Martha Moedl = GLUCK: Orpheus und Eurydice, “Ach, ich habe sie verloren”; BEETHOVEN: Fidelio, “Abscheuler, wo eilt du hin?”; VERDI: 2 arias from Macbeth; Don Carlos, “Verhaengnisvoll war das Geschenk”; BIZET: Carmen 3 arias; WAGNER: Wesendonck-Lieder; arias from Tristan und Isolde; Goetterdaemmerung; Parsifal; MUSSORGSKY: Boris Godunov: “Dimitri! Zarewitsch!” – Martha Moedl, soprano-contralto/Rudolf Schock, tenor/Wolfgang Windgassen, tenor/Johanna Blatter, mezzo-soprano/State Opera Orchestra, Berlin/NWDR Symphony, Hamburg/Northwest German Radio Orchestra, Cologne/Bayreuth Festival Orchestra/Hans Knappertsbusch/Hans Loewlein/Arthur Rother/Joseph Keilberth (Wesendonck)/Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt/Wilhelm Schuechter
Preiser 93460 (2 CDs) 79:40; 78:35 [Distr. by Albany] ****:
Among the stellar vocal personalities of the New Bayreuth reigned Martha Moedl (1912-2001), one of the notable helden-sopranos who would fill the gap left by withdrawal of Kirsten Flagstad and Frieda Leider from the European Wagnerian scene. This Preiser collation 1950-1958 captures Moedl at her dramatic peak, when her stage presence thoroughly complemented her powerful vocal technique and her innate sympathy–and stamina–for the roles for which Furtwaengler, Krauss, and Karajan coveted her contribution. A warm tone, a stratospheric tessitura with a resilient top, and an innate sense of dramatic pacing make her 1954 Isolde with Windgassen an urgently voluptuous experience, resonating with the ardent throes of love and death that culminate–having already been anticipated by the Liebesnacht, Act II–in the Liebestod, in which Moedl proves thrilling without the “metallic” stridency I always found in Birgit Nilsson.
The Brunnhilde’s Immolation Scene from Act III of The Twilight of the Gods benefits from Moedl’s clear diction, abetted by a torrential upward scale and vocal leaps–many centered on the tonic D– accomplished without any break in the natural musical line. The Rhinemaidens’ motifs thoroughly integrate with Brunnhilde’s rising appeals to the forces of fire to expiate the curse of the gods’ theft of the Rhinegold from Alberich, for which Siegfried’s life is forfeit. What furious zeal as Brunnhilde mounts Grane for her own funeral pyre, with an amorous shriek at “sei mir gegruesst!” For those who treasure the Flagstad/Furtwangler collaboration from 23 June 1952, this inscription should prove equally revelatory. For each ounce of incendiary passion in Twilight of the Gods, Moedl provides sweet compassion for Kundry’s aria (Act II, Scene 2) from Parsifal, the orchestra led by veteran Hans Knappertsbusch from 1951 Bayreuth. Dimitri and Marina meet in a love scene from Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, sung in German in 1950 with matinee idol Rudolf Schock, who prior to Wunderlich, had been considered Tauber’s successor. The lyric quality of Marina’s cavatina and evolution into duet easily rivals Puccini for its limpid, fluent phraseology, a natural melos of infinite tenderness that concludes with tympani and full–albeit unaccredited–chorus.
Though I am not partial to Orfeo’s Lament in German, Moedl (rec. 1951) imbues the aria with an ardent sense of loss that moved even Pluto to offer “an iron tear” in pity. As in the Carmen excerpts, the low vocal line calls upon Moedl’s spinto, mezzo-soprano color, hybrid gradations she maneuvers with facile grace. For Leonore’s aria, Moedl communicates the shifting emotions from moral outrage to a renewed inflamed inner confidence with glowing resiliency of voice, especially at “Komm, Hoffnung,” does her color assume an intimate light of righteous confidence. With the 1951 Verdi excerpts from Macbeth–and particularly the Mad Scene–Moedl forces us to compare her eerie characterization favorably with those of Callas and the more contemporary Behrens. At first Lady Macbeth beckons the forces of Night to accelerate her dark purpose; in the latter scene, the spots of blood refuse to leave her besotted hands: “Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him?” The upward low scales and plucked strings accentuate Lady Macbeth’s mental collapse. Elisabeth’s pitiable farewell aria in Don Carlos swells with both pride and heroic loss.
The German Carmen may not convey the ironic carnality of the French, but the three arias for our eponymous heroine allow Moedl to project every sachet of her fatal hips. With Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt, 1958 Hamburg, Carmen’s habanera sways with sultry venom. The seguidilla cavorts with amorous flirtation, the memories of Seville lit by Carmen’s sense of conquest. Only in the final excerpt does Carmen contemplate her dark fate, the inevitable destiny of all who either dally with love or resist its charms. Moedl’s declamatory diction can quite drill a hole in an otherwise implacable wall of death.
Love and death conspire once more in the 1955 set of Wesendonck-Lieder (1857-1858), Moedl here assisted by the venerable Joseph Keilberth, who led the Ring Cycle at Bayreuth that year for its first stereophonic recording. Moedl sails in the first two songs, Der Engel (a theme used in Das Rheingold) and Stehe still! (a theme used in Tristan, Act I) each haunted by a chromatic wistfulness and tragic awareness of the destructiveness of time. The latter songs prepare us for Tristan and aspects of Die Walkuere, especially–In Treibhaus–the Act III Prelude from Tristan. Wonderful viola playing accompanies Moedl’s tragic plaint in the greenhouse. Such ardent passion in Schmerzen’s last phrase, “Solche Schmerzen mir Natur!” In Traueme, Wagner invokes the world of erotic dreams, perhaps even Hamlet’s “what dreams may come,” such that Tristan might sail in the black ship to his star-crossed Isolde. So, when Moedl and Johanna Blatter (Brangaene) colloquy in a 1954 excerpt from Tristan, we well appreciate the conflict between wisdom and passion, duty and ineluctable desire. Kudos not only to the incredible Moedl, but to the under-rated Arthur Rother for his molten conducting in the Tristan excerpts.
— Gary Lemco
