maybe Mike's going to listen to a different ring cycle every day; it's only 14-17 hours of music (depending on the conductor)
Right now I'm recovering from a four-berlin-museum marathon (Anne Frank Zentrum, Brücke Museum, Bauhaus Museum, Hamburger Bahnhof Museum) and preparing for at least four tomorrow (Knoblauchhaus, Schloss Köpenick, Berlinische Galerie, Gemäldegalerie, and if I can swing it, the Kunstbibliothek, Kunstgewerbemuseum and Kupferstichkabinett—do not refer to those last three as an acronym, please!)
I'm getting ready to tuck in, but have been comparing the two great sopranos of the golden age of Wagner—Frida Leider and Kirsten Flagstad. Flagstad is far better represented on record (indeed, we do not have a single complete opera from Leider), and I have always preferred Leider out of a youthful contrarian impulse, always found Flagstad's tone as conveyed by recordings to be annoyingly soft around the edges, as if she were singing into a cushion, or to a pair of heavy drapes. As it is recorded, it feels a bit sepia, a bit LCD-2, a bit HD650 through a syrupy tube amp.
I think much of this is the fault of recording.
Although Leider's gleaming, knifelike clarity retains its special place in my heart, I find that having a quick vibrato can make up for a lot. Perlman, discussing Heifetz, says that the master's vibrato was "volcanic"—impossibly fast. Voices are different from violins, of course. But a loose, slow vibrato is to the operatic voice perhaps as sagging skin is to the body. Callas lost her quick vibrato with time. Gwynth Jones never had a quick vibrato to begin with. But of the five major Wagner sopranos of the C20—in rough order of careers, Leider, Flagstad, Varnay, Mödl, Nilsson—to my ears, right now, Flagstad's vibrato is the second quickest, behind only Mödl (Mödl, of course, a mezzo with a high extension, had her own issues, though this may explain how she maintained a career from the late 40s until the late 1990s, albeit as a contralto by the '80s). Thus, even as its tone seems excessively soft, and the end of her notes seem almost to "fade out," as though lacking the power to come to a sharp end, I'm beginning to hear what recommends her to so many. I will make a careful study of her performance in the 1952 Tristan; I've hitherto listened "past" her, if you will, as if to isolate Furtwängler from the world.
EDIT: Didn't make it to the "Kunst/Kunst/Kup" trio — I was at the Gemäldegalerie for a long time this afternoon, and boy howdy was it worth it. Perhaps the best collection of fifteenth century Flemish painting in the world. Jan van Eyck was supremely well represented, as were Rogier van der Weyden, Hugo van der Goes, the Master of Flémalle, etc. See "the twitters" for more. I've been walking 10-20 miles a day here in Berlin, and oh my is it worth it. The Berlinsche Galerie this morning was a special treat, though some of the temporary exhibitions felt a little bullschiitty (the permanent exhibition was much better).