FIDELIO

FIDELIO:Beethoven
Original Air Date: 02/22/1941
Walter; Flagstad, Maison, Huehn, Kipnis, Farell, Laufkötter
SID.19280104
This performance is important on several counts: 1) it comes only a week after Walter’s Met debut and marked his first appearances in the USA as an opera conductor—he had led symphonic ensembles for close to a decade. Flagstad was concluding her pre-war Met career (9 performances, half of them on tour and she was to be gone for a decade). The supporting cast is of high quality, but the real hallmarks are Walter’s conducting and her luminous Leonore. They can be sampled in MOoD in Flagstad’s return in 1951. Having a voice with the quality of Kipnis is another recommendation for including this performance in MOoD as well.