Mozart: Idomeneo, K. 366

The great attraction of this Vienna 1950 performance of Mozart’s Idomeneo is dramatic soprano Gertrude Grob-Prandl, an Austrian singer spoken of in certain circles in nearly the same breath as that of Flagstad and Nilsson for her sheer vocal heft when discussing the great 20th c. Wagnerian sopranos. Tenor Horst Taubmann, Flamand in the 1942 premiere of Strauss’s Capriccio, stars as Idomeneo. The self-taught conductor Meinhard von Zallinger, then working in Vienna, and whom HC Robbins Landon called “highly professional”, leads the Vienna State Opera Choir and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.