As more and more recordings are released from Austrian Radio archives of performances in the period just after the State Opera's re-opening in 1955, they confirm what a golden era it was. Here to enthral Straussians are three complete operas, and extracts (on two CDs) of several others.
The most arresting, indeed utterly thrilling set, is the 1972 Salome, lauded to the skies at the time for its musical virtues and, for the most part, for its Klimt-inspired staging. The contemporary praise for its singing and conducting is more than amply confirmed here. Rysanek, in pristine voice, sings the Salome of one's dreams. With a Wagner-sized voice but also one capable of refined pianissimos, she rises to every vocal challenge with ease, confidence and consummate intelligence. Her interpretation catches both the wilfulness and lasciviousness of the teenage princess, reaching a climax in every sense for the opera's final scene, which Rysanek sings as a sustained, rapturous love song in that intense, sensual, sensuous manner that was her trademark. At the same time she treats the text as to the manner born. Inspired by the live occasion and by her conductor (one of her greatest admirers), she gives her all in an account of the role that puts just about everyone else, Ljuba Welitsch apart, in the shade.
Bohm is the other star of the occasion. Underlining and supporting Rysanek's reading, drawing at once chamber-music refinement and ecstatic colours from the Vienna Philharmonic, he fulfils every aspect of the score, making it sound as revolutionary in style as it must have seemed at its premiere. All this is caught in an acoustic so much more natural than the larger-than-life sound on Decca's two recordings and the recent Chandos.
Waechter repeats his Jokanaan from the Decca/Solti version (3/62R), but here he is, on stage, in more electrifying form. So is Kmentt as Narraboth. Hopf has all the notes for Herod, even though his singing of them is sometimes clumsy, and Hoffman is a rough-hewn Herodias, but their relative inadequacies cannot keep me from urgently recommending this recording to anyone who likes real music-theatre.
Bohm's other live recording, from 1970 at Hamburg (DG, 11/71R), has Gwyneth Jones as a less satisfying Salome than Rysanek. Jones features here as the eponymous heroine of Die Agyptische Helena, a 1970 revival of the least successful in the Strauss/Hofmannsthal canon. Not even a good staging, a well-controlled reading from Joseph Krips and a respectable though not outstanding cast can compensate for a ludicrous plot and an indifferent score. Jones is already prone to wobble but does better than on the only studio recording (Decca, 12/79R). Thomas is a fiery Menelaus, Glossop a sonorous Altair, but the best singing comes from Schreier in the cameo role of Da-ud.
So the ear turns with relief to the composer-librettist partnership in its prime in Der Rosenkavalier, this performance being one of the jewels of the re-opening programme in 1955. Here again one encounters a living, lived-in tradition of performing Strauss's opera that has virtually been lost. It is there in Knappertsbusch's unforced, steady yet flowing interpretation, with its wonderfully uninhibited handling of the waltz rhythms and its touches of pawky humour, to all of which the orchestra lovingly responds. It proved to be the veteran conductor's farewell to the house - and a more than worthy one.
Reining, Jurinac and Gueden repeat their association heard on the Decca recording under Erich Kleiber two years earlier (10/54R). In the circumstances of a live performance they are even more compelling; indeed I have seldom if ever heard the close of Acts 1 and 3 sung with such wondrous understanding of the emotions involved. In the pathos of her tone, the weighting of the text and the sheer beauty of her voice (except under pressure at the top) Reining is an ideal Marschallin. Has 'Dass alles ist geheim, so viel geheim' in the Act 1 monologue ever sounded so moving? It's a reading on a par with della Casa's in the Karajan 1960 set on DG (9/99) and with Lehmann's.
Jurinac, even more than for Kleiber, and in better voice than on the Karajan version, makes the perfect Octavian. Being a soprano as Strauss intended for the role, she soars on high without strain and is the ardent, impetuous youth to the life. Gueden is as good as for Kleiber and easier on the heights than for Karajan, and evinces the right touch of mettle for the role. Bohme made Ochs a speciality and, heard live, gives us a richly ripe portrait of the role, seldom exaggerating its humour. In support, the cast of Viennese regulars are well-versed in their roles, but Poell's Faninal sounds distinctly rusty. The mono sound is good, the stage noises seldom intrusive.
As it happens, the two-CD set of 'Strauss Prima Donnas' in Vienna begins with two extracts from the 1933 EMI highlights. Lehmann's Marschallin monologue is done as one remembered it to be. In the Rose Presentation Olszewska is a heavy, mezzo Octavian but Schumann, after 66 years, remains the sweetest and most accurate of Sophies. The Konetzni and Welitsch items - the latter's astonishing 1948 Salome - also derive from EMI's studios. The legendary 1944 Ariadne, given on Strauss's 80th birthday, has also been available before (DG, 11/94, and Preiser, 11/94). Gueden in the final scene of Daphne, ethereal, silver-voiced, is familiar from the DG issue (7/65R) of the complete performance.
Everything else here is new and taken live from the State Opera. The extracts from the 1955 Frau ohne Schatten has the same cast as the Decca studio set (4/68R) of the same year. The second extract has the young Rysanek singing fabulously as the Empress in her Act 3 solo. Schwarzkopf recorded the final scene of Capriccio in the studio, but here, in what must have been a memorable evening in 1960, she adds the extra frisson offered by a live occasion, singing with lustrous tone. Della Casa and Rothenberger were familiar partners as Arabella and Zdenka: this Act 1 scene is a nice souvenir of their collaboration. A year later, in a glorious, highly dramatic partnership, Nilsson and Waechter sing the Recognition scene from Elektra, and Janowitz is a lovely Ariadne. Here, as elsewhere, Bohm shows himself the supreme Strauss conductor he was, and his players excel themselves for him.
The final offerings, all three from Rosenkavalier, offer us three more Marschallins. Jurinac, who first broached the role at Covent Garden in 1966, and Ludwig as Octavian offer a performance to rival that of Reining and Jurinac (in her earlier role) on the complete set, though Wallberg is a dull conductor. The second extract, from a State Opera performance in Moscow, takes up, more or less, where the first ends. The Marschallin (recorded on the State Opera's visit to Moscow) is not perhaps Rysanek's best Strauss role; she is not quite precise enough of rhythm or word; and Ludwig is a somewhat blowzy Octavian (compared with Jurinac). The set ends with the final duet under Bernstein's loving care, as sweet-toothed as you might expect. Ludwig, now as the Marschallin, has only her 'Ja, ja' to commend her. Grist and Jones do not sing so well as to efface the sounds of Jurinac and Gueden on the complete set, but as a whole this collection is a marvellous souvenir of great nights at the VSO.'