*** WALTRAUD MEIER SINGS WAGNER. Symphnieorchester des Bauyerischen Rundfunks. Lorin Maazel, conductor. (RCA Victor Red Seal)

Meier is a thrilling and dramatic Isolde (“Isoldes Fluch”) and an anguished Kundry (“Grausamer!”). Her cry on the word “lachte” (I laughed) in narrating Kundry’s reaction to Christ on his way to Gethsemane sums up a whole history of suffering. It sends shivers up the spine.

Always she is an intelligent and intensely committed artist, but her opulent mezzo adds more dark-toned weight than is ideal for the innocent Elisabeth (“Hallenarie” from “Tannhauser”) or Elsa (“Elsas Traum”). She shows some strain at the heights in Brunnhilde’s final scene in “Gotterdammerung,” but her dramatic urgency--here and in excerpts from “Der fliegende Hollander,” “Die Walkure” and “Gotterdammerung”--vanquish any reservations.

Maazel doesn’t get in the way and generally provides a nice, spaciously recorded cushion of support. But there’s far more detail and commentary in the scores than we get to hear.

*

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