# Best Liebestod on a commercial recording.....



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

What is your favorite Liebestod on a commercial
recording?
You can list separate ones if you like for best conducted or best sung or one that combines the two.

Consider both stereo and mono recordings.

Can be either on cd or dvd or blue ray.
Or separate cd, dvd choices.

This piece, when done well, always brings a tear to my eye.

I'd love to read your opinions and choices on this.
Thanks :tiphat:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

For sheer voice Nilsson at Bayreuth with Bohm. The way the voice tops the orchestra is incredible


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> For sheer voice Nilsson at Bayreuth with Bohm. The way the voice tops the orchestra is incredible


That is an amazing climax. After hearing it one could do without sex for a good while. I heard Nilsson in _Tristan_ at the Met in 1972, and can report that it isn't a control room trick. I recall her saying that she didn't spend time warming up before a performance but just let her voice warm up onstage. I could in fact hear her vocal quality improve as the evening wore on, and she sounded better at the end than at the beginning. With her Tristan (Helge Brilioth) it was unfortunately the other way around, which is what happens to people who aren't born valkyries.

I don't think I have a favorite Liebestod on a commercial recording, but then I haven't heard them all. My standard is the one taken from the Met radio broadcast of March 11, 1933, in which Frida Leider soars in a legato ecstasy over Artur Bodanzky's patient but inexorable orchestra. Leider's warm, passionate Isolde was preferred even to Flagstad's by some who heard and saw them both.

The sound is poor, but what a pity we don't have the complete performance from which this was taken!


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

I'm very fond of my two favourites: Waltraud Meier and Kirsten Flagstad. Also in Warner, I'm curious about Christa Ludwig's version. I've been very impressed with Studer and Norman too.


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## GeorgeMcW (Jun 4, 2018)

Birgit Nilsson with Böhm ‘66 is my go-to Tristan recording. I’ve probably listened to this a hundred times. Occasionally I listen to Kirsten Flagstad. 

Now I think I am ready to explore others, so would be interested to see what others say. 

But for me, it’s always been Birgit Nilsson.


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

Waultraud Meier, followed by Birgit Nillson


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

This may surprise some, but I think Dernesch/Karajan. I think he is the best interpreter of this particular aria.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

As far as the ones I've heard so far,
on cd I like Flagstad with Furtwangler on the classic EMI recording.
Furty seems to have the right tempo, Flagstad's voice comes thru rich and clear
and I like my liebestod to linger, a bit, on that solo, clarinet? english horn? oboe?
right before the final chord fades.

On dvd I like Meier with Barenboim & Jerusalem.
But I didn't care for the production.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Couchie said:


> This may surprise some, but I think Dernesch/Karajan. I think he is the best interpreter of this particular aria.


I liked his conducting of it, but Dernesch sounds a little weak here.
Even though I like her voice


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Itullian said:


> I liked his conducting of it, but Dernesch sounds a little weak here.
> Even though I like her voice


I agree. I give most of the credit to Karajan and the production team, but it's heavenly.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Something to add to buy basket next operadepot sale ^^^^^

I posted this a couple years ago in historical wagner thread, the first vocal crescendo tees up a commanding performance, 1939 & 1949 San Francisco Miss Flagstad in very good sound......perhaps slight edge to 49 version

The reference versions cannot just sing the beautiful notes, Isolde must sell me on the metaphysical out of body experience, the delerious rapture and surrender of mortality to timeless pure love, final soft note must kiss the lips of an angel, closing music then transport us to a magical peaceful place (requires some skillful vocal characterization)


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Linda Esther Gray with Goodall, Price with Kleiber - both of whom sound as if they could actually _be_ young princesses, and have extremely beautiful voices. Also, though not Irish, they are at least both Celts, which adds another layer of authenticity 

Price, in particular, gives a superbly nuanced reading of the aria - indeed, of the whole rôle - as would befit a Lieder singer of her calibre.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I second Woodduck's choice of the live Leider version, so much more intense than her studio version.

Unsurprisingly, I have a great deal of affection for Callas's warmly feminine version in Italian, which she recorded for Cetra in 1949.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Reichstag aus LICHT said:


> Linda Esther Gray with Goodall, Price with Kleiber - both of whom sound as if they could actually _be_ young princesses, and have extremely beautiful voices. Also, though not Irish, they are at least both Celts, which adds another layer of authenticity
> 
> Price, in particular, gives a superbly nuanced reading of the aria - indeed, of the whole rôle - as would befit a Lieder singer of her calibre.


I can't dispute that Margaret Price sings probably the most detailed, Lieder-like Liebestod on record (except for Callas, which is another story), but I'm left feeling that Isolde and the Countess Almaviva were somehow given each other's travel itineraries and that the wrong woman ended up in Kareol. Kleiber, with the help of careful mic placement, accommodates her with a (too?) nuanced reading that doesn't swamp her slender instrument, but clearly this couldn't work in the opera house. The requisite orgasm doesn't happen here; it's a lovely, rather chaste romance, when it should be a sexual/spiritual supernova.

Gray with Goodall is a bit more the real thing, but her vowels are very strange.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> Gray with Goodall is a bit more the real thing, but her vowels are very strange.


Perhaps she was affecting an "Oirish" accent


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> I second Woodduck's choice of the live Leider version, so much more intense than her studio version.
> 
> Unsurprisingly, I have a great deal of affection for Callas's warmly feminine version in Italian, which she recorded for Cetra in 1949.


Callas in Wagner is _sui generis_, fascinating on her own terms. The timbre, the interpretation, the language - together they put her performance into such a different category that I can't compare her with other Isoldes. Too bad her complete performance was never recorded (as far as we know).


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I'm very fond of many mentioned. I think Waltraud Meier in the conclusion to the Tristan DVD is hair raising. I love Norman in this:



 I also really love Alessandra Marc's version:


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