Multi-Media, January 25, 2013

The Fucking A-Team
this is not a recording from some starving prompter who stuffed a primitive recording device down his pants
by Shannon Christy

I would like to preface this by saying I am not a BIG fan of Wagner. This is not to say that I do not respect his talent as an artist or a composer because I do. It just means that I do not worship the man nor do I donate large sums of money to his festival in Bayreuth year after year just in the hope of attending. 

I, however, am a big fan of his music. The tones, the stories, the expressions, are rich. By rich I don’t mean it is something you can indulge in. No. Wagner is something you need to be ready for. I suggest listening to Mozart for foreplay and when you are raring to go and really want to hit your stride but do not want to be disappointed, put in Wagner. His is a mental probing the likes of which you need lube to slide into.

Once there you need the fucking A-team of talent to take you on this journey. If the talent is not there you will be frustrated, with an overwhelming sense of disappointment, anger, and disgust. 

This is state of the art equipment, set up by very talented people dedicated to preserving this performance for posterity.

The album of Tristan Und Isolde I chose to review is THE fucking A-team of talent. Karl Böhm is the conductor with Birgit Nilsson as Isolde and Wolfgang Windgassen as Tristan. It is a live performance from the Bayreuther Festival in 1966. It is a recording from Deutsche Grammophon, which is the Rolls Royce of live recordings. Unlike other early performances this is not a recording from some starving prompter who stuffed a primitive recording device down his pants. This is state of the art equipment, set up by very talented people dedicated to preserving this performance for posterity.

Context is needed to explain the Bayreuth festival. Let it be said that Richard Wagner was a talented prick with the idea that his works deserved a festival to celebrate their greatness. This was a man who lived with the term “Go hard or do not go” and Wagner went hard. When the festival nearly ruined him financially he went to a former patron who he had a serious falling out with and begged. Wagner was bailed out and the festival was created and it was set in an opera house exactly to his specifications. All this just so the creations of his mind would have the right setting. He was a dedicated prick with a vision. 

Needless to say the festival was and is a hit.  As a result it has been drawing great performances from the best ever since. Anyone who wants to be anything in this industry wants to have something do with this festival. All of this comes out in the performances and this live 1966 is the best of all the ones I have ever heard. 

For one thing you have Birgit Nilsson. There is nothing that I can say about her that has not been said before. According to the Penguin Guide of Opera from 1994 her performance concludes as she ends the 3rd set “by sounding afresh, radiant and not a hint of tiredness, rising to an orgasmic climax and bringing a heavenly pianissimo.” This is a woman at the top of her career being recorded by the best so that we can know precisely how great she was. 

schristy79

Her counterpart is the conductor Karl Böhm. This is not to take anything away from Wolfgang Windgassen but he is simply the instrument Karl uses to effectively draw out the climatic performance from Ms. Nilsson. Mr. Bohm cut his teeth with Tristan Und Isolde in 1933. He was a frequent participant in Bayreuth festival and he is a superb conductor that can draw honey from lemons. He was also a BIG fan of Wagner and it shows in this recording.  

Regardless of your views on Wagner this is one of the great albums. It is an album that belongs in the pantheon of man’s achievements and it is an excellent tool to discover precisely why there are so many people that go goofy for Richard Wagner and Opera for that matter. Wagner was born some two hundred years ago and no matter where he is now you can be damn sure he is glad this album was made.  

Richard Wagner’s Tristan Und Isolde recorded in 1966 from the Bayreuther Festival for Deutsche Grammophon