There aren’t many options open to those seeking acquaintance with L’Amore dei tre re on records. One of the prices paid—as Montemezzi had no way to foresee—for writing a tightly knit, through-composed opera is that no one is going to record its greatest hits. Among complete recordings, the RCA referenced above, conducted by Nello Santi, has in its favor splendid sound (important for this score) and glamorous voices (Moffo, in partial, temporary recovery from her career-ending vocal crisis; Domingo, Elvira, and Siepi, all three of whom sound fine, but among whom only Siepi has more than a generic grip on his role). On Cetra, only Petrella could be called clearly superior, but the whole cast is more to this particular manor born in terms of defining the dramatic episodes and bonding the language to the vocal line; despite the old mono sound, they reveal more of the work at many points. The 194l Met broadcast is notable for Pinza’s Archibaldo and the presence of Montemezzi on the podium. I’ve heard it only in frustratingly cramped, gritty sound, but it was issued at one point by Guild/Immortal Performances, whose work on old air-checks is always restorative. One other recording has some plausible names on it (Maragliano, Petkov, Lavirgen) but doesn’t make much of a case for itself or the work. In view of all this, supplement any complete versions with familiarity with the plentiful recordings by artists associated with L’Amore from its premiere onward: Nazzareno de Angelis (the original Archibaldo—hear his stupendous Mefistofele or, if time presses, the drinking song from Der Freischütz), Carlo Galeffi (original Manfredo—you might combine any early disc, like his “Dio di Giuda” from Nabucco, with one of the later complete roles: Germont, Gérard, Tonio), Pasquale Amato (first Metropolitan Manfredo), or any of the many other artists of the interwar years who took on these juicy roles—e.g., Adamo Didur, Giovanni Martinelli, Giuseppe Danise, to name a few from the Met’s history with the work. For Fiora, Muzio and Bori would be ideal alternates—make sure you hear the latter’s L’Amico Fritz excerpts to hear what I mean about girlish delicacy combined with a penetrating lower octave. You’ll get the idea.

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Doch nun von Tristan. I was happy to be there. The news was good on several fronts. As a great admirer of Kaufmann’s, but one with a Man From Missouri attitude about his forays into heavy repertory, and well aware of some recent worrisome reports, I was heartened to hear him in strong, steady voice, and rendering softer dynamics without resort to what he insists isn’t crooning. Indeed, the necessity of staying “on the voice” in this music seemed, at least on this occasion, to solidify the instrument. It’s still prevailingly dark, of course—never more so, in fact—and at times it was impossible not to yearn for, if not the brilliant core of Melchior’s unique sound, then flashes of the bright, shiny coin in Windgassen’s or the primetime Svanholm’s. Yet Kaufmann’s tone isn’t congested or constricted, and the vowel formation isn’t overly “covered.” The structure, though not classically tenorial, sounds quite at home in his voice—an unusual case. ^(I)

Kaufmann can’t become a Tristan exemplar—there isn’t time. But it’s not inconceivable that he could, for a few seasons, raise the vocal standard of the role well past the level of recent decades.That would in itself be something. Whether or not he can reach into himself and draw forth the emotional extremity needed for true consummation of the part, above all in Act 3, will depend on continued vocal health, a conductor who encourages it, and a production that does not fly in the face of belief (and where will that be found?). At Carnegie, in a concert-form trial run, he was understandably in a self-protective mode he will need to shed. Even so, all  signs pointed forward.

Another of the evening’s welcome components was the Marke of Georg Zeppenfeld, a Dresden-based singer new to me. This was the best bass singing I’ve heard in years—a voice of generous volume and centered, live tone that rolled forth unimpeded, coupled with a vivid vowel profile and a sharp rhetorical sensibility. While the timbre is basically clear and open, it’s also comfortably seated, with superb, easy low notes, and he had the sad, craggy presence of one of Ingmar Bergman’s silently tortured older characters. He has sung Sarastro here, but I see no sign of follow-up from the Met. Maybe he prefers Dresden.The Brangäne was Mihoko Fugimura, a small woman with a satisfyingly big, solid sound but a square, blunt style of phrasing in her exchanges with Isolde, innocent of any trace of portamento that would bind the woven line. The Watch went well, though, and this is a Stimme. As Isolde we heard Camilla Nylund, whose local debut (in Der Rosenkavalier) I missed last season. I gather that like Kaufmann, she was dipping a first toe into the Tristan mighty deep. She has an attractive soprano of light Jugendlich calibre and blonde coloration, in need of more consistent support.  She stayed the course with the music and did nothing ugly or distorted, which of course puts her ahead of many. But it’s a long stretch of the mind’s ear to hear this instrument in Isolde’s Act 1 rages, and I hope she doesn’t go there.

Then there’s the matter of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and its Music Director. One can’t fault the playing as such. As with all the world’s major orchestras and many of lower rank these days, there’s really no issue of technical execution, and it would be wrong to take that for granted. All choirs sounded in fine shape to me, and on what I’d call the abstract aesthetic plane, I enjoyed especially the woodwind interplay—flutes, oboes, clarinets and bass clarinet, English horn, on down to bassoons—at the top of the act. Beautiful. But here are my problems, described in old-fashioned, non-technical terms: One: it all sounded like Day, a nice, clear day with no turbulence and excellent visibility. It wasn’t even the sort of day that would be à propos in Act 1 (a day of open sea light) or Act 3 (a day of merciless, exposing light), much less the cloaking, throbbing Night of Act 2. It was about as far from the sound world of the Liebesnacht as a superb orchestra playing at concert energy could come. Two: It is no one’s fault that the BSO is not an opera orchestra, even part-time. But I detected scant suggestion that Nelsons had done much to bend the players toward an awareness of suspense, of the event of an episode, or of psychological atmosphere. We don’t have to go back to classic concert-opera reference points, like Toscanini and the NBC with Verdi or Puccini, or Mitropoulos and  the NYPO with Elektra, or even Solti and the CSO with Das Rheingold (nothing if not theatrical). There are latterday examples (Barenboim and the CSO with their complete Tristan, Colin Davis and the LSO with Peter Grimes) of conductors finding ways to convey at least some of the dramatic qualities of challenging operatic scores to symphonic ensembles. One might protest that these were cases of special affinity. Yes—of the sort we would presume a conductor to have when programming operatic material for his orchestra.

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Very briefly, a plug for two versions of the Liebesnacht that may not have come to many  contemporary readers’ attention: 1) A studio edition, recorded by American Columbia in 1947, with the Met’s  orchestra under Fritz Busch, and sung by Helen Traubel, Torsten Ralf, and Herta Glaz. It begins with “O sink’ hernieder” and continues uncut to the end of the scene. I think Traubel is fully the equal of Flagstad or Leider in this music, and though we don’t identify Ralf with the heaviest of the Wagner roles, he sings with great beauty and expressiveness. The Met orchestra still had Tristan in its bones in those years, often with Traubel as Isolde, and Busch was conducting there regularly. This was reissued by Sony on a two-CD set in its well-curated Masterworks Heritage Series, with other Wagner material recorded in the ’40s by Traubel and Melchior (including the latter’s “O Kōnig” and his incomparable Act 3, with then-standard cuts)—very much worth seeking out. 2) A live performance from the Admirals Palast, Berlin, also 1947. Wilhelm Furtwängler, only recently declared free to return to conducting by the Allied Occupation authorities, conducts the Staatskapelle Berlin in extended extracts from Act 2 (the Liebesnacht, fortunately, intact) and a complete Act 3, with Erna Schlüter, Margarete Klose, Ludwig Suthaus, Jaro Prohaska, and Gottlob Frick. Yes, this is the same conductor and tenor of the complete 1952 studio recording, and yes, Flagstad was a greater singer than Schlüter, and no one who cares about great operatic art should be without the studio version. But this in some ways cuts deeper, to a darker, more transfigured Night. I have it on LPs in Fonit Cetra’s Furtwängler Edition, Vol. 43, and don’t know about more recent availabilities, off- or online. In an extended, interesting essay for that release, Luigi Bellingardi quotes (or paraphrases—can’t quite tell) Furtwängler on his conducting of Wagner: ” . . . everything is fluent transition . . .to help the singer according to the requirements of the part and at the same time to shape the whole in order to transcend any of the details—this is the special task of a conductor of Wagner who must harmonize the theatrical logic of the action on stage with the symphonic logic of the orchestra.” Thank you, W.F.

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NEXT TIME: Two Verdi revivals, Luisa Miller and Il Trovatore, will afford some food for further thought about the general darkening of vocal timbre, especially in male voices, and to catch up with Sonya Yoncheva, who I rather left in the lurch back with The Traviata With the Clock. In two week’s time.