Metropolitan Elite: Edward Christian-Hare is impressed by a historic recording

Review of Parsifal, conducted Bodanzky (Acts I and III), Leinsdorf (Act II), New York Met, 1938 (Marston, 4 CDs).

March 2026, Volume 20, Number 1, 90–91.

The Met tradition of staging a Parsifal matinee on Good Friday began in earnest in 1907 and continued for most of the next three decades; by the late 1930s the legendary Wagnerian duo of soprano Kirsten Flagstad and Heldentenor Lauritz Melchior, beloved by the American public and media alike, were on the bill. So came this production on Good Friday, 1938, the first Met Parsifal broadcast in its entirety, and issued here in complete form for the first time. The recording is the only performance of Parsifal with Flagstad and Melchior which has been preserved, and has none of the customary cuts that afflict other Wagner performances from the era.