LILLI LEHMANN - PRIMA VOCE CD

SKU/Barcode: 710357792120

Lilli Lehmann is one of those singers who goes back so far historically that by rights we shouldn't be able to hear her. Born in the impossibly long ago year of 1848, Lehmann made her operatic debut in Prague the year the American Civil War came to an end, began to sing at Bayreuth in 1876, and became a favorite of Richard Wagner and retired after singing her final operatic role at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1899. Her teaching salon, active until the conclusion of her long life, was a major magnet for young singers, among them Olive Fremstad and Geraldine Farrar. In the years 1906-1907, Lehmann, then pushing 60, faced the recording horn on seven known occasions, producing 42 recordings of which a little less than half are included on Nimbus' Lilli Lehmann: Prima Voce. First of all, it is amazing how good Lehmann still sounds given her age and the primitive technology; while it is clear that she's no "spring chicken," there is nothing of the trial and heartbreak that attends the records made by her contemporary Adelina Patti. Something of her legacy as a teacher survives in these recordings, as well, as she is joined by her niece, the otherwise unknown Hedwig Helbig, on six selections. These duets are among the most transparent and moving recordings found on this disc. Although the range of material is surprisingly wide, and unfortunately, only includes one surviving recording of Wagner, one outstanding feature is the relative wealth of selections of Mozart's vocal music. Lehmann served as head of the Mozart Festival in Salzburg from 1901 to 1910, which explains her strong interest in Mozart's operatic music and willingness to record it when so many other singers did not. This should put to shame pundits such as critic Norman Lebrecht, who insisted that Mozart's operas were only revived after World War II so that the German record companies could "beat the busy British labels, EMI and Decca, to a first recorded cycle of the da Ponte operas." Lilli Lehmann is no stranger to historical vocal CDs, and although the Nimbus package was new as of 2005, Pearl, Preiser, and Symposium have all issued discs devoted to her recordings, with only the last-named release containing "everything." Nimbus' "Ambisonic" process -- playing the recordings back into a small concert hall through a gigantic acoustical horn -- is not popular among antique recording purists. Nonetheless, most of us don't need everything, and the concentration on Lehmann's voice apart from the ad hoc bands typically used in early recordings results in a listening experience that will prove pleasing to those who are primarily interested in hearing Lehmann sing, with only minimal punishment from extraneous sonic elements.