# Round 1: Der Manner Sippe. Varnay, Reining, Lehmann



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

The first selection is cued approximately ( had some trouble)to Astrid Varnay's debut on any opera stage at the Met at 22. You may wish to hear Melchior sing after this but it is just her aria. I wanted to wait till tomorrow but I can't wait. This is one of my favorite arias because of the great low passages.


----------



## JGolden (7 mo ago)

I wasn't able to listen to the second one, as I don't have a premium YouTube subscription. I loved the energy and passion in the Lehmann recording. This is the first time I have listened to any recording of any of these singers. Can't wait to hear more!


----------



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

JGolden said:


> I wasn't able to listen to the second one, as I don't have a premium YouTube subscription. I loved the energy and passion in the Lehmann recording. This is the first time I have listened to any recording of any of these singers. Can't wait to hear more!


----------



## JGolden (7 mo ago)

Seattleoperafan said:


>


Thanks, but unfortunately I am still getting this error message: "This video is only available to Music Premium members."


----------



## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Here’s Maria Reining. I don’t have a subscription so maybe it’ll be accessible to all.


----------



## JGolden (7 mo ago)

MAS said:


> Here’s Maria Reining. I don’t have a subscription so maybe it’ll be accessible to all.


Thank you! This one does work for me.


----------



## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

I can see why SOF was excited. Three legendary singers sharing a role!

remember the Varnay of later years, so I was unprepared for her Sieglinde which, though she was only 22, has a darkness and heft unlike a youngster - her passion is also of a more mature woman to my ears.

In contrast, Maria Reining sounds a young lady with a buttoned up personality, her story told in a sad way and even her joy and hope more reticent than I expected. She was a well-known Strauss singer and I hadn’t known her Sieglinde. 

Lotte Lehman is a famous Sieglinde and it shows in her phrasing, just as aristocratic as Reining’s but with much more passion and incisiveness. In contrast site à Varnay, she does sound a young girl and her sorrow and hope shine out in brighter tones.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

There's no getting around Lotte Lehmann's complete command of this role, as well as of its vocal requirements. She simply IS Sieglinde, and as I listen I feel transported to the Schwarzwald and back to the year 500 A.D., or whatever was the pre-Christian era in that part of the world. Note by note and word by word, it doesn't get any better. 

For me it's one of the fascinations of the history of singing in the 20th century that Flagstad's friend and protege Astrid Varnay somehow transformed herself from the direct, quick, vibrant soprano we hear here to the dark, heavy, scooping, mezzo-ish singer we hear in her Bayreuth recordings from a mere decade later. She's quite terrific here, perhaps bettered only by Lehmann among all the Sieglindes I've heard. She was actually subbing for an indisposed Lehmann on this debut night, and she made herself a star overnight.

Reining, in the clip we actually get to hear, sounds past her prime, though I'm not sure what she sounded like earlier. Her Sieglinde is sweet and vulnerable, but no daughter of Wotan.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

JGolden said:


> I wasn't able to listen to the second one, as I don't have a premium YouTube subscription. I loved the energy and passion in the Lehmann recording. This is the first time I have listened to any recording of any of these singers. Can't wait to hear more!


Welcome to the forum, JGolden. A friend of Lotte Lehmann is a friend of mine. So far, anyway.


----------



## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

As Woodduck says, Lehmann simply IS Sieglinde. I can't imagine anyone singing it better and she is the yardstick against whom I judge all others. 
Varnay took me by surprise, but I don't think her darker tones are so suited to the role. Nonetheless hers was a vital, dramatic performance.
Reining was fine also, but sounded less involved. Lehmann for me.


----------



## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I too love this aria and there have been quite a few great Sieglindes (I'm hoping we get to hear Schwarzkopf and Studer in this contest).

I like Varnay's delivery of the text and the voice is more focused than it would become later on in her career. However, I don't think the mezzoish character of her voice is right for the role. She sounds more like a Fricka in waiting. Reining won't play for me. I would expect Lehmann to win this as received opinion considers her THE Sieglinde and she doesn't disappoint here. I vote for her, for her superb technique, wonderfully achieved dynamic range, nautral delivery of the text and vocal suitability for the part.

N.


----------



## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I've now been able to listen to the Reining and I think it is superb, not enough to elipse Lehmann, but she is worthy to stand beside her as another great exponent of the role.


----------



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

The Conte said:


> I too love this aria and there have been quite a few great Sieglindes (I'm hoping we get to hear Schwarzkopf and Studer in this contest).
> 
> I like Varnay's delivery of the text and the voice is more focused than it would become later on in her career. However, I don't think the mezzoish character of her voice is right for the role. She sounds more like a Fricka in waiting. Reining won't play for me. I would expect Lehmann to win this as received opinion considers her THE Sieglinde and she doesn't disappoint here. I vote for her, for her superb technique, wonderfully achieved dynamic range, nautral delivery of the text and vocal suitability for the part.
> 
> N.


I also wanted Studer but the only one available was a complete recording and the sound was really bad. Schwarzkopf has no version on Youtube. Next round has great singers!!!!!!! It is interesting that people don't want a mezzo sound to sing Sieglinde but in reality the range of the role is perfect for a mezzo and to my ear never goes above an A and has those exposed low passages. The part is a young woman so I get that part. Perhaps Anna Sophie von Otter who was a mezzo who sounded like a soprano.


----------



## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

The Conte said:


> I too love this aria and there have been quite a few great Sieglindes (I'm hoping we get to hear Schwarzkopf and Studer in this contest).
> 
> 
> N.


I don't think Schwarzkopf ever sang Sieglinde or recorded any of her solos.


----------



## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I don't think Schwarzkopf ever sang Sieglinde or recorded any of her solos.


I think you are correct. I obviously have such a huge wish that it were on her album with the arias from Lohengrin and Tannhauser that I've persuaded myself that she did record it.

N.


----------



## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I also wanted Studer but the only one available was a complete recording and the sound was really bad. Schwarzkopf has no version on Youtube. Next round has great singers!!!!!!! It is interesting that people don't want a mezzo sound to sing Sieglinde but in reality the range of the role is perfect for a mezzo and to my ear never goes above an A and has those exposed low passages. The part is a young woman so I get that part. Perhaps Anna Sophie von Otter who was a mezzo who sounded like a soprano.


I don't think Von Otter would be quite right for the role (her voice being on the lighter side), but she was a superb artist who put everything into whatever she was singing. It's a shame about Studer as her studio recorded performance of the whole role received much acclaim.

N.


----------



## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

It’s a close run thing between Varnay and Lehmann but I have to give the edge to - (drum roll) - Charlotte!


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Barbebleu said:


> It’s a close run thing between Varnay and Lehmann but I have to give the edge to - (drum roll) - Charlotte!


Was that her original name? Is Lotte just a diminutive?


----------



## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Yes, it would appear so. There is a link on the ‘net to a copy of her birth certificate that shows her full name Charlotte. Lotte is the usual diminutive for Charlotte e.g Thomas Mann’s Lotte in Weimar.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I also wanted Studer but the only one available was a complete recording and the sound was really bad. Schwarzkopf has no version on Youtube. Next round has great singers!!!!!!! It is interesting that people don't want a mezzo sound to sing Sieglinde but in reality the range of the role is perfect for a mezzo and to my ear never goes above an A and has those exposed low passages. The part is a young woman so I get that part. Perhaps Anna Sophie von Otter who was a mezzo who sounded like a soprano.


It's curious that Siegmund and Sieglinde, designated tenor and soprano, should both have low tessituras and could be sung by a baritone and a mezzo with strong upper ranges. Siegmund's monologue "Ein Schwert verhiess mir der Vater" makes demands on the bottom of his range similar to what we have here in Sieglinde's aria. As music director of the Dresden Opera in his twenties, Wagner conducted many of the popular French and Italian operas of the day and worked with leading singers, which would have given him first-hand knowledge of voices and what they could do. For some reason he chose not to exploit greatly the upper ranges of tenors and sopranos in his own works, with his vocal climaxes for tenors and sopranos rarely passing high A or Bb, with high C occurring only occasionally and often as a "special effect," taken and released quickly. Isolde's two high Cs, virtually swept away in the orchestral torrent in Act 2, are good examples, as are two very brief Cs for Siegfried in _Gotterdammerung_. Singers without good high Cs, such as Helen Traubel and the older Flagstad, would just omit them without much damage to the music. Of course it's thrilling to hear Nilsson hurling them forth like the thunderbolts of Jove, proving that they can matter after all.


----------



## JGolden (7 mo ago)

Woodduck said:


> Welcome to the forum, JGolden. A friend of Lotte Lehmann is a friend of mine. So far, anyway.


Thanks, good to be here! I'm not anywhere close to as knowledgeable as you guys, but I do love opera and other classical music -- not to mention the chance to put off work by listening to great singing!


----------



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

JGolden said:


> Thanks, good to be here! I'm not anywhere close to as knowledgeable as you guys, but I do love opera and other classical music -- not to mention the chance to put off work by listening to great singing!


You can learn a lot if you hang around here.


----------



## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I forgot Varady! How could I forget Varady!

N.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The Conte said:


> I forgot Varady! How could I forget Varady!
> 
> N.


Shame! I'm sure she would never forget you.


----------



## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

That's why I'm here. For enlightenment! Thank you! I mean Woodduck's post above and many others.


----------



## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

What a diversity of voices we have here. Varnay sounds like mezzo, so early in her carrier. Reining on the contrary makes an impression, maybe deceitful, of a light lyric soprano. Lehmann sounds perfectly, it was she who had shown me that Wagner wouldn't be heavy at all. 
But it's hard to choose whose Sieglinde is the best. Even Wagner's music may have different but beautiful performance.


----------

