Word: lps
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WAGNER: DIE WALKÜRE, (Deutsche Grammophon; 5 LPs). Despite all of its flames, blood, magic swords and flying goddesses, this crystal-and-velvet score is the most human of Wagner's Ring operas. Conductor Herbert von Karajan's slow, deliberate pace illuminates each stroke of genius in the score, but some listeners will find that he has sacrificed passion for clarity and restrained the anguish that Wagner's wild climaxes can evoke. No matter: Jon Vickers' Siegmund is powerful and Régine Crespin's hotoyohos are properly rousing...
ROSSINI: SEMIRAMIDE (3 LPs; London). The opera makes almost insuperable demands on the voices and musicianship of the singers, especially the two sopranos, but in this performance Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Home are equal to the task. In the early scenes, Sutherland's voice has a rather thick, clotted quality that soon clears up; Home is superb throughout. For aficionados of bel canto and tortuous vocal ornamentations, this recording is a major event, owing in no small part to Bonynge's intelligent handling of the text and the London Symphony...
PROKOFIEV: WAR AND PEACE (3 LPs; Heliodor). Tolstoy's epic is not the easiest assignment in operatic composing, but by concentrating on the love story of Prince Andrei and Natasha, and Kuturov's defeat of Napoleon, Prokofiev has done a surprisingly effective job. Instead of beginning with a big party scene, he shrewdly chooses a tender picture of longing and rebirth when Andrei hears Natasha and Sonya on their balcony. The composer has written the girls a soprano duet that recalls Strauss's lyricism. Here and elsewhere, the voices of Radmilla Vasovic Bokacevic and Biserka Cvejic...
SHOSTAKOVICH: KATERINA ISMAILOVA (3 LPs; Melodiya-Angel). This opera cost its composer considerable grief: shortly after he wrote it he was denounced by the Soviets for bourgeois intentions and vulgar execution. It is a brash work; at times openly satirical, at others tragically serious. The plot, based on Nikolai Leskov's story, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District, tells of a frustrated wife who eventually destroys the men around her. All the characters are thoroughly unsympathetic. The recording, part of Capitol's new import of Russian phonography, is disappointing. As the wife, Niconora Andreyeva has spirited dramatic presence...
...number of recordings of Mahler works has leaped from ten in 1952 to 81 this year-three of which are currently among the 40 best-selling classical LPs. At least four record companies are issuing complete sets of the symphonies under a single conductor. The Pittsburgh Symphony's William Steinberg is planning an unprecedented series of seven Mahler concerts for the orchestra next season, three of them in New York. In Paris, no fewer than ten concerts since January have featured Mahler compositions. And in Austria last week, the Vienna Festival wound up a monthlong, twelve-concert survey...