The Ultimate Fantasy Ring: Lehmann is Sieglinde

In the April 2000 issue of Opera News Conrad Osborne assembles a dream team for Wagner’s Ring with Lehmann as his Sieglinde. He writes: “I have seen several splendid Sieglindes (Crespin and Rysanek head the list) and heard many others sing it well on records. A few of the acoustical sopranos suggest magnificence in brief excerpts. But I find that when I recall or listen to these others, I miss something from Lehmann and when I listen to Lehmann, I miss nothing from them. It’s not just familiarity. (Actually, the Ljungberg/Widdop version--pretty good!--first led me into this music.) It's partly the set of Lehmann’s voice, which is ideal for the role, from its well-suppported blend at the bottom (as at the opening of ‘Der Männer Sippe’) to its freshly soaring top and the way her beautifully formed German is incised into the line. But more, it’s her knack for landing us directly in the middle of her character’s predicament. I refer not only to the passages of transport and terror or discovery, which are all wonderful, but to small situational moments, such as her fist nervous explanation to her husband (‘Müd am Herd fand ich den Mann’). This ability to keep her character constantly before us, and important to us, is what makes her Sieglinde inimitable.”