Above: mezzo-soprano Blanche Thebom
Note: When I wrote this article, the performance was available on YouTube. It no longer is.
I so thoroughly enjoyed listening to a of Wagner’s DAS RHEINGOLD, a 1957 matinee broadcast from The Met. Fritz Stiedry shapes the score very well and if the Met’s orchestra then is not the equal if the Met Orchestra now, it’s more than respectable.
There are many jewels in the cast; most especially I love Blanche Thebom’s aristocratic, subtle Fricka and the tonally-rich, doom-ladened singing of Erda’s warning by Jean Madeira. Ramon Vinay and Norman Kelley give wonderfully characterful portrayals of Loge and Mime’s, and Lawrence Davidson is a strong Alberich. Despite some lapses from pitch, Hermann Uhde is an authoritative Wotan with a keen sense of the drama. James McCracken’s Froh – dating from before his rise to fame – shows his distinctive timbre, and the Rhinemaidens are really nice, with Rosalind Elias’s sultry tone particularly ingratiating.
The Cast:
Wotan: Hermann Uhde
Donner: Arthur Budney
Froh: James McCracken
Loge: Ramón Vinay
Fricka: Blanche Thebom
Freia: Mariquita Moll
Erda: Jean Madeira
Alberich: Lawrence Davidson
Mime: Norman Kelley
Fasolt: Kurt Böhme
Fafner: Dezsö Ernster
Woglinde: Heidi Krall
Wellgunde: Rosalind Elias
Floßhilde: Sandra Warfield
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
Conductor: Fritz Stiedry
Metropolitan Opera/January 26th,1957
Oberon's Glade 