Ward Marston’s restoration of the April 15, 1938 performance of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal by the Metropolitan Opera (Marston 54008-2, 4 CDs) is a release that recommends itself by virtue of its mere existence. Previously circulated only in incomplete and hard-to-listen-to form, it is taken from the only broadcast that preserves the legendary pairing of Lauritz Melchior and Kirsten Flagstad in the roles of Parsifal and Kundry and, exceptionally among Met Wagner performances of that period, is note-complete. It is also the earliest integral recording of the opera save one, a 1936 performance from the Teatro Colón that Marston issued some thirty years ago, and to which I’ll also give attention here. After years of frustration in dealing with the best surviving recorded materials—Marston describes these efforts in unusual detail in his note in the accompanying booklet—he has at last been able to bring the sonic quality to a level representative of listenable restorations from those years, as well as with the consistently high standard set by his own work. Regardless of any enthusiasms or reservations over the particulars of the performance, it is thus a recording that no opera devotee—certainly no Wagnerite—will want to be without.
The Met was in serious difficulties in those mid-to-late Depression years, both artistically and financially, though it’s not as if nothing of note other than Wagner was happening. The season in question, for instance, saw the new production of Otello with Rethberg, Martinelli, and Tibbett, the Elektra revival with the intense Rosa Pauly and a distinguished supporting cast, and the ongoing repertory attractions of such stars as Ezio Pinza, Lily Pons, Lawrence Tibbett, and Lotte Lehmann. But in that same season and the surrounding ones, a third of all performances were of Wagner’s operas, and in all of them save Das Rheingold and Die Meistersinger, Melchior and Flagstad were the usual, if not quite invariable, protagonists. Melchior had been firmly in place, essentially unchallenged in Heldentenor roles, for some dozen years, most effectively partnered in the early ’30s by the superb Frida Leider (see Two Great Wagner Singers, 5/23/23).(I) But it was the arrival, out of nowhere it seemed, of Flagstad that turned Wagner performances into automatic sellouts at a time when sellouts were rare. When Martin Mayer, in the relevant chapter of his history of the Met’s first 100 years, pegged Flagstad’s debut on January 15, 1935 as “the event that saved the Metropolitan Opera,” he was probably guilty of some exaggeration—but not by much. And when in the spring of ’38 the company returned to home base from its annual tour for three post-season performances, all three were of Wagner operas, and all starred Flagstad and Melchior: Parsifal on the evening of Wednesday, April 13th, Parsifal again on the afternoon of the 15th (the present performance), and Tristan und Isolde the very next day, also a matinee; thus, three performances of these challenging scores in less than four full days. For Artur Bodanzky, the Met’s chief Wagner conductor since 1915, the burden was a severe strain on his already precarious health (he died just a year and a half later). His then-assistant, Erich Leinsdorf, had led the Parsifal of the 13th and, in a practice not without precedent, spelled Bodanzky by taking over Act 2 of the April 15th performance. (II)
Footnotes
| ↑I | Melchior did not immediately displace Rudolf Laubenthal, Kurt Taucher, and Walther Kirchoff in the principal Wagner roles upon his debut in February, 1926. At first, he customarily arrived for the second half of the season and sang only a few times; he skipped the season of 1927-28 altogether. It was not until the early ’30s that he could be said to be the Met’s leading Heldentenor, especially in partnership with Leider. |
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| ↑II | To appreciate in full the workload for Melchior, Flagstad, and Bodanzky, it’s necessary to combine the records for the home house with those of the run-out performances that were then regular features of Met seasons, and then with those of the tour. During the sixteen-week 1937-38 home season, Melchior and Flagstad had sung Wagner together 45 times (plus a few performances with other co-protagonists), and as the season approached its end, they and Bodanzky were together for Tristan on March 16 and Parsifal on the 18th; Melchior and Bodanzky for Götterdämmerung on the 19th, with Marjorie Lawrence as Brünnhilde; and Flagstad solo for the season-ending gala on the 20th, singing the Elsa/Ortrud scene with Lawrence and then the “Dich, teure Halle.” The tour began the next day with a Flagstad/Melchior Tannhäuser in Baltimore under Leinsdorf, but Bodanzky was back with his tenor and soprano in Boston for Tristan on the 25th, Parsifal on the 28th, and Walküre on the 30th. Bodanzky then conducted the Rosenkavalier of the 31st, while Melchior and Flagstad sang the Lohengrin on April 2nd under Leinsdorf. Then on to Cleveland for Tristan on the 5th, Bodanzky conducting, and for a Tannhäuser on the 8th with Melchior and Flagstad under Leinsdorf. I should add that another of our principals, Emmanuel List, was kept busy on the tour, too, taking the bass parts in all the works named. |