The production of Wagner's overgrown Grail tale Parsifal from the shrine at Bayreuth, directed by the composer's grandson Wieland and first staged in 1951, was famously spare in its design; the conductor, Hans Knappertsbusch ("Kna," to perfect Wagnerites), thought the sets were still to be constructed and was chagrined to find that there really were very few. Vocally, however, the music was luxuriant. By the time of this 1955 live recording, most of the singers, including Martha Mödl as Kundry, were veterans of the production, and there was a strong newcomer, baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Amfortas, already with his characteristic honeyed tone. The production was recorded in the studio in 1951, with somewhat better sound than on this release, but really, the live sound is impressive for 1955 (some of the credit should go to Hänssler Classic's remastering), and text intelligibility is great. Further, Knappertsbusch is known to have preferred live performance to recording, and the production benefits from a good deal of forward motion; sample around and compare timings with other recordings, for almost everywhere, Knappertsbusch comes in faster than average. Yet the music never feels rushed in any way. Of course, several generations of Wagner singers have come and gone since this recording was made, but for those wanting to experience Wagner "from the source," this may be a prime choice despite its age. © James Manheim /TiVo

Taken from several live performances at the Gasteig in Munich in early 2023, this recording of Wagner's Siegfried made classical best-seller charts later that year. It is part of a series that began in 2016, intending to record the entire Ring Cycle live. The recordings have all been successful, and this is testimony to the skills of conductor Simon Rattle. There are conductors' Wagner performances, and there are singers' Wagner performances. This is the former. The Bavarian Radio Symphony seizes the listener's attention from the opening bell, and the energy never flags. There is nothing objectionable about the singers, but few of them will stick in one's head. The exception, perhaps, is soprano Anja Kampe as Brunnhilde (and Danae Kontora as the Voice of the Forest Bird); Kampe, of course, doesn't enter until the end, but at that point, everything comes together for a really thrilling conclusion of "radiant love, laughing death." Although these were live performances, they might just as well have been made in a studio; Bavarian Radio's engineering in its hometown is superbly detailed, and the audience discipline is awesome (no applause or other crowd noise of any kind is retained). There is a liveliness to Rattle's Wagner that sets it apart from performances in the German tradition, and it is fully on display in this recording.© James Manheim /TiVo

Parsifal is the second installment in Pentatone's ambitious project to record Wagner's ten important operas between in 2011 and 2013 in celebration of the bicentennial of his birth, featuring live concert performances with Marek Janowski leading Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and Rundfunkchor Berlin. Janowski is an old hand at Wagner, having conducted the first (and very fine) digital recording of The Ring, and he brings a sure understanding and unified conception to Parsifal. One of its most immediately noticeable characteristics is its urgency, which essentially means faster tempos. His version at three and three-quarters hours is nearly a half hour shorter than classic recordings like Knappertsbusch's 1951 Bayreuth version and Solti's Decca release. What's gained is a momentum and sense of dramatic movement in an opera that's notorious for bogged-down performances. It also has the effect of making the opera seem more personal, even intimate at moments, because the momentum gives the dialogue between characters such immediacy. Janowski is sensitive to allowing the music plenty of space to unfold where it calls for evoking a timeless expansiveness, such as the scenes in the Hall of the Grail. The orchestra and chorus perform with seamless assurance and with a velvety sensuality. Janowski keeps textures transparent so that details of the scoring are easily audible, and that transparency also contributes to the intimacy of his reading. The exemplary vocal performances are uniformly very fine, and the singers bring an acute sense of drama to their roles and their interactions The recording is blessed with a wealth of expressive, resonant, tonally sumptuous, and clearly differentiated low voices, including Evgeny Nikitin as Amfortas, Dimitry Ivashchenko as Titurel, Franz-Josef Selig as Gurnemanz, and Eike Wilm Schulte as Klingsor. Christian Elsner is a passionate Parsifal and his ringing tenor is heroic and robust. As Kundry, Michelle DeYoung sings with warmth and poignancy and is especially effective in her rich lower register. The sound of the hybrid multichannel SACD is immaculate and spacious.© TiVo

The world was due for a major new recording of Wagner's Parsifal, with some years having elapsed since the monster, four-hour work had seen a fresh one. There are a number of attractions to this one, recorded live at the Vienna State Opera in 2021. First is the production, designed and directed from house arrest in Russia by Kirill Serebrennikov. The version was controversial at the time, and subsequent events have made it timely. Serebrennikov transplants the tale to a modern prison, with characters in tracksuits and the like; the complex witch Kundry is (believe it or not) a photojournalist. None of this affects the singing, which is done straight, but the release graphics give one an idea. The major draw for many listeners, and probably the one that put the album on classical best-seller charts in early 2024, will be the presence of star tenor Jonas Kaufmann, in fine form in the title role (and album listeners get to avoid the flashback staging designed to circumvent that fact that the 50-something Kaufmann was playing a young man). The instrumental work from the Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper is very strong. However, what really puts this performance in the history books is the performance of mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca as Kundry. This was apparently her first appearance in a Wagner opera, but in the top-volume material in Act III, she is fully Kaufmann's equal. Some may find that she carries the whole production, with a rising line of intensity running through the whole giant structure. In any event, even listeners who own the Parsifal of Herbert von Karajan or one of the other classic readings will want to check this recording out.© James Manheim /TiVo

Richard Strauss' Die Frau ohne Schatten, Op. 65 (1911), has been called the last Romantic opera, and it pushes singers to their limits. It requires powerhouse Wagner-Strauss specialists, especially in the lead female roles of the Empress and the Nurse, and it receives them here in Camilla Nylund and Evelyn Herlitzius, respectively. They make an impressive pair, with Herlitizius' slashing soprano a vivid counterpoint to Nylund's soaring one, but ultimately, Die Frau ohne Schatten is a conductor's opera. It failed at first, with its complex snarl of orchestral parts, and it requires a leader who can control all of the layers of sound. Those at this live 2019 production from the Vienna State Opera spoke in awe of conductor Christian Thielemann's cool, minimal gestures, seemingly at odds with the oversized fairy-tale story, but essential to communicating it musically. Strands of orchestral texture spring into focus and then link up with what is coming next, nor does he let the vocally virtuosic cast take star turns; they work as an ensemble. Orfeo's live sound has a minimum of interference with the listener's enjoyment. Whatever one thinks of Thielemann, this is a major notch in his baton. © TiVo

With this set of 12 cantatas, a few of them quite short, Dutch historical-instrument conductor Ton Koopman approaches the end of his monumental traversal of the complete Bach cantata corpus. The cantatas here mostly date from the last two decades of Bach's life. By this time Bach had cantatas from earlier cycles ready for most occasions pertaining to the liturgical year. Several of the works here were written for special occasions -- weddings in at least two cases. The orchestration for the most part is large and varied, with several pieces including trumpets and tympani; the Cantata No. 195, "Dem Gerechten muß das Licht," BWV 195, features a dazzling array of strings, oboe, oboe d'amore, transverse flutes, horns, trumpets, bassoon, timpani, and continuo. The result is that these pieces play to the strengths of Koopman's interpretations: the warm, flawless blend of the Amsterdam Baroque Choir and the sharp differentiation of the instruments within what remains a big, festive sound overall. The famous cantata in this group is the Cantata No. 140, "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme," BWV 140, with its "Sleepers Awake" chorale and its lovely variations on a pastoral theme. Sample the opening chorus (CD 2, track 1) for an idea of what you can expect in the various large choruses in the lesser-known cantatas in the set: each has its nice textural touches, and not a one gets lost in Koopman's expert interpretation. Hear the "Welt, ade, ich bin dein müde" (World, goodbye, I am tired of you) movement of the Cantata No. 158, "Der Friede sei mit dir," BWV 158, for an example of Koopman at his best: this odd combination of a bass aria with mantra-like interjections of the chorale from the choir's sopranos would throw a lesser conductor. The soloists in this set are also unusually effective. Soprano Sandrine Piau's voice is unhampered by the high pitch Koopman employs, and her soaring lyricism makes an effective foil for the unusual, rather English horn-like timbre of the alto of Bogna Bartosz. There is something a bit cool in Koopman's readings; for deep humanistic insights into Bach's music, the evolving cantata set by John Eliot Gardiner may be preferable. But in the public, festive music heard here, this lion of the historical-performance movement is hard to beat. © TiVo