Varnay wonderfull, but Fassbaender is so out of pitch...to much even here!

@@luizfernandg I think the video is with Gwyneth Jones, who definitely had pitch problems. Fassbaender was on point.

Sorry, Sir: She is constantly off key, vibrato is uncontrolled- the singer above her zenith. What remains is the audible presence of an experienced singer.

@@tristanberger8500 Ok, who sings this most difficult role on tune on stage? Even Astrid Varnay, by far the best Elektra AND Klitemnestra, did the final version in the studio with Bhöm, remember? What I can tell you for sure is that I'd gladly give a few years of my life to hear these great singers! i've just seen in Frankfurt, with all the money they have available for high culture there, the worse Elektra of my life, both Inzenierung und Sängerinnen! Just enough to let you in a state of never again going to any opera! What they do to get through the harshnes of the role? Both singer and conductor run away like mad... to get to the end!

@@luizfernandg Of course, I have to agree to a large extent. Great voices and great singing especially is dying out. We owe this primarily to poor training, ridiculous productions by narcissists and many conductors who have no idea about voices. A Varnay would have no jobs today, she would have been forced at a young age to sing Mozart - and if she can't do it because her voice is not made for Mozart: Away with her, what does she think she wants to sing Wagner roles. Strauss is sung today by aged lyrical voices. - Just look at who sings the "4 last songs". Mostly much too small voices, which do not have the breath for it and do not come over the orchestra.

​@@tristanberger8500exactly!

A greta shame on the wonderfull career of Rysanek that Klitemnestra...Totally out of pitch! But her Elektra on studio, with Bhöm telling her she was too high or too low, so, correcting her until it was right, is great! Great singer!

@Noack Somewhere No, she went straight to Elektra. She established herself as a hoch drammatische immediately.

not many- a Chrysothemis is and will not be a real Elektra. Some aged Elektras used to sing Klytämnestra.-like Gwyneth Jones...it's hard to find a real good one. I guess a voice like Obratzovas would have been perfectly.

Varnay is by far the best Elektra and Klitemnestra. But no, she never sung Chrososthemis, although she was such a great artist that she had the means to do it as good as the other two main female roles of this magnificent opera, that I've just about given up to hear a good version again. Nina Stemme and Waltraud Meier did a good job of Elektra and Klitemnestra a few years ago in Berlin... but just ok, nothing to go mad about. Nina screams, for my taste anyway, and Waltraud, great artist, do what she can, but her voice is not rich enough for all the nuances in Klitemnestra's part!

@@luizfernandg I m totally agree.

@@luizfernandg W. Meier is one of the first Wagnerian singers who convinced mainly by her performance, which critics overlooked the fact that she was a soprano with technical shortcomings. She was also telegenic, which helped as well and has become almost the most important thing today. Soon one knows only from the recordings of the 50-70s how Strauss and Wagner should sound.