Bohm does go really FAST much of the time.

[George R. Weinhouse MD]

This is for many the definitive RING. There is no substitute for the heat of performance to catch these singers at their best. This includes Nilsson. Probably no recording does her huge voice justice, but her live recordings probably come closest to capturing this force of nature. I remember buying some of this RING when it was first released in 1973, some seven or eight years after the performances place.

[Philip]

I'm not sure there's a definitive RING recording., though there are great elements in many of the sets.

Judging from his Loge, and not having yet listened to his Siegfried, I would say I agree with Dmitry that Windgassen is something of a blot on this Bohm cycle. But I think Birgit's own assessment that she shines to better advantage here than on the Solti set is spot on, at least what I've heard so far.

[George R. Weinhouse MD]

I have the SIEGFRIED set ( at one time they were all available separately) I think Windgassen does a good job as the hero. I don't think one can really judge on the basis of his Loge. I think there are more opportunities for a heldentenor to shine in the more lyrical passages in SIEGFRIED and GOTTERDAMMERUNG. Try them and see if you agree.

[Philip]

I've been playing some of Windgassen's Siegfried and he sounds rather faded to me.

[Dmitry]

I agree that there is no definitive RING cycle. Almost all of them contain something superior to all the rest, though certainly some are more consistent than others. To me Windgassen virtually ruins the later two operas. He is almost excellent on the Solti "Siegfried," however. Of all the RINGs I have I'd listen to each one for different reasons, depending on my mood. The one I wish would be release commercially is Giuseppe Sinopoli's last cycle in Bayreuth. I have radio broadcasts of it and his conducting is astounding. Perhaps one day...

[Philip]

Yes, you have to have commercial recordings and then supplement them with brodcasts in order to have a really enjoyable RING library.

I've listened to a few more random scenes from the Bohm RING and feel a bit deflated by some of the performances: Modl's Waltraute for instance - I know she was a great Wagner singer but she is past her best days here and despite her dramatic insights she sounds too vocally depleted to be really satisfying.

Windgassen's tired Loge deprives RHEINGOLD of it's spark (!!!) and puts a damper on an otherwise pretty stimulating performance of that opera.

[George R. Weinhouse MD]

I still believe the Bohm RING is the one to have if only for Nilsson's astounding Brunnhilde. If you have Sirius satellite radio you can listen to some of the RING broadcasts on Channel 85 from the 60's and 70's,from the Met.. Jess Thomas's Siegfried is quite good in the 1975 Ehrling cycle also with Nilsson.

[Philip]

I was at the Ehrling RING and loved his conducting - some people didn't - but Nilsson by then was having severe pitch problems. She also took on Sieglinde at the Met that season and she was awful; it was too low for her and she kept sharping.

A hilarious incident occurred the night I saw her Sieglinde: when Siegmund (Kolbjorn Hoiseth) pulled the sword from the tree, the blade broke off and flew into the front scrim. Nilsson and Hoiseth spent the remaining moments of Act I rhapsodizing over the grip of Nothung. Watching her thru binoculars I could see that Birgit was cracking up.

The late Maestro Ehrling became a favorite customer of mine when I worked in retail; he was kind of cranky at times and some of my colleagues refused to wait on him. But he and I got on well and his wife, a former ballerina, was a complete delight.