In my last post I nominated Nicolai Gedda as Loge for my dream Ring Cycle. Of course, one might protest that Gedda didn’t sing Wagner (other than excerpts) after his one Lohengrin in Stockholm. I don’t care, and I’m not the only one. My dad had recorded, back in the 80s, an episode from George Jellinek’s radio show The Vocal Scene on Wagnerian tenors and he, too, treated Gedda’s performance of In fernam Land (the Grail narrative) as “a model in every respect” while dutifully pointing out that Gedda hadn’t continued to pursue Wagner.

I would have loved to hear Gedda as Loge for his vocal charisma. I can just hear in my mind how he would have sung certain lines, and Loge gets some of the best zingers Wagner ever wrote. I couldn’t find a recording of “Immer is Undank Loges Lohn” (Loge’s narration from the second scene of Das Rheingold) on the places I usually look.

So, as a worthy consolation prize, here is his recording of In fernam Land — see if you aren’t as frustrated as I am that we don’t have more Wagner from Nicolai Gedda:

Later, as a major in Russian as well as music, I grew to know Gedda’s other recordings well. Many Eugene Onegin fans have his “Lensky aria” basically memorized, but I just recently discovered a performance of that aria that’s really special. In 1981 Beverly Sills hosted a tribute concert for the ailing George London, who had been the Onegin to Gedda’s Lensky at the Met. With “surprise accompanist” Mistslav Rostropovich, Gedda performs Lensky’s aria with more emotion on his face than you ordinarily see in other footage (if there was a knock on Gedda it was that he did most of his acting with his voice).  Listen to the delicate pianissimo aaround 5:12! At the end, they look genuinely moved.