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The Radio 3 Boards > The Music Boards > The Opera House > Leonie Rysanek
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Author Topic: Leonie Rysanek  (Read 158 times)
ernani
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« on: 21:49:26, 27-02-2008 »
It's ten years since the death of Leonie Rysanek. I wonder what her current critical standing is amongst opera fans? Discussion of her voice often refers to the glorious soaring ease of her top register, the creamy timbre, her acting abilities and her longevity. More critical comments might focus on her supposedly badly supported middle voice and pitch problems.

I have to say that she is (alongside Varnay, Milanov, Nilsson, Tebaldi and Albanese) one of my very favourite sopranos.  Her Strauss recordings take some beating, her Wagner too, and her work in the Italian repetoire, though not completely idiomatic, is very fine (I particularly enjoy a live Met recording of Ballo with Bergonzi and Merrill. There is comparatively little of her on DVD, aside from the Met Elektra with Nilsson and her own assumption of the title part under Bohm. But there is a good store of material on YouTube, including live extracts from Tosca, Walkure, Salome and Lohengrin that is worth checking out. I wish I could've heard her live.  Sad

So, any other fans out there?
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #1 on: 22:06:23, 27-02-2008 »
You can certainly count me "in" as a Rysanek fan, Ernani!  I can't say I enjoyed everything she did - she was a bit lumbering as Beethoven's Leonore, for example.  But out in the wide open plains of Heldensopran repertoire, she was unbeatable, and had the solid, hard-earned technique that kept her there consistently, always delivering the goods Smiley
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
-  Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
Swan_Knight
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« Reply #2 on: 22:11:58, 27-02-2008 »
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm a Rysanek fan, too - particularly of her Sieglinde (even though I marginally prefer Crespin in this role).  Both of her recordings of it are excellent, with the Bohm (featuring that scream) being especially fine.
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #3 on: 22:22:12, 27-02-2008 »
Where I find Rysanek at her best is in Strauss, though - as Salome and Elektra she has exactly what's needed. 

Viz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A-ONUSlO6k
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
-  Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
ernani
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« Reply #4 on: 22:38:23, 27-02-2008 »
Glad you are both fans Reiner and SK. On Salome,  her live RCA recording with Bohm from Vienna has to be one of the most exciting opera recordings I have. I've played the final scene a few times for non opera fans and the reaction has always been the same: wow (and I don't think they're simply being polite!) She has a fantastic scream/cry after her final request for John's head on this recording that never fails to raise the hairs on the back of the neck. And her Sieglinde scream can be seen as well as heard on a YouTube clip from a Vienna Walkure concert performance (Jerusalem as Siegfried). Rysanek was in her early 60s at the time, but sounds wonderful. The crowd go suitably wild at the end - great stuff.
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #5 on: 22:43:01, 27-02-2008 »
Ernani,  I couldn't resist the mention you made of the YouTube clip of the concert perf of Walkure,  so I went straight off to find it Smiley  And it is entirely as magnificent as you describe Smiley

Here it is, to save others the scrabble of searching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuHlvBEbEzQ

I particularly like the fact that she consistently interacts with her Siegfried, even in a concert performance - it avoids the "top c's and tiaras" artificiality of concert-hall performances.
« Last Edit: 22:45:58, 27-02-2008 by Reiner Torheit » Logged
"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
-  Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
ernani
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« Reply #6 on: 23:29:10, 27-02-2008 »
Just as an off topic PS Reiner, check out Richard Tucker and Robert Merrill singing the Alvaro/Carlo duet from Forza on YouTube - I discovered this yesterday and was blown away. It's quite extraordinary singing and very moving to see these two great old pros still doing the business in 1972 with such integrity.
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