Overrated Recordings

The last thing I would want to do is stir up some thorny discussion re Callas v other great sopranos. I came to opera on disc via stereo recordings made mostly during the 70's and 80's and at the time did not want to go as far back as the 1950's or even the 1960's. My admiration and even love of the voices of Sutherland, Caballe, Freni, Sills and many others is very much undiminished. If I was limited to just one version of any opera set it is unlikely that any of Callas' sets would be my first choice.

I agree we should start another thread for Callas, but that topic is so wearying after a while. 

It´s very true, listening to a piece of music, watching a film, reading a book is never the same experience twice. I suppose it´s because we are never the same. We are never in exactly the same mood, and due to the daily accretion of memories, experiences, emotional baggage good and bad of all sorts, we are never in the same state of innocence, openness, disbelief or initial rapture as the first time you experience something. I think this is why we are able to listen to something for a whole lifetime and not get bored, if it, and our reception of it, was exactly the same, surely we wouldn´t want to repeat it.

I beg to differ regarding 'La Boheme'.  The Karajan recording is fine, but I feel the best all-round recording of this is the Beecham one on EMI with de los Angeles, Bjorling, and Merrill.  One of the great gems of recorded music.  My favourite Rodolfo would actually be Carlo Bergonzi in his recording with Tebaldi on Decca.  Such stylish and emotive singing.

I do feel that the de Sabata 'Tosca' with Callas is over-rated, certainly as a purely aural experience.  Gobbi is wonderful, but I find Callas' singing quite ugly in places, although she does act very convincingly through her voice.  I'm not saying it is bad - there are some very fine things about the recording as a whole - but I do feel it is more highly revered than it deserves.

Boheme: I agree with mathewpiano, I thought the Karajan fine until I heard the Beecham: no contest, Beecham livelier and more spontaneous.

Michael Tanner (whose 'Faber Pocket Guide to Wagner' I'd heartily recommend) describes Goodall's Ring Cycle as 'one of the greatest achievements of Wagner interpretation on disc, and is indispensable for probing the depths and details of the inexhaustible work'.

And Richard Lehnert certainly liked it a lot.

What is it that you find so horrifying about it? 

Slow and sloppy, the singers forced to drag the orchestra behind it like a Teutonic Bydlo.  Wagner is a long night to begin with; Goodall's sluggish tempi to me is interminable.  And when the big moments come, you gotta deliver.  To these ears, Siegfried's Death and Funeral March is so limp it borders on parody.  The Immolation is one of the most sublime passages in all music, motif after motif crashing upon each other as the world is made anew, and this recording manages to strip it of all drama. I'm aware that Wagner is where Goodall has made his reputation, and that certain respected critics think highly of it.  I'm just simply flummoxed.