Ursuleac was only 48 or so when this performance was given some time in 1942 (I've checked several sources and 1942 seems to be correct). Even in her younger days, her voice was not one of ethereal beauty, but that doesn't really matter here. Her tone is occasionally a little loose or opaque, yet that doesn't prevent her from giving us a Marschallin with many specific insights. She sounds natural and unforced, the top notes on pitch and easily projected.Milinkovic sounds more sopranoish than she would a decade later and all the better for it. Kern is a lovely Sophie with her silvery top notes. This is the earliest of Weber's complete recorded performances of Ochs and he is marvelous. He not only sings the optional low C at his exit in Act 1, but sustains it all the way out the door. Willer is a characterful Annina though she avoids the written low E in her scene with Ochs. Everyone in the supporting cast is excellent. Krauss leads a spirited, uncut performance recorded in excellent sound, pitched correctly throughout.Recorded during the Nazi occupation of Germany, there is a sense of nostalgic fun conveyed here, a nostalgia that would soon evaporate with the fall of the Third Reich. All lovers of this opera should hear this.

This Munich recording of "Der Rosenkavalier" (originally issued on Vox, in 1952) hails from an April 1942 broadcast of a Concert Version conducted by Richard Strauss's friend and champion, Clemens Krauß. Its principal interest lies, however, in the soprano who essays the part of the Feldmarschallin Fürstin Werdenberg, Viorica Ursuleac, wife of the conductor, who is reckoned as the composer's favorite soprano, "the most faithful of all the faithful."Ursuleac created rôles in Strauss's "Arabella," "Friedenstag," "Capriccio," and "Die Liebe der Danae." Hers is a controversial voice, however, devoid of any great beauty. She was, rather, regarded as a great musician and actress. In this recording, some of her work sounds congested or squally, but her interpretation of the Princess is extraordinarily moving. Here is a true aristocrat, with that mystique without which this opera does not take flight.