Tannhäuser (CD): Franz Konwitschny, Elisabeth Grümmer, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Fritz Wunderlich, Gottlob Frick
Conductor Franz Konwitschny
Landgraf Hermann Gottlob Frick
Tannhäuser Hans Hopf
Wolfram Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Walther Fritz Wunderlich
Biterolf Rudolf Gonszar
Heinrich Gerhard Unger
Reinmar Reiner Suss
Elisabeth Elisabeth Grümmer
Venus Marianne Schech
Ein junger Hirt Lisa Otto
Staatskapelle Berlin. Chor der Berliner Staatsoper
Dresden-version. Studio recording (stereo). Recorded in October 1960.
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Reviews
"Listen to how Konwitschny conducts the Overture, the large ensemble in Act 2, and indeed much of the solo work and be reminded of the lost art of pacing and shaping a Wagnerian paragraph. Above all he evinces the secret of steady, forward movement in Wagner; he unerringly feels the pulse of this score. He's helped by having an orchestra fully versed in this opera's tradition and by having perhaps the best chorus, Bayreuth's excepted (on the Sawallisch set for Philips), ever to have recorded the piece. […] Grümmer as Elisabeth, Frick as the Landgrave (for once no bore) and Fischer-Dieskau as Wolfram, display quite unreservedly the advantage of long acquaintance with a particular idiom. […] The exception I referred to earlier is Hopf's clumsy account of Tannhauser's music. He has little problem with the role's cruel tessitura, indeed often makes a pleasanter sound than Kollo (Decca) or Windgassen (Philips), but his aspirating of runs and turns, and his generally heavy-handed delivery, are at times hard to take, especially in the earlier acts. […] Schech isn't the most glamorous of Venuses; no match for Solti's Ludwig, or indeed for Haitink's Meier (EMI), but her contribution is never less then secure. All in all, if it's the Dresden version you are looking for, you could do worse than choose this mid-price reissue in front of the more recent and less convincing Haitink version, though my enthusiasm expressed three years ago for the Philips reissue of the Bayreuth version remains undiminished - that offers a Wagner-approved conflation of the Dresden and Paris versions and is a truthful record of a dedicated evening at Bayreuth in 1962, much enhanced by Sawallisch's conducting, which has many of Konwitschny's qualities, if not quite the older conductor's overview of the piece.
Alan Blyth in "Gramophone", 10/1990 (quoted from the Fritz Wunderlich Discography Website: http://www.andreas-praefcke.de/wunderlich)
"This set of the Dresden version is frustrating. Despite what looks on paper like a dream cast and with sound in bright, somewhat shallow at times early stereo, the performance veers wildly between two extremes: the exquisitely sensitive singing of Elisabeth Grümmer as Elisabeth, a famous interpretation preserved for the studio, and the burly, coarse singing of Hans Hopf in the title role.
Konwitschny, normally a sensitive Wagner conductor, gives us a stodgy, pedestrian reading of the overture, with little fluidity or notable detail.
[…]
When we emerge from Venusberg and later hear Fritz Wunderlich (what luxury casting in the part of Walter, which makes one lament the fact that he never sang Walter in Die Meistersinger), we do feel that Mai kommen, as sung by the Shepherd, here a bright-toned, fresh Lisa Otto, notable for her soubrette roles. Fischer-Dieskau's Wolfram is a bit overemphatic; he improves later. Elisabeth Grümmer's Dich teure halle at the opening of Act II is sensitive, with a lovely softening of tone on Geliebter raum, though she sounds uncomfortable on the high B. One wishes Wunderlich was singing the duet with her upon hearing Hopf's clumsy singing. Frick is sensitive and his short scene with Elisabeth seems to dance; the two really speak to each other in the most subtle of ways. Konwitschny's conducting finally seems to gain some vigor, if not the ultimate in detail, in the ensuing scenes and the choral singing is sure and generally controlled. Grümmer's voice is radiant but does not soar above the ensemble with her usual ease, though her plea for Tannhauser is most affecting.
Scott Grunow, review in "Wagner on the Web" (quoted from the Fritz Wunderlich Discography Website: http://www.andreas-praefcke.de/wunderlich)
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Tannhäuser recordings
Georg Solti - Daniel Barenboim - Franz Konwitschny - Giuseppe Sinopoli - Karl Elmendorff 1930 -