Kirsten Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior sing Gotterdammerung

[violinthief]

This is a public domain video that has been subjected to a bogus copyright claim by GoDigital GmbH. They are scumbags who should be imprisoned. Please do not click on any links on this video.

[VivaRenata]

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but was the conductor of this recording not Edwin McArthur? He was mainly acknowledged as Flagstad's accompanist from 1935 on, but was also an excellent and knowledgeable conductor of opera, which this recording demonstrates!

[lewashcliffe]

Not only were Melchior and Flagstad the greatest singers of their genre, they were amazining musicians as well. Singing a complex piece of Wagnerian opera where the singers have their harmonic lines which interweave and blend while the orchestra has its own melodic line that at times if very different from the singers. Real musicianship of the highest order, the way Wagner wanted it. Thank you for the recording.

[Goetterdaemmerung7]

"Zu neuen Taten, teurer Helde" ... Can anyone suggest to me a way of finding Der Ring des Nibelungen with Kirsten as Bruennhilde? I've only been able to find the Vienna of Georg Solti's recording, and am more or less new to the Opera, I would like to know how many recordings of Der Ring were produced and available?

[TomC1447]

@Goetterdaemmerung7 there is a complete ring from la scala on disc furtwangler conducts

[opera1232010]

Both are magnific! What a great singers they were... That was the great voice time my friend.

Thanks for sharing

Greeting from Canada

Pierre Heroic tenor

[chepin85]

Nobody ever sang "O heilige Gottern" as easily and a beautifully as Flagstad. The High C just flows out of her so easily.

[13loomisst]

Thanks you very much.

[AulicExclusiva]

The singing here is, of course, Fabulous. Still, the effort to get the whole thing in two sides makes some passages just a little bit perfunctory, something that would probably not have happened if Victor had gone to the expense of hiring a conductor other than Flagstad's butler, Edwin MacArthur.

[Tiefland1913]

@AulicExclusiva

What a completely unnecessary comment. You have obviously not read The MacArthur Biography nor Biancolli's The Manuscript.

[clytemnestre1]

Yes wonderful. Which year?

[Bivolari]

@clytemnestre1 I believe the year was 1939. An RCA recording conducted by Edwin McArthur.

[Imogenn]

To die for!

Gorgeous singing!

[mikemraz]

TRISTANISSIMO!!!!!!!!

[24yotenor]

I wish the poster would take the time to traslate this video in the info section. The music alone is beautiful but when combined wih the an understanding of text, it becomes truely mistifying .

[ElisabettaVS]

you could just google the libretto? just an idea... that's what I do if there are no video informations...

[saagua1953]

The two of them together at the Met must have made it the golden age of Wagner in the 20th century. The way her powerful voice projects with such ease is incredible. Melchoir was tireless and his voice as fresh at the end of a long Wagner opera as it was at the beginning.

[Bivolari]

They make it sound so easy! Even in their time they were special.

[AndyBetts]

there's an old saying: The great ones make it look easy. It's true of athletes, singers, everyone.

[vidiegoquam]

What a Siegfried!!! Flagstad is of course exquisite, and in dazzling control, but Melchior outstrips other Siegfrieds I have heard by an astonishing margin.

[gundhari]

Was man alles aus der Vergangenheit zu hören bekommt!!! Besseres als die gab es danach nicht mehr; auch Birgit/Windgassen reichen da nicht heran. Melchior/Flagstad: das Ideal. Wie "schön" kann Wagner klingen, wenn so gut gesungen. Kraft ohne Geschrei. Sichere Intonation und klare, schöne Gesangslinien. Das gibts wohl nicht wieder.

[Imogenn]

You are absolutely right :)

[paulostroff99]

Two of the greatest singers that ever lived! Brava! Bravo! .

[rawdonqueen]

Does anyone know whether tapes exist of any of Flagstad's performances after her return to the Met in 1951? According to the Met archives, there was a Ring Cycle, plus performances of Tristan, Fidelio and Gluck's Alceste.

[OperaBaritoneJoe]

I also want this performance.

[salmagundiConsort]

I love the way Flagstad's voice just soars over the orchestra. She dominates that beast like no one else can.

[niallguinan]

The two most beautiful instruments ever heard.

[racer500gp]

No one did Wagner better than Lauritz Melchior. Simply, the best ever.

[petrof4056]

THIS IS WAGNER!! Write Wagner! Magnific Flagstad and Melchior.

[profgv]

These 2 were the great wagnerian voices of the mid 20th century. Amazing stamina and beauty. The Guild has a complete Gotterdammerung with these giants. Flagstad's voice just glides with such richness there. She dosen't take the final top note in the duet but it doesn't matter at all. By the end of the evening, for the Immolation, she is still in fresh voice. The recording is put together from several sources. Flagstad and Melchior were one of a kind.

[karlakor]

profgv--What do you mean when you say that Flagstad doesn't take the final top note in the duet? It's there for the hearing. Do you mean that someone else took it for her? That note is there.

[j72050]

..come on..listen to McArthur, conductor, gasp at the ending....a friend of Flagstad....he knew this was a once in a million years recording....the singers are dead, but their lives and sound lives forever....

[falklandgreen]

WOW! For about 45 years I've been wondering if anyone else knows about McArthur... Just the other day I was telling a Wagner fanatic in a forum that McAdoes a far better job with the immolation scene than furtwangler... I just know of him through an old 78 set, which i haven't heard for decades, but can't forget.

[ElliePearl]

They were gods.

[falklandgreen]

I knew a couple of elderly Danes who had spent time in the army with Melchior... He was a great fellow, but as far from God as you can get. Or maybe he could've been some kind of Norse god with strong carnal desires and a great sense of humor...

[j72050]

...interesting that if listen to Melchior in his earliest days, he really never changed an interpretation....they were fixed and solid from the start....and no other singer compared to him can be called a heldentenor...

[paulostroff99]

Can there ever be,or has there ever been a better Wagnerian duet then these two shining stars that lit up the world! Bravo! TY.

[slobone]

This is just astonishing, I had no idea this recording existed. There aren't many of the two of them together. I hope any of today's opera singers out there will listen and learn -- you don't have to geschrie to sing Wagner.

[Johnny1206]

No other voice in Opera is as rich and beautiful as hers!

[rachmaninovbrahms]

we will never have voices like this again. Melchior's Siegfried is to die for!

[raythetse]

you actually get to hear some ring in flagstads voice in this one! most of the recordings of her on youtube just sound dull due to the old technology.

[gemeni0]

precisely what it does it makes me crazy

[Operaddict]

Wagner loved Italian singers. He wanted everyone who sang his music to sing in an Italianate way. These two singers surely did! Such beautiful legato, lyricism and elegance!

They both excelled in Italian music also, but knew the big bucks were in Wagner's pages!

And pages and pages...

[lovelymess]

Absolute fact. Wagner was very familiar with both Rossini and Bellini. The cannard that Wagner wanted yelling, or "symphonic" operas is not true. Much of the problem has been created by the fact that brass were half as lound in Wagner's time as now.

[mazurmusic7]

Have you researched your statement that "that brass were half as lound in Wagner's time as now.?" I am an orchestral conductor, I've read many, many books on instrumentation, and conducting, and I've never, ever heard such an absurd statement.

[ilbacioditosca]

They were Dramatic Voices that know how to sing, legato and sing piano, and sweet but are not lyric instruments.

[Redteez]

Incredible voices - they don't sing like that anymore!

[paulostroff99]

A Wagner vocal duet collaberation- for the ages.

[Manya1759]

"Heil, Siegfried, siegendes Licht!"

My God, it is SO beautiful!

[Marleneagnes]

Wunderbar!

[Seanvt]

Wonderful!

[danpincus]

Transforming experience. They both are lyrical singers with tremendous voices. Does anyone have the Victor Borge/Melchior skits to share here?

[mxl2003]

This recording isn't by chance still sold commercially, is it?

[j72050]

sure it is.....an Amazon and others

[j72050]

...these notes will never be sung or played this way again...to think Flagstad didnt get into serious career singing till she was 40...astounding

[gibraltarrr]

she was actually singing quite a bit before then, she just started singing wagnerian roles at 40

[violinthief]

True - she sang light opera until her late 30s. At age 38, she first appeared at Bayreuth in minor roles. At age 39, in 1934, she starred at Bayreuth. She sang Sieglinde, and the great Frida Leider was Brunnhilde. Tragically, it was not recorded.

[albertthrelkeld]

She also sang Tosca, Aida, Micaela and other lyric spinto roles in Norwegian before venturing into Wagner. She longed to return to the Italian repertoire, but after her American debut in Sieglinde, then Isolde, she was strictly type cast as a Wagnerian.

[dannymaestro]

She was the leading soprano in Gothenburg the years before Bayreuth and sang the usual lyric spinto repertoire.

[j72050]

...can you hear the conductor...McArthur...friend of Flagstad...gasp at the end...he knew this is a historic recording

[65attila]

I though the gasp at the end was Flagstad's but really not important. These singers were beyond unique in quality and quantity of voice and it wounded so easy coming from them.

Thank you for posting.

[Tiefland1913]

@65attila

Not Flagstad :) It cuts off a bit short here. When I listen to it on my recording it can clearly be heard it is a mans voice.

[sfkcbf]

So few singers truly can sing Wagner. Here are two of the very best!

[TrejosEd]

Flawless, a classic with these unforgettable Wagnerian singers! Danke Violinthief