# A Golden Age Captured—If Imperfectly
There are moments in the history of recorded opera when the stars align with such improbable perfection that one wants to forgive almost anything. This 1937 Metropolitan Opera Siegfried, now reissued by Brilliant Classics (originally Guild Historical), is precisely such a moment—though “forgive” proves the operative word when confronting sound that lurches between merely primitive and actively hostile to the listener’s comfort.
Let me be blunt about the sonic landscape here. The opening prelude arrives accompanied by an audience apparently in the grip of a tuberculosis epidemic, their hacking coughs nearly drowning out Bodanzky’s orchestra. There’s “purring” (as one of the original reviewers delicately termed it) when Friedrich Schorr makes his first entrance as the Wanderer—a fair deal of it, in fact. Ticks, grit, occasional swishes. The voices recede alarmingly when singers move upstage. This is 1937 NBC broadcast technology preserved on transcription discs, and no amount of restorative work—however well-intentioned—can entirely overcome the ravages of time and the limitations of the original equipment.
## The Irreplaceable Voices
Lauritz Melchior’s Siegfried remains, nearly nine decades later, the benchmark against which all others are measured and found wanting. What strikes me most forcibly in this performance isn’t merely the easy brilliance of the top register—though the forging scene brings forth gleaming metal without a hint of strain—but the tonal variety he commands. Listen to how he darkens the voice for the confrontations with Mime, then opens it up to youthful radiance when communing with the Woodbird. The words are always clear, always meaningful. This isn’t simply luminous singing; it’s dramatic characterization of the highest order.
When Melchior encounters Flagstad’s Brünnhilde in Act Three, we’re witnessing something that cannot be replicated. Her awakening—quiet, almost virginal in its initial purity—gradually builds to an erotic intensity that makes most modern assumptions about “authenticity” in Wagner interpretation seem pallid and academic. Those top Cs have a glancing light, yes, but there’s steel underneath. And when she reaches the brilliant top Bs of the final duet, the sexual as well as musical climax that Wagner intended becomes manifest.
Schorr’s Wanderer deserves an essay of its own. The man had a magnificent sense of phrasing, tonal color that could shift from mock-humor (in the exchanges with Alberich) to profound weariness as he confronts the burden of his own guilt and the inevitability of the gods’ doom. That noble voice, the dramatic authority—this is Wotan as he should be sung, with every mood palpable even through the sonic limitations. His twenty-year career at the Met wasn’t luck; it was earned through artistry like this.
Kerstin Thorborg’s Erda brings monumental poise. When she rises from her subterranean slumbers, there’s a statuesque quality to the singing that suggests genuine otherworldliness. Ernest Newman considered her the greatest Wagnerian mezzo he ever heard, and one understands why in the Act Three encounter with Schorr—long-breathed phrases, refulgent tone, every word weighted with meaning.
## The Supporting Cast and Conducting
Karl Laufkoetter’s neurotic, wheedling Mime is characteristically pathetic and dangerous—the voice may not be beautiful, but the characterization is vivid. Eduard Habich’s Alberich sustains the venomous fury born of rejection and theft with snarlingly effective malevolence. Emanuel List moves from somnolence to genuine threat as Fafner. Even Stella Andreyeva’s distant-sounding Woodbird (the release really doesn’t favor her) has a brightness that cuts through.
About Bodanzky… well. He’s flowing, dramatic, well-paced. His background as Mahler’s assistant in Vienna shows in the orchestral shaping. But those cuts—forty-eight pages of vocal score excised—will infuriate purists, and rightly so. We had to wait for Leinsdorf in 1940 for complete Wagner at the Met. Still, Bodanzky keeps things moving, and the relationship between pit and stage sounds genuinely collaborative rather than combative. (We’re a few years before the notorious incident when Melchior held a top A for an eternity while the young Leinsdorf could do nothing but maintain the orchestral tremolo.)
## The Reissue Questions
Now, about this Brilliant Classics incarnation. The original Guild Historical release came with full documentation, detailed notes about the cuts, biographical appreciations. Brilliant tends toward economy in such matters—check carefully what you’re getting in terms of supporting materials. The original reviewers noted that some insertions were made from other performances where masters proved defective; purists should be aware of this practice, though the sources involved the same casts and director where possible.
More troubling: if you’re accustomed to modern sonics, or even to Solti’s Ring from the 1960s, this will test your tolerance. The orchestra is reasonably well captured for 1937, but the singers suffer when they move away from the front-stage microphone. There are moments of genuine sonic distress.
Should you acquire this? If you care about the history of Wagner singing—if you want to understand what John Steane meant when he wrote that “to learn how Wagner could be sung, the public in general had to wait for the great days of Melchior, Schorr and Flagstad“—then yes, absolutely. This cast has never been bettered, and likely never will be. We’re in a different world now, with different vocal training, different physical types, different aesthetic assumptions.
But if sonic quality ranks paramount in your listening priorities, approach with caution. This is a document of a golden age, preserved under less than golden circumstances. The artistry transcends the limitations—but those limitations remain stubbornly, sometimes maddeningly, present.
For those willing to meet these singers on their own terms, accepting the technological constraints of their era, this Siegfried offers rewards beyond measure. Seize it, as one of the original reviewers advised—but know what you’re seizing.
