Brigitte Fassbaender

Filmed in 1979, this delightful staging by Otto Schenk features outstanding singer-actresses Gwyneth Jones, Brigitte Fassbaender and Lucia Popp. Der Rosenkavalier is Richard Strauss’s most popular opera and the greatest comic opera since Mozart. Premiered just three years before the start of the First World War, the opera traces the artistic heritage of the Austrian-Hungarian empire in the days of Mozart, where the story is set, to the morbid distraction of the Viennese Art Nouveau.

Recorded at the Vienna State Opera house in 1989, this staging of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Elektra is one of the glories of live opera on film, deserving of eternal availability. The DVD picture has great clarity, despite the darkness of Hans Schavernoch’s set design. Other than the cliché of a huge statue head, toppled on its side, the set manages to be suitably representative of a decaying palace as well as an imposing, theatrical space, dominated by the mammoth body of the statue from which the head apparently dropped, draped with the ropes that seem to have enabled the decapitation. Sooner or later most of the characters cling to and twist around those ropes, an apt stage metaphor for the remorseless repercussions from the murder of Agammenon by his unfaithful wife Klytämnestra and her paramour, Aegisthus. Reinhard Heinrich’s costumes capture a distant era while sustaining a creepily modern look — part Goth, part homeless, part Spa-wear.

The extraordinary hold Fassbaender exerts over audiences, in the concert hall and on record, surely derives from her singular strength of personality reflected in her dark, vibrant mezzo with its emotional overtones evident in every bar she sings. Even when an excess of vibrato intervenes, which happens seldom in this recital, it seems part of the very individual and immediately recognizable Fassbaender manner.

Catherine Gayer makes a spirited, fresh sounding Adonis and Brigitte Fassbaender as Venus is superb throughout; Venus's ''Augelletti, si cantate'' has an almost irresistible allure and her radiant duet with Adonis at the conclusion of the work is something to treasure. The instrumental accompaniment is excellent of its kind and of its vintage, with a notable contribution from Hans-Martin Linde on the sopranino recorder. This is, in a word, enlightened music-making which brings a ravishing score to life affectionately and convincingly. Excellent recorded sound and a considerable adornment to Archiv Galleria's otherwise arbitrary and mainly disappointing selection of reissues.

Liederkreis, Op. 39, is a song cycle composed by Robert Schumann. Its poetry is taken from Joseph von Eichendorff's collection entitled Intermezzo. Schumann wrote two cycles of this name – the other being his Opus 24, to texts by Heinrich Heine – so this work is also known as the Eichendorff Liederkreis. Schumann wrote, "The voice alone cannot reproduce everything or produce every effect; together with the expression of the whole the finer details of the poem should also be emphasized; and all is well so long as the vocal line is not sacrificed." Liederkreis, Op. 39, is regarded as one of the great song cycles of the 19th century, capturing, in essence, the Romantic experience of landscape. Schumann wrote it starting in May 1840, the year in which he wrote such a large number of lieder that it is known as his "year of song" or Liederjahr.

Brigitte Fassbaender rose to worldwide fame in the role of Octavian in the Strauss/Hofmannsthal comedy Der Rosenkavalier. Fassbaender took her Octavian to all the major centers including London, Milan, Vienna, New York and Tokyo and continued singing the role for over 20 years.

Giulinis Mahler recordings are few but notable. The earliest is of the First Symphony, made in 1971 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra a performance that seems to radiate from within, full of delicate colours and telling details as well as a strong sense of architecture. Giulini conducted the Ninth Symphony for the first time at Florence in November 1971 before performing it on a number of occasions in Chicago, where he made his famous Deutsche Grammophon recording of the work in 1976.

The chosen repertoire on the album is Gustav Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, recorded 30 June 1983 at the Herkulessaal der Residenz, Munich and Richard Strauss’ Tod und Verklärung, recorded on 17 February 1979 also at the Herkulessaal der Residenz, Munich. For a long time, Tod und Verklärung was the most popular of Richard Strauss’s early tone poems. It contains a wide range of memorable motifs subtly differentiated with the result that its music recurs whenever there is mention of death or transfiguration in Strauss’ later output.

Solti's interpretations held more than surface excitement. In conducting Beethoven, for example, he long held that the symphonies should be played with all their repeats to maintain their structural integrity, and he carefully rethought his approach to tempo, rhythm, and balance in those works toward the end of his life.

Featuring a true golden-age cast, this 1967 Radio Broadcast hums and bubbles with invigorating warmth and unquenchable passion under the sprightly baton of Rafael Kubelik. Thomas Stewart is a intelligent Sachs, who brings real weight and power to the great Act III monologue but who retains real lyricism for the role's more tender moments. It would be inconceivable that Gundula Janowitz's creamy-voiced Eva would pass him over if it were not for the ardent, fiery Walther of Sándor Kónya, who gives voice to an ethereal rendition of the Prize song. Thomas Hemsley is an nuanced Beckmesser thankfully devoid of caricature, and Franz Crass is a warm, fatherly Pogner. Brigitte Fassbaender may be the most sensuous Magdalena on record, and is paired expertly by the great Gerhard Unger, at his considerable best as David.