Hermann Uhde was the reason for my interest, a superbly communicative artist with extremely few studio recordings, though well remembered from the recordings that came from Bayreuth, all with excellent sound. Here the sound quality is poor, but my interest is hearing Uhde’s performance.

The Vienna State Opera was taking steps towards becoming more internationalized and so allowed (or encouraged?) Pretre to lead this revival of Gounod's thrice-familiar in the original language. All the leads sing up a storm. Kmentt portrays a passionate Faust with a great top. The top B's and C pour out of him effortlessly. He also displays great musical sensitivity - no wonder he was so loved in Vienna! Lipp has no trouble with Marguerite's brief coloratura. Her trill in the Jewel Song is passable and her high notes strong and exciting. Pretre doesn't take the usual cut in the big duet so we get an extra C from her as well. Uhde acts Mephisto very well, dominating the proceedings when he should. His distinctive voice provides a silken cushion as well. Wachter sings his famous aria beautifully and is unexpectedly ferocious when he curses his sister. Miljakovic and Rossl-Majden are also very good in their assignments. Pretre, as was his wont, gives us more of the score than we normally get. I would have loved to hear Lipp sing the "Il ne revient pas" scene, but that's asking a lot of a soprano and Lipp is very generous in the rest of the role.The sound is from a radio broadcast albeit one several generations removed from the original tape. The pitch is correct (mostly), but there are fade outs and brief clogged passages. It's worth enduring for the performance, but I'd love to hear a better sounding copy some day.

Great energetic conducting of Pretre (esp. third Cd). Kmentt does a great job, in famous aria Salut..., also. He manages a good high C in the that aria. Uhde is powerful Mefistofeles. Lipp and Waechter are very competent in their roles.