Description:

Elisabeth Grümmer was already into her sixties when she sang this performance of the Marschallin.  It is ironic that vocally she comes across as one of the most youthful Marschallins I have heard.  Interpretively she is on top of her game.  She uses many different vocal colors to paint the range of emotion in her Act I monologues.  In particular the line “Wie kann denn das geschehen?” is uttered with such simplicity and shock at realizing the passage of time.   Lucia Popp had no trouble expressing Sophie’s youthful élan being a relative youngster herself.  The very high piano singing in the presentation of the rose is nothing short of perfection.  As the title character Janis Martin does very well. She may not have the most beautiful voice but she creates a boyish quality that is very effective in this role.  Zoltan Kelemen may not have been a true basso profundo but he is such a lively actor that one cannot help being charmed by his bungling.  The sound is very good.

OD 10342-3