Word: dernesch
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Vocal quality was high throughout: Tenor Rene Kollo's sturdy Siegfried, Bass- Baritone Walter Berry's crafty Alberich, the ripe Fricka of Mezzo-Soprano Hanna Schwarz in Das Rheingold. A delightful bonus was the Walkure Fricka and Gotterdammerung Waltraute of Vienna-born Mezzo Helga Dernesch, who some years ago was an important Isolde and Brunnhilde. Combining her still considerable power with a riveting dramatic presence, Dernesch gave a lesson in Wagnerian artistry. Conductor Edo de Waart was too often cautious when he should have been impetuous, but he roused himself in Gotterdammerung to deliver a reading of surge and sweep...
...were crammed excitedly into Orchestra Hall for Solti's concert performance of Act III of Wagner's Die Götterdämmerung They witnessed a true musical event. Tenor Jess Thomas died magnificently as Siegfried, and the audience could almost feel the flames as Soprano Helga Dernesch submitted herself to Brünnhilde's immolation. It was a remarkable performance, a fitting finish to Solti's successful spring stint in Chicago. If Chicagoans needed any reminder, the spirited and darkly dramatic rendition of Götterdämmerung demonstrated anew that there...
Wagner, Tristan und Isolde (Tenor Jon Vickers, Soprano Helga Dernesch, Soprano Christa Ludwig, Baritone Walter Berry, Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan conducting; Angel, 5 LPs, $29.90). What a cast of performers! What a disappointment! Given Karajan's past flair for Wagner, not to mention stalwart Tenor Vickers as Tristan, this could well have been, the stereo statement of Wagner's endless paean to adultery. Instead, it is merely a smooth, workmanlike job, hampered by Dernesch's inability to make Isolde alive enough so that her death is significant. The record is also marred by the cavernous, "first...
...recording is a knockout, fully comparable to London's history-making Ring cycle. Conductor Georg Solti, today's top conductor of Wagner, makes the opera brilliant and unabashedly grand. As Venus, Mezzo-Soprano Christa Ludwig seethes with eroticism, suggesting a world of impossible sexuality. Soprano Helga Dernesch as Elisabeth, Wagner's virginal opposite to Venus, is the perfect embodiment of pinched Victorian purity. Best of all is Tenor René Kollo, a German pop singer metamorphosed into a Heldentenor, who sings Tannhäuser with a gleaming tone, power, and a dramatic force unequaled since Lauritz Melchior...
Still scarred by memories of his war with the tempestuous Maria Callas, Impresario Bing tried to absolve his conductor and soothe his diva. Miss Dernesch, he explained, had merely been engaged as an understudy: "Even Madame Nilsson, as immortal as she is, can get sick occasionally." But since the Austrian soprano was coming all the way to New York, he added, she at least deserves the chance to give one performance in Von Karajan's critically acclaimed production of the Ring. From Vienna, the conductor supplied an obbligato of support to Bing's explanation...