COMPOSERS: Strauss & Verdi,Wagner,Weber
LABELS: EMI Réferences
WORKS: Operatic excerpts by Weber, Wagner, Strauss & Verdi
PERFORMER: Tiana Lemnitz (soprano), etc; Berlin State Opera Orchestra/Leopold Ludwig, Johannes Schüler, Bruno Seidler-Winkler
CATALOGUE NO: CDH 5 66774 2 ADD mono
TIANA LEMNITZ (1897-1994), a mainstay of the Berlin State Opera from 1934 to 1957, remains one of the most admirable German lyric sopranos on record.
Her EMI Références disc devoted to operatic arias and duets recorded between 1938 and 1948 reveals a singer with exemplary legato, the ability to file the voice down to a sumptuously floated piano, and an occasionally magical intimacy of expression.
But if Lemnitz is a balm to the ear as Agathe, Elsa, Elisabeth, Arabella and Desdemona, the singing of her Berlin colleague MARIA MÜLLER (1898-1958) pierces the heart.