Bel Canto Wagner: Niall Hoskin enjoys the CD debut of the soprano Jenufa Gleich

Review of Träume: ‘Weh’ mir, so nah’ die fürchterliche Stunde’ (Die Feen), ‘Allmächt’ge Jungfrau!’, ‘Dich, teure Halle’ (Tannhäuser), ‘Traft ihr, das Schiff’ (Der fliegende Holländer), ‘Ewig war ich, ewig bin ich’ (Siegfried), Wesendonck Lieder, soprano Jenufa Gleich, conducted Bollon, 2020 (Stone Records, 1 CD).

March 2021, Volume 15, Number 1, 76–8.

This is the first operatic recording from Stone Records, an independent label run by the British singer Mark Stone. It’s also the debut on CD of Jenufa Gleich: her programme echoes that of Birgit Nilsson’s 1971 LP with Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra. By that stage the Swedish powerhouse was established at the top of the profession and of her career; Gleich on the other hand has only recently come to Wagner: she sang Helmwige, Freia and the Third Norn at Longborough under Anthony Negus, and recorded the last-named role in Jaap van Zweden’s Hong Kong Philharmonic concert Götterdämmerung.