Blasts from the Past: Richard Laing enjoys a brace of historic recordings

Reviews of Siegfried, conducted Keilberth, Bayreuth, 1955 (Hännsler, 3 CDs); Preludes and Overtures, conducted Semkow, St Louis, Missouri, 1977 (Vox, 1 CD).

November 2024, Volume 18, Number 3, 88–90.

‘No one has ever demonstrated better than Martha Mödl that complete artistic identification – which is far removed from stage exhibitionism – still exerts a stronger fascination on the public than sheer technical perfection.’ Many modern singers would do well to heed these words of Wieland Wagner, quoted in Erich Schäfer’s 1967 biography of the great soprano and highlighted in Geoffrey Skelton’s fascinating 1971 book on Wieland’s life and work. Indeed, all the singers in the Wieland Wagner/Joseph Keilberth Siegfried (part of the 1955 Bayreuth Ring cycle reviewed in the round by David Breckbill in the very first issue of TWJ) seem to have embodied Wieland’s dictum, doubtless encouraged by the celebrated director.