Ljuba Welitsch The Complete Columbia Recordings

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Ljuba Welitsch had a short career, her stardom spanning the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s. Perhaps this is because she gave so much of herself--even on records you feel she's operating on all cylinders. Her most famous role, Salome, is represented here by the closing scene with Fritz Reiner and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, recorded at the time of her triumphant New York debut. She was also a great Donna Anna, her rendition of the big arias from Don Giovanni full of fire and thrust. Tosca's "Vissi d'arte" is a passionate reading, one of the best on disc. The song disc is more variable but always interesting. A great singer, captured in her prime. -- Dan Davis

Amazon.com
Half of Bulgarian soprano Ljuba Welitsch's Columbia output stems from her salad days at the Met, when her silvery voice cut across the footlights like liquid fire. The 1950 Tosca and Don Giovanni selections, as well as her incomparable Salome Final Scene with the fiery Fritz Reiner at the helm, sound more potent than ever in these 20-bit transfers from original source material. Also memorable are two delicately scaled Joseph Marx lieder and a peerless Strauss Cacille. Sadly, the 1952-3... read more

Ljuba Welitsch The Complete Columbia Recordings

Tracks:

Salome, Op. 54: Final Scene
Tosca - (Act I): 'Perche chiuso?...Mia gelosa'
Tosca - (Act II): 'Vissi d'arte'
Don Giovanni - (Act I): 'Don Ottavio, son morta!...Or sai, chi l'onore'
Don Giovanni - (Act II): 'Crudele! Ah no, mio ben... Non mi dir, bell'idol mio'
Die Fledermaus: 'Czardas'
Der Zigeunerbaron: 'Habet Acht' - (Gypsy Song)
Four Last Songs: 'Fruhling'
Four Last Songs: 'September'
Four Last Songs: 'Beim Schlafengehen'
Four Last Songs: 'Im Abendrot'

Tracks:

Op. 43, No. 1: 'Von ewiger Liebe'
Op 105, No. 1: 'Wie Melodien Zieht Es Mir'
Op. 84, No. 4: 'Vergebliches Standchen'
'Die Mainacht'
'Meine Liebe ist grun'
Op. 2: 'Gretchen Am Spinnrade'
Op. 43, No. 1: 'Die Junge Nonne'
Schwanengesang: 'Liebesbotschaft'
Op. 32: 'Die Forelle'
Myrthen, Op. 25, No. 1: 'Widmung'
Liederkreis, Op. 39, No. 5: 'Mondnacht'
Myrthen, Op. 25, No. 3: 'Der Nussbaum'
Zigeunerlieder,Op. 103: No. 1
Zigeunerlieder,Op. 103: No. 2
Zigeunerlieder,Op. 103: No. 4
Zigeunerlieder,Op. 103: No. 7
'Mne Grustno'
''Mel'nik'
'Gde ti, zvezdochka?'
'Hat Dich Die Liebe Beruhrt'
'Valse De Chopin'
'Dei Nacht' - Op. 10, No. 3
'Cacilie' - Op. 27, No.2
'Ich atmet' einen linden Duft'
'Blicke Mir Nicht In Die Lieder'
'Ich Bin Der Welt Abhanden Gekommen'
'Um Mitternacht' - (Incomplete)

Amazon.com

Ljuba Welitsch had a short career, her stardom spanning the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s. Perhaps this is because she gave so much of herself--even on records you feel she's operating on all cylinders. Her most famous role, Salome, is represented here by the closing scene with Fritz Reiner and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, recorded at the time of her triumphant New York debut. She was also a great Donna Anna, her rendition of the big arias from Don Giovanni full of fire and thrust. Tosca's "Vissi d'arte" is a passionate reading, one of the best on disc. The song disc is more variable but always interesting. A great singer, captured in her prime. -- Dan Davis

Amazon.com

Half of Bulgarian soprano Ljuba Welitsch's Columbia output stems from her salad days at the Met, when her silvery voice cut across the footlights like liquid fire. The 1950 Tosca and Don Giovanni selections, as well as her incomparable Salome Final Scene with the fiery Fritz Reiner at the helm, sound more potent than ever in these 20-bit transfers from original source material. Also memorable are two delicately scaled Joseph Marx lieder and a peerless Strauss Cacille. Sadly, the 1952-3 lieder sessions find Welitsch in dire straits: her voice has acquired a papery edge, with perceptive decline in intonation and breath control. Give Paul Ulanowsky credit, though, for admirably maneuvering through the thankless, Crisco-thick piano "deorchestrations" of Strauss' Four Last Songs. --Jed Distler

Customer Reviews:

Enigimatic Flame!.......2003-11-14

This woman moved me! I felt exitement, finality, pain, passion, victory, sensuousness, and nostalgia of a time unknown to me. The Salome aria is the most convincingly and beautifully sung I have ever heard by far. The thread of sound is never broken. The lieder selections are very lovely and interestingly personal, not at all detached or serious; a joy. Strauss' Four Last Songs done with piano are quite effective as such.

The recorded sound is very impressive; a clean, full-bodied sound. Columbia's mono recordings are absolutely superior.

This soprano seemed to have something very important to say. There is an ever present urgency in her delivery, a haste, and a desperation that clings to the heart. As she sings, she invokes compassion, mystery, fear and joy.

Please hear this woman!

perhaps the most sensual of German lieder singers.......1999-08-22

This collection of Ljuba Welitsch's singing Strauss is an great example of a singer's cultural connection to a composer giving her an almost eerily innate feeling for the music. Welitsch's voice can only be described as sexy, in a pre-war German sort of way, silvery hard and focused in tone combined with a sensuality of expression that is unique. She breathes life and fire into this music in a way that later singers -- even the great Elisabeth Schwarzkopf -- could not.

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