mmmmmm yeah opera

Jonas Kaufmann as hot dolled-up Siegfried

You may have realized that Bwog is secretly a huge opera fan.  So when this question landed in our tip form, we were more than happy to find the answer.

Dear Bwog,

I just heard WKCR is doing a 48 hour broadcast to commemorate Wagner’s bicentennial in a week and a half. Can somebody please get the scoop on this and find out which recordings they are playing, and who’s programming it? I’m planning to skip work both days if the recordings are good.

Regards,

Gesamtkunstwerk-er

Indeed, it’s a big year for opera.  While Bwog’s twiddling our thumbs waiting for Verdi’s Bicentennial, I suppose some people are excited for Wagner’s…  Wagner was born on May 22, 1813, and WKCR will be honoring that this May 22.  Unless you’re busy with Commencement or whatever, we recommend you take the day off (and the next day too) to check out this great collection.  They’ll be broadcasting all of his operas chronologically from Rienzi to Parsifal — “We’d have done his first two, but 48 hours wouldn’t have been enough.”  Check out the lineup, courtesy of Stepan Atamian, CC’16, and WKCR, below:

Rienzi
Rene Kollo, Siv Wennberg, Nikolaus Hillebrand, Janis Martin, Theo Adam
Heinrich Hollreiser (conductor). Staatskapelle Dresden & Chorus.

Der Fliegende Hollander
Hans Hotter, Astrid Varnay, Set Svanholm, Sven Nilsson.
Fritz Reiner (conductor). Met Opera Orchestra & Chorus. LIVE 1950 PERFORMANCE.

Tannhauser
Victoria de los Angeles, Grace Bumbry, Wolfgang Windgassen, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
Wolfgang Sawallisch (conductor). Bayreuth Festival Orchestra & Chorus. LIVE 1961 PERFORMANCE.

Lohengrin
Jess Thomas, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gottlob Frick, Elisabeth Grummer, Christa Ludwig.
Rudolf Kempe (conductor). Vienna Philharmonic & Chorus.

Tristan Und Isolde
Lauritz Melchior, Kirsten Flagstad, Sabine Kalter, Herbert Janssen.
Fritz Reiner (conductor). London Philharmonic Orchestra & Royal Opera House Chorus. LIVE 1936 PERFORMANCE.

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Hans Hopf, Gerhard Unger, Otto Edelmann.
Herbert von Karajan (conductor). Bayreuth Festival & Chorus. LIVE 1951 PERFORMANCE

Das Rheingold
George London, Eberhard Wachter, Gustav Neidlinger, Set Svanholm, Kirsten Flagstad.
Sir Georg Solti. Vienna Philharmonic.

Die Walkure
Birgit Nilsson, Leonie Rysanek, Christa Ludwig, Jon Vickers, Thomas Stewart.
Berislav Klobucar (conductor). Met Opera Orchestra. 1967 LIVE PERFORMANCE

Siegfried
Anne Evans, Birgitta Svenden, Siegfried Jerusalem, Graham Clark, John Tomlinson.
Daniel Barenboim (conductor). Bayreuth Festival Orchestra. LIVE PERFORMANCE 1992.

Gotterdammerung
Hildegard Behrens, Cheryl Studer, Christa Ludwig, Reiner Goldberg, Bernd Weikl, Matti Salminen.
James Levine (conductor). Met Opera Orchestra & Chorus.

We’ll probably have a 2 hour feature where we play excerpts from some singers we didn’t get to showcase in full operas (Helen Traubel, Lotte Lehmann, etc.), and this is where we’ll feature performances from contemporary singers such as Jonas Kaufmann, Klaus Florian Vogt, Nina Stemme, and Rene Pape. During this section, we’ll also play non-operatic works, such as his Wesendonck Lieder.

Parsifal
Josef Greindl, Ludwig Weber, Ramon Viney, Hermann Uhde, Martha Modl.
Clemens Krauss (conductor). Bayreuth Festival Orchestra & Chorus.

Apex of Wagner’s legacy via Vogue