On Tuesday, December 17, 1996 at 12:00:00 AM UTC-8, Stefan wrote:
> enm...@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu (Malcolm Richardson) wrote:
> >Having purchased volume 1 (1933-36) of the history of the Vienna State
> >opera series, I would also be interested in comments on the later volumes.
> >I found this volume containing the earliest material to be rather like
> >electical Mapleson cylinders, with all kinds of odd and very short cuts
> >ending and beginning suddenly and the perfomances variable and most of the
> >best of them found elsewhere with better sound, like the Melchior
> >Gotterdammerung excerpts. I can't say I'd walk across the street to hear
> >poor-sounding fragments of performances by Charles Kullman or Anny
> >Konetzni and other so-so singers of the the time, either, not to mention
> >the Vienna State opera chorus. The Flagstad Immolation Scene under
> >Weingartner is worth the price of the set, however. And I say all this as
> >someone who can listen to 30s broadcasts with pleasure, if they are
> >pleasureable broadcasts. However, the reviews in Fanfare made some of the
> >later volumes sound more attractive.
> >
> >One further question for anyone owning this set: there's an Aida scene
> >supposedly with Lauri-Volpi, but I'd be willing to bet money that it's
> >really Pertile singing, in any case not Lauri-Volpi.
> >--
> >Malcolm Richardson
> enm...@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu (Malcolm Richardson) wrote:
> >Having purchased volume 1 (1933-36) of the history of the Vienna State
> >opera series, I would also be interested in comments on the later volumes.
> >I found this volume containing the earliest material to be rather like
> >electical Mapleson cylinders, with all kinds of odd and very short cuts
> >ending and beginning suddenly and the perfomances variable and most of the
> >best of them found elsewhere with better sound, like the Melchior
> >Gotterdammerung excerpts. I can't say I'd walk across the street to hear
> >poor-sounding fragments of performances by Charles Kullman or Anny
> >Konetzni and other so-so singers of the the time, either, not to mention
> >the Vienna State opera chorus. The Flagstad Immolation Scene under
> >Weingartner is worth the price of the set, however. And I say all this as
> >someone who can listen to 30s broadcasts with pleasure, if they are
> >pleasureable broadcasts. However, the reviews in Fanfare made some of the
> >later volumes sound more attractive.
> >
> >One further question for anyone owning this set: there's an Aida scene
> >supposedly with Lauri-Volpi, but I'd be willing to bet money that it's
> >really Pertile singing, in any case not Lauri-Volpi.
> >--
> >Malcolm Richardson
> I bought all 24 volumes -- sometimes I got vaguely desperate - but the
> overall impression was tremendously gratifying. But you learn more about
> let's say orchestral playing practices and performing traditions than
> about the actual performances sometimes. Then suddenly comes a revelation
> Anny Konetzni is out of her ordinary mezzo'ish self as Ariadne with free
> gleaming top notes, or you discover Rose Merker another GREAT
> hochdramatische you never heard of or you get to hear the original
> version of large chunks of Carmina Burana with solo singers instead of
> chorus. And there are treasures like the excerpts from Palestrina with
> Witt and Rethy (she is fabulously well represented in everything from
> Lauretta to 3rd Norn and she only made operetta records after the war)...

(Youtube upload):

"Mozart/R. Strauss - Idomeneo - Excerpts - Sabel, Böttcher, Réthy, Konetzni - Strauss (1941)"