The Complete Johanna Gadski, Volume 1
The Victor Recordings, 1903-1909
[Marston 52002-2; 2 CDs]

for cover art, detailed track listings, liner notes please see:

http://www.marstonrecords.com/Gadski/gladski_tracks.htm

I’m fascinated by Gadski’s photograph as Isolde on the booklet cover. The legendary German soprano is clad in queenly robes. Her posture is regal. She seems radiant with purpose with arms outstretched in a sweeping gesture almost as if she were about to levitate!. The diva’s face is stunning with spacious cheekbones, a strong nose, cupid lips, and a firm chin. Gadski looks heavenward, her eyes are radiant with the sacred fire. I am immediately thrilled and awed by her commanding presence.

And she delivers the musical goods! Wagner, Verdi, Mascagni, Rossini, Schumann, Schubert, Strauss (Richard) you name it, Gadski could sing it and quite spectacularly too with a voice that was the epitome of passion-laden but steadily controlled emission of tone.

I recommend that you start off with her fabulous “Ho jo to ho!” from Die Walkure. Never have I heard this passage sung with rock-steady tone, with such fire, abandon and girlish passion (and with a glittering trill, yet!). You can almost see the great soprano in her armor, spear in hand, bounding from rock to rock, sweeping past a bemused Wotan, making her way center stage to hurl out one of her right-on-the-money High C’s. The vital connection between Bellini’s Norma and Wagner’s Isolde is tellingly demonstrated in her rendition of the “Liebestod” where she starts out in trance-like prayer, the voice ethereally hushed, rapt, deftly weaving the Bellini-like strands of Wagner’s divine melodies, building up to the passionate outburst, then riding out over the orchestra in the full throes of Wagnerian frenzy.

Gadski adjusts her heroic instrument most beautifully for selections from the art song repertoire, such as Bach-Gounoud “Ave Maria” and La Forge’s “Like the Rose Bud.” I’ve never heard Schubert’s “Erlkonig” sung with such eye-popping, vein-in-the-neck-bulging horror; “Mein Vater, Mein Vater” is a true scream of terror.

In Rossini’s “Inflammatus” she imperiously commands the musical phrase, earnest as a Michelangelean Sybil, her voice securely negotiating the sweeping musical phrases, boldly essaying the coloratura, topping it off with a blazing High C.

Her Aida is no simpering, “woe-is-me” victim, but a passionate, “take-charge” heroine caught in one hell of a dilemma. In Aida’s confrontation with Amneris (sung with superb majesty by Louise Homer) Gadski is touchingly defiant in the face of all-too-damnable adversity. The excerpt from Salome makes one pant for more; her nasty little princess is a mind-blower! This is in-your-face sexual mania, the voice glowing with sensual indulgence, blazing bright with lust; the smile of laschievous cruelty in the voice.

Harold Bruder has written a fine article for the booklet which includes more engaging pictures of Gadski in costume. Once again, Ward Marston has done his exemplary work of audio conservation. Dramatic sopranos are such rare birds nowadays that I am thankful that the beauty, power and august splendor of Gadski’s voice is restored to us once more.

Back to Don Bartolo's CD Reviews