Cheap Beethoven: Fidelio (Music) (Ludwig van Beethoven, Otto Klemperer, Walter Berry, Franz Crass, Gottlob Frick, Ingeborg Hallstein, Christa Ludwig) Price

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Customer Reviews of Beethoven: Fidelio

Inspired!
I believe that this FIDELIO is one of the greatest opera recordings ever made. Klemperer's interpretation of the score is a masterpiece. Just listen to the ominous mood in the digging scene (Act II), or the exultation of the opera's finale -- or the sense there is in the Prisoners' Chorus that the prisoners are emerging from a tomb, only to return to it at the end of the act. Or the hair-raising intensity of the moment when Leonore jumps in front of Florestan to protect him...
Christa Ludwig's creamy, wide-ranging mezzo-soprano soars through Leonore's music, and she sings with utter conviction and involvement. Florestan was one of Jon Vickers' most acclaimed roles, and this recording shows why: he sings with plangency, and his every moment onstage is riveting (listen to his desperate plea for water during the prison scene!). I can't praise Gottlob Frick's Rocco enough: a humane characterization, firmly and richly sung. Walter Berry's big, dark, yet smooth voice conveys Pizzarro's rage effectively; "Ha! Welch ein Augenblick" is powerfully sung. Ingeborg Hallstein is an excellent Marzelline, singing with bell-like clarity. Most of all, this FIDELIO sounds like the inspired collaboration of a group of talented musicians who BELIEVE in the work. I rate the recording with the Callas/de Sabata TOSCA as one of the most complete musical-dramatic experiences on disc.

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MAGNIFICENT AND STUNNING PERFORMANCE!
The performance was absolutely breathtaking and stunning. Astonishing is an understatement. I finally understood why this is considered one of the supreme opera recordings of all time. I mean supreme not only in terms of supremacy in Beethoven's Fidelio but also supreme relative to performances of operas by other composers. Christa Ludwig is magnificent. She sings fabulously with so much emotion and feeling. You can tell from the singing that she is putting all her heart into the singing. Indeed, this is Christa Ludwig's best performance ever. Indeed, Ludwig's is one of the greatest of all Gramophone performances ever. She is a Mezzo but she sings all the extremely taxing soprano parts flawlessly and marvelously. Amazing! Stunning! Breathtaking! Incredible!And not just Ludwig. The entire cast is fantastic!Vickers is the paragon of Florestan, sung with so much conviction. And the rest of the cast..... it is impossible to describe how magnificent they are. You just have to listen to this recording.A virtue of Klemperer was that the Chorus and Orchestra are all well-forward so that they are protagonists in their own right with the soloists. In this recording, every note, every chord, is crystal clear and brilliantly recorded. The Philharmonia Orchestra and Philharmonia Chorus were at their peak in 1962.

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Too slowly paced...and details are almost lost
This recording has many strenghts and a superlative cast of singers led by the great Klemperer. However, it suffers from the tendency of its times, decades ago, to play Beethoven's music with a slower pace than it was composed. The orchestral forces also tend to not be pointed enough to create a cohesive whole out of this beautiful opera. Moreover, the poor sound quality keeps the details from shining through, and the excessively large late-Romantic approach further contributes to this problem. There are more recent recordings which are far more enjoyable and exciting. Just try the Mackerras recording on Telarc. He doesn't have the calibre of soloists that Klemperer does, but the music is much better paced on that recording, with the orchestral details shining through and the early Romantic/late Classical qualities of the opera coming across. It's too bad that once a recording such as Klemperer's becomes the "essential" one, the newer recordings get overlooked despite their merits and improvements. Klemperer's does have magic but it's just becoming overdated, and may even sound a little boring to some listeners.