Wagner: Opera Arias

There's no getting away from the fact that this is a superb voice, arguably the best of its type around today and a fitting successor to the great Kurt Moll. (Although Herr Papé's voice is a notch higher than Moll's, it is blessed with the same sumptuous velvet tone and encompasses much of the same repertoire, even if the younger singer is clearly destined to undertake Wagner's great bass-baritone, as opposed to bass, roles)This is indisputably a gorgeous basso cantante voice and, as the illuminating sleeve-notes make clear, Papé's approach to the singing of Wagner is very much a bel canto one, there is not a hint of the infamous "Bayreuth bark" here!We are treated here to scenes from five operas. In Wotan's famous farewell to his daughter from "Die Walküre", Herr Papé gives us a tantalizing glimpse of what a significant exponent of this role he will undoubtedly become. Pogner has long been Papé's role in "Die Meistersinger", but it is clear that he has the vocal wherewithal to become a great Sachs and the excerpts here demonstrate that he can cope with ease with both the introspective and public utterances of the character. We are also given a brief snippet of the Nightwatchman's music; these are perhaps among the most beautiful few bars in all opera, but it seems a curious inclusion here. He is on familiar ground with Heinrich's address from "Lohengrin". But although one can only admire the ease and tonal beauty with which he dispatches Wolfram's song to the Evening Star from "Tannhäuser", I have to say that I prefer to hear a lyric baritone voice (Fischer-Dieskau, Prey, Allen) in this music. A substantial part of the disc is given over to "Parsifal", where Papé reprises his familiar role of Gurnemanz and is partnered most effectively by Plácido Domingo, whose German is here rather less "personal" than it sometimes is. The wonderful accompaniment comes from the great Staatskapelle Berlin and the Chor der Staatsoper unter den Linden under the sensitive direction of none other than Daniel Barenboim.So why have I failed to award this disc five stars? Well, at times lovely singing is not quite enough and there is somehow something missing here, something that, for instance, Sir John Tomlinson, a singer who commands a less beautiful tone and whose native language is, of course, not German, can supply in abundance; in the programme notes, Papé extols the virtues of singing words and music in Wagner, but somehow he does not quite carry this off here.

I heard Pape at La Scala and enjoyed it, but the selection here is a bit weird, I can't believe that these are some of his best performances.

Good product delivered in a reasonable time.

Ralph Moore doesn't understand Wagner by claiming Baranboim,an undisputed Master of Wagner by every Singer out there,to be a lazy Conductor ha ha Pape isnt a pure dramatic Bass but offering something different...If you want cold steel,look elsewhere...Wagner was a romantic,too...Remember that

As someone who cannot offer detailed comparisons of different versions, it seems to me that Rene Pape's voice is exceptional, and he projects this music with unfailing nobility and feeling for the text, as far as I can tell. The sequence is marvellous, starting with Wotan's Farewell, which he gives with the right sadness, turned to something sublime by the pacing of these 15 minutes and the sense of ever broadening waves of beauty in the way the voice and orchestra dovetail. Pape talks in the interview about the need to treat Wagner with the same ear for beauty as you would any other great composer, making him a continuation of the bel canto tradition. His narrative skill is to the fore in the Meistersinger extracts, which go back to a Wagner closer to Mendelssohn, full of brio and and freshness in the melodies; the choral writing comes in at the end to ecstatic effect. This effectively forms another 15-minute section, a 3-minute interlude from Lohengrin having the feel of a recitative, and sounding Bachian, almost, with added brass, before the searching chromaticism of Parsifal. This strikes me as ruminative, first and foremost, and remarkably beautiful, all in darker tones. The edgier contribution of Placido Domingo is no doubt dramatically right, but served to emphasise how superb the Pape sound really is. He then ends with the superb legato of O Du mein holder Abendstern from Tannhauser - sheer perfection of sound, but without any of the blandness that this can mean - you feel each note reflects hard-won experience, even if it does emerge as pure melody. Barenboim is a committed Wagnerian and should surely be seen as a major exponent of his music, as well as advancing the debate usefully on separating Wagner the artist from the man.