Erda: She must be a contralto of the Schumann-Heink/Olszewska/Onegin/Arndt-Ober sort, or at least a deep mezzo—a voice that sounds rooted in the earth, and that can be shaded with mystery. The two Met performances bring us such a mezzo in ’37 (Kerstin Thorborg), and such a contralto (Karin Branzell, brought back from retirement) in ’51. Thorborg is stupendous, with both roundness and bite in her dramatic-mezzo tone, rising to a powerfully disturbing climax at “wehret dem Recht, herrscht durch Meineid!” With Branzell, we can’t pretend that the freely soaring alto of the ’30s is still with us; the voice has stiffened a bit, the chest grown more dominant. But she still shows what rightness of voice type establishes, and of course brings with her a calmness and insight born of her long experience.

Mime: The voice must be strong in projection at the bottom, but if it is dark and baritonal, we lose nearly all the range of wheedling, plaintive tints, and the potential for characterizing while still singing. The best of my live experience was Paul Kuen, and he’s here on the Keilberth/Bayreuth set. This is, conceivably, the voice of a dwarf, yet undeniably human and not without sympathetic qualities. He’s an alert, pointed interpreter. Some praise also for Peter Klein, of the Stiedry performance, and for Peter Markwort, the highly insinuating Mime of Furtwängler/La Scala. In a special category is Julius Patzak, a distinguished lyric tenor who at the time of the RAI/Rome concert performances was capable of an admirable recorded Florestan. He demonstrates that pure tone, slender but firm, allied with impeccable musicianship and unfailing specificity of interpretive aim (listen to him tick off the first riddle, “welches Geschlecht/tagt in der Erde Tie-fe?“) can make this character as darkly intended and manipulative as he must be, and aesthetically enjoyable at the same time.

And here I am once more, at the end of time allowance, without having spoken of the old-standard Siegfrieds (Melchior, Lorenz, Windgassen) and Brünnhildes (Flagstad, Traubel, Varnay) in this voice-type-rightness capacity. I will try to get out a minipost on the subject in the next week or two.

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NEXT TIME: For the months of June, July, and August, I will be writing one full post per month, starting four weeks from today. The last three years have been extremely intense, and it’s time to ease the pressure. When I resume more frequent postings in September, they will be on a triweekly, not biweekly basis. I look forward to this continuance, and extend thanks to all of you for reading and commenting.

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