Les enregistrements Orfeo Coffret

Description

It was Munich that offered Julia Varady more than just a theater to build her repertoire, a company to find her place, and a tradition of singing to which her voice could adapt and grow. Art was given to her at birth, and so was character; the ease of an immense instrument in terms of range and intensity would allow her to tackle all the characters she dreamed of interpreting. Starting with Mozart, her journey, guided by so many elective affinities, would lead her to Wagner, but the essence of her art, and the very nature of her vocality, inclined her towards the Italians. The amber of her timbre destined her for the heroines of Puccini, while the ardor of her art and her commanding high notes would open the great Verdi roles where the purity of her style and the commitment of her singing were sublimated. Ultimately, Munich would also give her a husband, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, whom she met on stage for a Puccini Houppelande still sung in German (Der Mantel). Starting in the 1980s, Orfeo began to illustrate her art. Not through live recordings – those would come later – but expressly through albums, and the most carefully produced ones, both in terms of sound quality and artistic realization. A central figure in two operas that her name alone was enough to rehabilitate (L’Olympie by Spontini, Jessonda by Spohr) and a rarity by Meyerbeer (Les Amours de Teolinde), this would have made for a somewhat marginal beginning, but a full album of Tchaikovsky melodies recorded during the same period is far more revealing of a part of her art: this singing, like that of Lotte Lehmann or Sena Jurinac, expresses as much as it sings. As the years went by, Orfeo meticulously documented her successive roles, assembling them into monographic albums, one for Puccini, two for Verdi, pure wonders that remained immaculate. Richard Strauss would follow, all of Arabella for Sawallisch with DFD and a full recital that can be found here with her incredible monologue from Danae, a final scene from Capriccio more passionate than nostalgic, her dark Ariadne and Salome, with Fischer-Dieskau conducting everything, then an album of Wagner where she would touch upon Isolde and Brunhilde, the true treasure being her Wesendonck songs, beautiful as nocturnes. But also savor the double feature of Strauss lieder (the Schlagende Herzen!) and Mozart (Abendempfindung), and lose yourself in the lesser-known albums dedicated to the heroines of Tchaikovsky; listen to her desperate Letter from Tatiana, and the vertigo of the high notes throughout the two arias of Lisa!