New Operatic Records

Richard Strauss, a giant in his own right, stood between the influences of two other musical greats. He acknowledged one when, as he began work on Der Rosenkavalier in 1909, he said: "This time I shall write a Mozart opera." He repeatedly acknowledged Richard Wagner before starting Die Frau Ohne Schatten (The Woman Without a Shadow), a huge opera that sounds thunderous echoes of the Ring cycle as well as of Strauss's own tone poems. Now recorded for the first time in an ambitious five-disk set by London, Die Frau Ohne Schatten is one of the most fascinating items on the bulging fall shelf of opera on LP.

What has kept this work, which Strauss regarded as his most important effort, out of the standard repertory is its length (four hours) and the wild complexity of Poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal's libretto, compared to which a combination of The Magic Flute and Parsifal would seem simple. The story, embroidered by Librettist Hofmannsthal with the myths of not one but half a dozen cultures, concerns a beautiful empress who, being born of a spirit, does not possess anything as human as a shadow--or the ability to bear children. Since she is married to a more human ruler, she must acquire a shadow or forfeit her husband's life. With the help of a witchlike nurse and surrounded by innumerable magic effects (a sword springing from nowhere, fish conjured from thin air into a frying pan, a chorus of "unborn children"), the empress searches for a likely shadow and nearly gets it from the wife of a good and simple-minded dyer. Eventually all dissolves, amid some first-rate Hofmannsthal poetry, into a mirage of symbolism about human and superhuman life, selfish and selfless love.

This topnotch recording, conducted by Vienna's Karl Boehm and sung by an outstanding cast headed by Soprano Leonie Rysanek and Bass-Baritone Paul Schoeffler, reveals the Strauss score in all its turbulent brilliance, at times long-winded and meandering, but always the work of a master.

For listeners inclined to an earlier, lusher and more lyrical Richard Strauss. Angel has a superb new Rosenkavalier (on 4 LPs). Strauss's swirling, silvery tunes never sounded better. Herbert von Karajan, conducting London's Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, is pliant and powerful; Singers Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Teresa Stich-Randall and Christa Ludwig are uniformly excellent. They invest their climactic closing trio with even more than its usual aching grandeur, while Otto Edelmann's Baron Ochs combines authority with the required asininity.

Other new recorded operas:

Gluck: Alceste (Kirsten Flagstad, Raoul Jobin; Geraint Jones Orchestra and Singers conducted by Geraint Jones; London, 4 LPs). This version of the opera, which Composer Christoph Willibald Gluck predicted would "please in 200 years," is distinguished by some stunning choral singing and a sumptuous, apparently effortless performance by Soprano Flagstad, recorded last year when she was 61. Her role: the legendary Greek queen who goes to death in exchange for her husband's life--Apollo has him booked for liquidation--but eventually so moves the god that he revives her. French Canadian Tenor Jobin as the king sings powerfully, in a voice that shivers and flares with an eloquent sense of the fate shadowing it.

Puccini: La Boheme (Maria Meneghini Callas, Anna Moffo, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Rolando Panerai. Nicola Zaccaria; La Scala Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Antonino Votto; Angel, 2

LPs). The familiar music is given a brilliant though dubious gloss in this eighth LP version of Puccini's rhapsodic Parisian ramble. Maria Callas, who might be expected to be too imperious for the tuberculous Mimi, steals the show with a melting, multifaceted performance that kindles startling new life in the Latin Quarter's cruelly harrowed seamstress. The villain of the affair is Conductor Votto, who allows his singers to amble through their parts at will, making an otherwise fine recording at times nearly insufferable by comparison with the unforgettable Toscanini version on RCA Victor.

Bellini: La Sonnambula (Maria Meneghini Callas, Eugenia Ratti, Fiorenza Cossotto, Nicola Monti, Nicola Zaccaria; La Scala Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Antonino Votto; Angel, 3 LPs). Bellini's tale of a sleepwalking bride-to-be who wanders into the wrong bedroom is wispier material than Soprano Callas usually likes to work with, but she takes the title role fervently and in high style. The melting sweetness of her sleepwalking aria ("Ah! non credea mirarti") is the high point of a finely styled recording.

Debussy: Pelleas et Melisande (Victoria de los Angeles, Jacques Jansen, Gerard Souzay, Pierre Froumenty; Choeurs Raymond St. Paul and Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Franchise conducted by Andre Cluytens; Angel, 3 LPs). The otherworldly, impressionistic glow that suffuses Maurice Maeterlinck's text and Claude Debussy's score is here gorgeously reflected in a brilliantly balanced, richly colored interpretation by Conductor Cluytens. As Arkel, King of Allemonde, French Bass Pierre Froumenty dominates the opera with his big. dark-hued voice and his affecting commentary on the thickening tragedy. "If I were God,'' he sings at a high point of his role, "I would take pity on the hearts of men!"

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