R. Strauss: Die Frau Ohne Schatten -- Salzburg Festival/Solti [1992]

Customer Reviews:

High quality performance in every aspect.......2007-05-29

Different from another reviewer's opinion, I think this set is great in music.

I've heard many records of this great masterpiece, including legandary Karl Bohm's 1974 performance in Salzburg. Unfortunately the sound quality of that record is not as good as 1977 one in Wiener Opernhaus (DG), anyway you can still get the whole idea clearly from 1977 one. Bohm's reading of score is my favorite, because this opera is actually not a sentimental lyric opera, it's full of so many, maybe too many dramatic elements and music materials, so that make this opera heavy.

The reason that Bohm's reading better than Sawallisch's is, yes, Sawallisch try to use more transparent sound and more sensitive reading (but in a not slow speed) to show the big score clear, which is successful. However, it makes the final performance a little bit low temperture and less powerful. What Bohm did is crush every material together in a extreme discipline, and in a fast speed, even in 1977, several years before his death. The result is incredibly tense and burning hot as a whole, also singing in some lyric parts.

Back to Solti's work. I agree that the CD record is not very satisfying, both in performance and recording. But this DVD is just great. Solti's music is a little bit less "singing" than Sawallisch's or Bohm's, but in this live performance, Wiener philharmoniker played so good and so powerful. Listen to any orchestral tense part, ex. the end of act 2, you'll know.

Singers are very nice, the complete version of this opera is not very easy to sing on stage. C. Studer's clear voice is more powerful than I imagined, like sharp glass. Lipovsek is a must-see, an unbelievable woman. Trefel didn't sing a lot, but he sung like a god, not a gatekeeper.

Friedrich's production is not traditional, but strangely, quite nice for me (I'm not a big fan of experimental stage set). Maybe because this opera is quite imaginative itself. People sometimes looks too pale, especially C. Studer; but again strangely, her round face looks more convicing as a queen that way (sorry). Seducing sence in act 1, final sence of act 2 and test sence(drinking water) of act 3 are especially creative.

In sum, it's the best video set you can have for this opera; for music, better than most of CD records you can find.

An OK production but leaden musicianship.......2006-09-22

I first got to know "Die Frau" in the late 80s from the cassette version of Karl Böhm's 1977 live Vienna performance and the CD version of Wolfgang Sawallisch's 1987 studio performance. I was particularly taken with the opera after hearing Sawallisch's performance, with its romantic, shimmering orchestral textures and wonderful recording quality, although I felt perhaps that there was room for even greater passion at key points.

Guided by the many positive critical reviews, I snapped up Solti's studio performance when it came out on CD. Unfortunately, contrary to the view of most critics, I found the Solti inferior to Sawallisch both in terms of musicianship and recording. I wondered then (and I wonder now) whether the starry cast and the fact that it was the first opera recording to cost £1 million somehow made the critics lose their objectivity. The studio recording was in fact made over a number of years and this no doubt affected the musical flow.

I therefore bought this DVD in the hope that a live Vienna performance would have the passion I missed in the studio version. Unfortunately not. For me, Solti's conducting here is leaden and unimaginative, the orchestral response flat and generalised. It was a real effort to watch until the end of the opera. I always wonder on such occasions whether it's my reaction to the music rather than the interpretation, but afterwards I played my Sawallisch CDs and found the Straussian magic I was missing.

I have found other Solti opera recordings excellent, in particular his "Elektra", so I can only assume this was an off day for conductor and orchestra. A pity, as the acting of some of the singers is affecting (notably Marjana Lipovsek as The Nurse and Robert Hale as Barak) and the opera is well staged and recorded.

Delightful production, overall success........2003-06-26

In the same year this live performance was recorded, during the summer Salzburg Festival, Decca released Sir Georg's studio-recorded version, which, as was the case with Sawallisch's for EMI of some years before, was note-complete but shows a cast altogether different from the one hired for him by the Salzburg Festival. Solti had acquiesced to the usual theatre cuts for his series of performances for Covent Garden during the 1960's, but later on insisted in presenting the work complete, whether for the public or in the studio, so we may presume this performance is complete, although it is neither so advised in the booklet nor could I check it with a score. The point is important because one of the key parts, that of The Nurse, has been cut almost from the work's first performances some eighty years ago, especially in the last act, on grounds of its fearsome difficulty ("those passages are unsingable" was the term coined by some of the singers during Strauss's time), but this performance shows the unnecessariness of such cutting the rôle as taken by Marjana Lipovsek, a singer whose untimely death one regrets daily. It is the crown jewel of the set, a true performance to serve as a reference for many years to come, fabulously sung and supremely well acted.
Studer is very good as The Empress, singing beautifully if rather wanting in the acting side. Strauss gave this character some of his most inspired pages ever and Studer, her voice soaring majestically above the vast Salzburg venue, acquits herself with top honours. Moser proves a handsome Emperor, slightly light-voiced for the rôle perhaps, but is very effective, looking every inch the part (Solti used Plácido Domingo in his studio recording referred to above). The Barak character, the Emperor's human counterpart, is taken here by Robert Hale, whose voice was perhaps past its prime by 1992 but he none the less was still able to portray the dyer quite well (some older readers may refer to Walter Berry's impersonation, preserved on disc but better still if they were lucky enough to catch him live, but they will be surprised by Hale's success). And now to Bark's Wife, the Empress's human counterpart and taken here by Eva Marton: by 1992 her voice had deteriorated significantly and her impersonation of the part, no matter how passionate and well acted, is marred by a very serious wobble and proves the set's minus side (and its missing the 5th star in my rating, which the set would have otherwise deserved). The supporting parts are very affective, no less so Andrea Rost as the Falcon. Solti conducts with his customary nervousness and the Vienna Philharmonic play like gods, they do show they have this music in their bones, having played the score more times (one hesitates to use the term "more often" in an opera so seldomly played) than any other ensemble.

The Friedrich production, with handsome sets by Rolf Glittenberg that effectively convey the parallel fantasy and human planes where the action develops is fascinating to watch, the sound has been very vividly caught by the joint team of ORF (Austrian Public Radio & TV) and Decca, and visual production for home viewing is sensitive and unobtrusive, allowing you to form a wholesome picture of the actual Salzburg proceedings of a decade ago.

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