Surcease arrives early on with the first utterances from the throat of Friedrich Schorr, the Amfortas, greeting the woodland morning after his night of agony. His beautiful brownish-maroon timbre, his steadiness and firmly bound legato, his trust in what is in the music and in his own mastery of unexaggerated effect, draw us instantly into both the the King’s plight and his nobility, and the simple fact of his vocal type—a true Heldenbariton, not a voice of lighter, higher structure—reminds us of the great advantages of an instrument native to a role’s setting. His scene here is at one with the Prelude, taken slowly, and with the sparseness of the orchestral setting, each little event registers its full gravity. Schorr’s voice continues to respond well in the first Grail Scene, with the impassioned plea of “Nein! Lasst  ihn unenthüllt!“, and in the quieter, more prayerful one in Act 3 (“Mein Vater! Hochgesegneter der Helden!“). (In this first Grail scene, the fine bass of Norman Cordon also rumbles up nicely from Titurel’s crypt.) But we are three or four seasons too late for a Schorr who could have surmounted the outbursts of protest that follow in Act 3 as the knights demand the unveiling of the Grail—the top Fs, F sharps, and G aren’t there, and he is obliged to resort to evasive, unmusical solutions for the brief but crucial passage.

With the beginning of Act 2 (the Profane Act—you may applaud) a fresh atmosphere arrives no matter who’s conducting, and it’s a shame that we aren’t able to evaluate Bodanzky’s integral reading. Of course both players and singers were growing accustomed to Leinsdorf (see above), and had performed the whole opera under him just 36 hours earlier. In addition, given the two-and-a-half decades of Bodanzky’s leadership, one wonders just how much of a nudge he was able to give everyone. Although he does move things along and one senses that Melchior and Flagstad aren’t always happy about that, there is no feel of any general pit/stage unsettlement, save perhaps among the Flower Maidens, and we do hear at least in embryonic form some of the characteristics we came to associate with Leinsdorf in his long symphonic and operatic career—no-nonsense, rather inflexible pacing and an antiseptic sound not very well suited to important episodes in this act, during which our attention  will of course be on Melchior and Flagstad. But we do have the Klingsor and Blumenmädchen scenes first, so let’s not pass them by. After an impatient-sounding Act 2 Prelude (Bodanzky’s would undoubtedly have been slower and weightier), we hear first Arnold Gabor, who served the Met for some eighteen years in secondary roles of the German repertory. His voice comes across as strong and healthy, and he certainly conveys a sense of the character, though for my taste too often in a barked, parlato fashion. Among his solo Blumenmädchen are six of the Met’s most reliable female supporting singers of the time, but on the broadcast it’s hard to make out what they’re up to. I think they are being pushed a little faster than they’re used to, and on mic, with their open Midwestern vowels, they come across as brash, loud American girls.