FIDELIO
Birgit Nilsson, James McCracken, Kurt Böhme
Tom Krause, Graziella Sciutti, Donald Grobe
Hermann Prey, Kurt Equiluz, Günther Adam
Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor
Wiener Philharmoniker
dir : Lorin Maazel
Decca 448 104-2 stereo 2 CDs, [P] 1996
Recorded Sofiensaal, Wien, March 1964
FLAC image files, cuesheets, logs, scans
"When we have been so starved of sopranos of her kind in recent years, Nilsson seems something of a paragon in her effortless vocalization, better focused than Voigt’s, but there’s not only the gleaming voice to admire. Her well thought-through characterization, though not quite as moving as Ludwig’s (Klemperer) or Rysanek’s (Fricsay), combines heroic resolve with womanly vulnerability. McCracken’s Florestan, as I have already suggested, seems to have been underrated. His vibrant, heroic tenor is equal to all the demands placed on it and if he occasionally over-emotes he never sentimentalizes his role as Klemperer’s Vickers is inclined to do.
"Krause is an incisive, boldly sung Pizarro. Bohme is a paragon of a Rocco, on a par with Frick. Sciutti makes an appealing Marzelline but one not always able to sustain a line to the end of a phrase. Grobe is a decent Jaquino. Prey makes much of little as Don Fernando; that is even truer of Kurt Equiluz who offers a touching cameo of the First Prisoner. The Pitz-trained chorus excel themselves."
Gramophone - Alan Blyth