[ Deutsche Grammophon Spotlight / CD ]
Release Date: Monday 19 March 2007
This item is only available to us via Special Order. We should be able to get it to you in 3 - 6 weeks from when you order it.
To this day Wagner presents special challenges to every singer, and natural Wagner interpreters are rare. One such was the unforgettable Wolfgang Windgassen, the leading postwar Heldentenor, who sang all the major tenor roles - from Rienzi, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin to Siegfried, Tristan and Parsifal - at Bayreuth from 1951 to 1970
Here, in extracts from eight Wagner operas he displays all the lyrical and dramatic qualities of his beautifully natural voice to great advantage. Annelies Küpper also appears, as Elizabeth, in an extended extract from Tannhäuser
Three bonus tracks from Meistersinger complement the original LP, which is appearing for the first time on CD
"If he has stood out well above any Heldentenor or the fifties and sixties, it is not because he had the loudest or most robust voice among his contemporaries, but because his was the most pleasing tone and the smoothest production." "His interpretative art has risen to genuine greatness" - J.B. Steane, The Great Tradition
Rienzi
"Allmächt'ger Vater, blick herab"
Tristan und Isolde
Wie sie selig hehr und milde
Siegfried
"Notung! Notung! Neidliches Schwert!"
"Hoho! Hoho! Hohei! Schmiede, mein Hammer, ein hartes Schwert! Hoho! Hahei! Hoho! Hahei! Einst färbte Blut dein falbes Blau"
Götterdämmerung
"Brünnhilde, heilige Braut" (Siegfrieds Tod)
Parsifal
"Nur eine Waffe taugt"
Lohengrin
"In fernem Land, unnahbar euren Schritten"
"Mein lieber Schwan!"
Tannhäuser
Paris version
"O Fürstin!"
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
"Fanget an!"
"Selig, wie die Sonne"
"Morgenlich leuchtend"