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The Wagner Society

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THE WAGNER SOCIETY

President: Dame Gwyneth Jones DBE Kammersängerin

Vice-President: Sir John Tomlinson CBE

Officers:

Chairman: Malcolm Rivers

Secretary: David Waters

Treasurer and Editor of Wagner News: Raymond Browne

Committee members:

Membership Secretary: Margaret Murphy (Mrs.)

Programme Director: Jeremy Rowe

Assistant Programme Director: Gary Kahn

Bayreuth Bursary Administrator: Maureen McIntosh

Ticket Secretary: Pam Hudson (Mrs.)

Library and Archive: Geoffrey Griffiths

Website and Publicity: Ian Jones

Archivist and Financial Adviser: Ralph Wells

Society website: www.wagnersociety.org

        The Society, which was founded in 1953 by Major Harry Edmonds, is a registered charity: number 266383. It is a member of the Gesellschaft der Freunde von Bayreuth and also of the Richard Wagner Verband, the international association of Wagner societies. The Verband holds its annual congress every May and in 2010 it will be held in Stralsund (northern Germany) from 13 – 16 May. Performances include Der fliegende Holländer and a Wagner concert, details (in English and German) of the Verband and the 2010 congress can be found at: www.richard-wagner-verband.de. Future congresses will be held in Wroclaw (2011), Prague (2012), Leipzig (2013) and Dessau (2014).

WAGNER NEWS

NUMBER 195 - DECEMBER 2009

Editor: Raymond Browne

EDITORIAL

           The new season of talks got off to an excellent start in October with large and appreciative audiences for both the film Baptism of Fire presented by Donald Arthur and for the talk by Professor Laurence Dreyfus. On Saturday 5 December our President, Dame Gwyneth Jones, will be joining us and taking part in The President’s Day at The London Welsh Centre at Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1X 8UE (see page 5 for details). The Society looks forward to welcoming you to this special event. Places are limited to two hundred so please order your tickets as soon as possible.

             Performances of Wagner are, alas, far too infrequent in Britain. The good news is that Opera North has recently announced performances of the Ring, beginning with Das Rheingold in June 2011. A particularly welcome feature is that Opera North has reaffirmed its commitment ‘to the development of talent and to providing opportunities for emerging artists’. Performances will be given in Leeds, Birmingham, Salford and Gateshead, with extended coaching and masterclasses to be held in Leeds as part of the preparation period for each part. It is also good to be able to report that the long-awaited second part of the Longborough Ring, takes place in 2010 with performances of Die Walküre. Good news also from Cardiff where Welsh National Opera will stage a new production of Die Meistersinger in 2010.

        Meanwhile in London the only Wagner performances of the 2009/10 season have already taken place: the new production of Tristan und Isolde at the Royal Opera House (reviewed in this edition) which was also broadcast on Radio 3. Whatever else members thought about this production it certainly proved that performances of Wagner arouse far more passion, emotion, commitment, debate and controversy than those of any other composer. The atmosphere in the Royal Opera House on the first night was like no other, particularly during the final moments of Act III when the last notes faded away, the lights went out to be followed by a long period of silence.

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SOCIETY DIARY

Sunday 29 November 2009

THE REHEARSAL ORCHESTRA AND THE MASTERSINGERS: SCENES FROM LOHENGRIN

The Mastersingers will present scenes from Lohengrin with the Rehearsal Orchestra at the Henry Wood Hall, Trinity Church Square, London SE1 4HE (nearest tube: Borough) Rehearsal: 2.00 to 5.00, run-through: 6.00 to 7.30 p.m. Please note the change of venue for this event.

Tickets: £15.

Saturday 5 December 2009

THE PRESIDENT’S DAY (formerly BAYREUTH BURSARY DAY)

To be held at the London Welsh Centre, 157-163 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1X 8UE. Our President, Dame Gwyneth Jones, will be present at this event. The London Welsh Centre, which has disabled access (there is one step, if this is a problem please contact the Centre to arrange an alternative entrance), it is roughly equidistant from Russell Square, Chancery Lane and Kings Cross tube stations, buses 17, 45 & 46 run along Gray’s Inn Road (alight at the Guildford Road stop). Tea, coffee and biscuits will be available during the interval and, in place of the Christmas Party; we hope that you will join us in the bar after the event to meet our President and other distinguished guests.

Tickets: £15, event begins at .2.30 p.m.

Wednesday 27 January

ANNUAL FORMAL DINNER

To be held at the Westbury Hotel, Bond Street, Mayfair, London SW5 0PZ at 7.00 for 7.30 p.m. Special guests are Susan Bullock and Richard Berkeley-Steele.

Tickets: £65, to include pre-dinner drinks, a full three-course formal dinner created for the Society by celebrity chef Andrew Jones, coffee and port. Places are limited and early application is advised.

Wednesday 24 March

PAUL DAWSON-BOWLING’S ANNUAL LECTURE

The 2010 lecture has the title Georg Solti: Hungarian Dynamo and will be, as usual, fully illustrated with archive recordings. It takes place at the Swedenborg Hall, 20-21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH (entrance in Barter Street). Nearest tubes: Holborn and Tottenham Court Road.

Tickets: £12, wine: 7.00 p.m., talk: 7.30 p.m.

HOW TO OBTAIN TICKETS

Tickets (unless otherwise stated) should be obtained from the Wagner Society Ticket Secretary: Pam Hudson (Mrs.), 3 Howard Gate, Howard Drive, Letchworth Garden City, Herts. SG6 2BQ, telephone: 01462 675 638, e-mail: phudson@talk21.com please make cheques payable to ‘The Wagner Society’ and enclose a stamped addressed envelope.

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2010 SUBSCRIPTIONS

          Subscriptions for 2010 become due on 1 January, 2010 and the Membership Secretary would like to thank all those members who have already paid their 2010 subscriptions. The rates remain unchanged from 2009. Unless you have already paid or have made arrangements for payment by bankers order please send your remittance (in sterling only) to: The Membership Secretary, The Wagner Society, 16 Doran Drive, Redhill, Surrey RH1 6AX. Please make cheques payable to ‘The Wagner Society’. Membership cards will not be issued for 2010 but your membership number is shown on the address label used to send Wagner News.

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TRISTAN UND ISOLDE: A LEFT-HANDED LOOK AT LOVE

A review of Tristan und Isolde at the Royal Opera House on 29 September, 2 & 5 October, by KATIE BARNES

Ben Heppner (Tristan),  John Tomlinson (Marke), Nina Stemme (Isolde), Michael Volle (Kurwenal), Richard Berkeley-Steele (Melot) and Sophie Koch (Brangäne), with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House conducted by Antonio Pappano, directed by Christof Loy, with sets by Johannes Leiacker.

        Whatever else one can say about Christoph Loy, he gets his audiences talking and thinking. Few operatic productions in recent years have divided critical and public opinion so sharply as this. Those who liked it, loved it, and some critics who liked it have been quite offensively patronising about those who did not. Equally, those who did not like it have been outraged against those who did. In all my years of opera-going, I have rarely witnessed such furious booing as the production team faced on the first night.

          So, what exactly caused all this ire? The very strength of the emotions which Loy has aroused, to some extent obscure why the production can be regarded as good or bad. As so often happens, I think that the truth comes somewhere between the two. The setting is simple, deceptively so. The curtain is up when the audience enters the auditorium, revealing an uneven wedge-shaped space taking up about half the depth of the stage, with a grey metallic proscenium frame filled with a purple velvet curtain and a massive grey wall on the left left, which looks as though it has swung out from the proscenium, like the opening of a book. The only furniture in this area is a single chair. In Act II, this increases to two chairs and a table, and one of the chairs is removed for Act III. During the Prelude, the curtains part to reveal an elegant white room with five long dining tables with their short sides towards the audience, which are all laid for a banquet, with chairs, plates, cutlery, napery and illuminated candelabra. On closer inspection, the rear wall, which at first glance appears to be elaborately moulded, proves to be a careful trompe d’oeil drawing on the flat canvas. This is a world of illusion. An interview with Loy in the programme book explains that ‘the room at the back allows us to experience the world that these characters normally inhabit’, and is set up for the wedding breakfast of Isolde and Marke, involving ‘some sort of recall’ on Isolde’s part, while the dark front stage is the ‘existential dimension’ in which the great dialogues take place. All the characters wear modern dress in black, white, or very dull colours.

           The setting has aroused a lot of criticism because of its non-representative nature, with no ship, garden or castle. Its defenders have retorted that the settings do not need to be representational. However, it is clear that the reasons why its detractors consider that it does not work, go well beyond that. In the interview in the programme, Loy refers to Tristan being ‘the most chamber-like of Wagner’s works’. This approach manifests itself in the breathtaking Personenregie, the detail and subtlety of which is astonishing, full of revelatory psychological truth. The characters and their relationships are built up from the tiniest details. A flick of an eyebrow, or a sidelong glance, can say volumes. One has to watch the singers very closely to catch even a substantial proportion of the minute, vital nuances which are the life of this production. The problem is that not many of the audience can see it. The whole of the lighting plot for the front half of the stage, especially in Act II, appears to be a publicity stunt for the new energy saving light bulbs. Anyone placed at any distance from the stage has to peer through the murk to see the singers’ faces. Sitting in the Amphitheatre, I had to use my opera glasses to pick up any facial expressions at all, which after more than four hours was very tiring to the eyes. Far worse, about 80% of the production is set right against the left hand wall, which leaves about a third of the house with a restricted view or no view of the action. I cannot understand how the Royal Opera House management can have allowed this to happen.  Was there not anyone with sufficient courage and authority to tell Loy to take more account of the theatre’s sightlines? If not, why not? Anyone hired to do a production in this horseshoe-shaped theatre must make sure that it can be seen from all parts of the house, except for seats which are sold with a restricted view. In addition, as the floor of the front stage is higher than that for the rear stage, anyone in the front stalls could only see the performers in the rear area from the neck up. Undoubtedly a large part of the hostile demonstration on the first night, came from disgruntled patrons, principally those who had paid to look at an empty stage for five hours. After all, the production team was one of the few things they could see! I understand that the box office has been overwhelmed by complaints, and that they have had to issue complete or partial refunds to the holders of the affected seats. Every penny should have been deducted from Loy’s fee.

           Put baldly, it is the wrong production for the house. This is a production which might be happier in a more intimate theatre, perhaps a mid-sized continental house such as Oper Frankfurt or the Monnaie in Brussels, where the whole of the audience would be close enough see all the subtle nuances. In the huge, horseshoe-shaped auditorium that is the Royal Opera House, much is lost between leaving the stage and reaching the audience. Loy’s ‘chamber approach’ to the opera can only have a limited effect in such a big house where many seats are so far away that the effects he achieves are lost in transit. The critics who approved of the production so whole-heartedly were sitting close enough to appreciate the full beauty of it, but it was lost on too much of the audience. For me, that means the production has not worked. For it to work, the audience should all be able to see enough to make a judgement, rather than it being something shared among a privileged few to the exclusion of the rest. A production which only a percentage of the paying audience can see becomes nothing more than a directorial self-indulgence.

            This two-zone set-up means that most of the production’s most striking visual effects are in the rear portion of the stage. During the Prelude, Isolde enters, already wearing her wedding gown, and walks slowly around the tables, picking up a plate, looking at it and putting it down again, and setting a chair straight, before coming to the front stage, where she slips out of her shoes, and sits down on the stage, while the curtains close behind her. They part again for the Young Sailor’s second verse, showing the chorus, Kurwenal and Melot, all in evening suits, watching the Sailor as he sings and applauding him. This is very badly handled: the aperture between the curtains is so small that only a small percentage of the audience can see it. Tristan is barely in view, with his back to the audience. This means that Isolde’s crucial ‘Mir erkoren’ appears to be intended for Kurwenal, the Sailor or Melot, all of whom are clearly visible. Tristan only comes into view at ‘Was hältst du von dem Knechte?’. The curtains part again to show the chorus, apparently posing for a photograph, singing their response to Kurwenal’s aria, and again at the end of the act, to show King Marke, seated with his back to the audience, receiving the toasts and plaudits of the chorus. At the beginning of Act II, the curtains part to show the courtiers asleep at the tables. Tristan, Kurwenal and Melot are seated together at one table, with Melot crouched on watch, his face full of malice. Isolde enters at the back, looking at one man after another, and stops to pick up a candelabra standing in front of Tristan (which will later be used as the signal torch). He rises and gazes at her, but, seeing Melot’s reaction, sits again. As Isolde comes onto the front stage, the curtain passes swiftly across and disappears, revealing the rear stage, now empty and illuminated only by candles. It is a magical moment. During the love duet, Brangäne passes around the tables, blowing the candles out, one by one. A little later, the curtains part again to show Melot walking across the stage. He could be keeping watch for the lovers, but the music shudders, as though in reaction to his appearance, fuelling our fears that he is on his way to fetch King Marke. The curtains then close, and part again to reveal Brangäne sitting on the edge of a table, singing the Tower Warning. Kurwenal lies on the table behind her, lazily reaching up to caress her bare arms and shoulders before sitting up to kiss her shoulder. ‘Frau Minne’ is at work in more ways than one on that fateful night. The effect is spoilt by another piece of crass direction when, well before the end of the love duet, the curtains part to reveal the stunned King Marke and the courtiers, who are voyeuristically ogling the oblivious lovers, well before the music announces the intrusion of ‘Der Tag’, and before Kurwenal and Brangäne give any warning. In Act III, the rear stage is used for a couple of potent visual effects inspired by Tristan’s delirium – ‘Isolde noch im Reich der Sonne!’ is depicted by Isolde, wearing her wedding dress, sitting at a table onto which all the illuminated candelabra are crowded, surrounding her with a halo of light, and at ‘Wie sie selig, hehr und milde’ she is seen with her back to the audience, looking out of the window, one hand resting on the window frame, while King Marke sits watching her. Again, the effect is spoilt later on, when the battle at Kareol’s gate becomes a gratuitous massacre on the scale of the finale of Elektra, with all the courtiers frenziedly stabbing one another and collapsing, covered in blood.

           Antonio Pappano’s approach to the music reflects the intent of the production, creating an orchestral sound which is at times surprisingly delicate, almost transparent, and at others, staggeringly rich, full of a wonderful sense of touch and feel and flow. The Prelude starts on a gauze of sound, like translucent figured silk, and gradually builds to a richness like patterned velvet, the instruments asking incredibly urgent questions of one another to which none of them seem to have the answers. The Act III Prelude creates the sound of the long, lazy waves surging on the shore of Kareol: Pappano makes it the most distant and lonely sound in the world. He makes the music into the scenery which the visual side of the production so conspicuously lacks. As always, he is most considerate of his singers, some of whose voices are on the light side for Wagner. Their task is made no easier by the fact that the materials of which the set is constructed are not conducive to good projection. The velvet curtain absorbs sound, and the metal wall on the left bounces sound into the open wings on the right. When the curtain is opened, voices are in danger of being swallowed in the large open space of the rear area. As usual, the placing of the singers for the Sailor’s solos and Brangäne’s tower warnings is a problem. For his first solo, the Sailor is placed so far away as to be virtually inaudible: his second solo, and the tower warnings, are sung from the rear area, with the singers in view of at least some of the audience, where, paradoxically, they sound too close. I noticed that, when I sat on the left-hand side of the Amphitheatre at the second performance, the opera sounded very different there compared to the sound on the right-hand side. 

           The jewel of the evening is Nina Stemme, one of the most astonishing Isoldes I have ever seen. She gives a quite extraordinary performance. Compared with some of the great sopranos of the past, her voice could be considered lightweight for the role, but this is in keeping with the intimate ‘chamber’ quality of the staging and musical interpretation, and she opens out to every one of the great vocal climaxes without a hint of strain, and without ever making a sound which is less than beautiful, combining heroic heft with lyric beauty. Her floated ‘meine Augen’ in Act 1, and the sweetness she gave to the single word und in Act II were almost unbearably beautiful, and the effect she created with the Liebestod was unforgettable. For once, it was followed by a deep silence which was the most intense sound of the night, before the audience freed itself from her spell, enough to be able to applaud. She is a remarkably subtle actress, every minute shade of the music reflected in the emotions coursing across her lovely face, in her darting eyes (eye contact is of paramount importance in this production) and in every movement she makes. Every gesture looks as though it comes from a painting by a Nordic master. She knows how to make every movement and every stance at rest a thing of arresting magnetism and beauty. Wherever she is, becomes the centre of the stage. I could fill a whole issue of Wagner News in describing the myriad details of her performance, but among them is the way in which her face becomes a shocking mask of horror, and then of ecstasy, as the thought of a death pact occurs to her for the first time, followed by her reaction to the first mention of the Liebestrank, where one can see her mind instantly jumping to the Todestrank and its possibilities.

          When Tristan approaches her at last, she grips a fold of her dress as he comes too close, and it says volumes. After they drink the potion, she walks away from him and subsides into a heap against the wall, waiting for death, and at the precise moment the potion takes effect, her face breaks into a wide smile. In Act II, there is a breathtaking moment at the extinguishing of the torch, when she beats out two candles with the flat of her hand, and her face and body radiate her surprise at the pain and her ecstasy at feeling it. When she and Tristan have argued out their relationship, she comes to him at last, and lays her head on his shoulder and subsides into his arms – a beautiful, fluid movement. She looks as small as a child beside him. Nothing she does is done at random or by chance.

             It would be hard for any Tristan to equal this Isolde, and Ben Heppner did not quite manage it. I understand that he had been unwell before the first night, and he was not on his best vocal form, coming to grief several times in Act II. (At the final two performances, on 15 and 18 October, he succumbed to a viral infection and was replaced by Lars Cleveman). I was present at his first complete performance at the Royal Opera House, an epic Stolzing in 1990, and it is sad to compare memories of that night with his current vocal state. However, there are few tenors in the world today who could pace themselves so well through this marathon role. Beside Stemme’s quicksilver loveliness, he cannot help looking heavy and awkward, but Loy has drawn a remarkably detailed performance from him. Just the way he looks at her discarded shoes before their first scene together, says so much about his sense of guilt and loss, and his constant twitchiness throughout this scene, constantly betraying his discomfiture in her presence, grows to a sense of shock when he invades her personal space at ‘Die Herrin and Wenn Morold’. This scene is echoed by his angular, despairing awkwardness in King Marke’s presence in Act II. The production does not serve him well in Act III, where he is required to stagger about the stage in melodramatic fashion. He appears to be in shock rather than wounded, making the audience wonder whether Isolde’s healing art is really required at all.

          When Matti Salminen had to cancel the first three performances due to the need to recover from a knee operation, The Royal Opera was lucky that Sir John Tomlinson, who was already in the house to sing the Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlo, agreed to take over as King Marke. As with his Wotan, his approach to this role has evolved over the years, and it has been completely different every time I have seen him do it. In 1985 with English National Opera, he presented a king full of resigned, noble grief; at Bayreuth in 1993, the character was full of fierce anger and bitter resentment. In this production’s ‘chamber’ environment, one might expect an introspective interpretation, but he gave it a mighty, Lear-like scale and intensity which blew everything else away, presenting a man lost in uncomprehending sorrow, rising to the impotent, despairing rage of age against youth, and subsiding into unbelievable sadness. On the first night his voice sounded uneasy, but by the third he had recovered his form. There is nothing like the nobility and majesty that he generates. It is a pity that the production makes him act out of character in ordering Melot to stab Tristan at the end of Act II.

           Next to Stemme, the audience’s favourite was the Kurwenal, Michael Volle, a vocal and physical power house of a man who radiates strength, physicality, concern and raw sex appeal in equal measure. Like Stemme, he is an overwhelming presence onstage. He simply blew the audience away. His dismissal of Brangäne in Act I is redolent with sexual menace, but somehow it comes as no surprise to find them in a liaison in Act II. This was one of the production’s better ideas – what more plausible reason for them to fail to warn the lovers until it is too late, than because they are absorbed in each other? The collapse of their trust in each other in Act III, with Brangäne hurling herself at her erstwhile lover, and him roughly throwing her aside, is painful to behold. Sophie Koch, singing her first Brängane, was a degree less plausible. Dramatically she was very strong, despite a ludicrous wig which almost became a character in its own right, and despite being the victim of some of the production’s silliest ideas, which required her to mess about with a makeup bag at the beginning of Act II and be stripped to an elegant black slip by Isolde during the Frau Minne solo (a piece of business which, misleadingly, implied that Isolde’s tastes are broader than hitherto suspected!). Her voice is sumptuous in the lower register, but inclined to shrillness at the top.

          Richard Berkeley-Steele, who ought to sing Tristan, was an exceptionally strong Melot, and the production uses the character in a very interesting way. He is in the shipboard party in Act I and works very closely with Tristan and Kurwenal, so much so that one wonders whether his subsequent treachery stems from jealousy at Isolde having supplanted him in Tristan’s affections. The other minor characters suffer from the vagaries of the production. Ji-Min Park sang the Young Sailor very engagingly, but was not well placed for either of his solos. Inexplicably, the Shepherd and Steersman, both of whom wear smart business suits, make their first entries near the end of Act II (I only realised who they were the second time I saw the production, so this point was totally lost on anyone only seeing it once), and it is not clear why everyone starts to shiver when the Shepherd enters. In Act III, the Shepherd neither keeps watch nor plays a pipe, but sits gazing interestedly at Tristan as though he were a psychiatrist. Ryland Davies sang the role with an elegance and grace which belied his sixty-six years and forty-five-year career. The Steersman (the personable Dawid Kimberg) is also required to wander about the stage in Act III, long before he is meant to enter, and has to stab Kurwenal to death.

         Taken all in all, I have to count this production as a fascinating failure. Despite its poverty-stricken appearance it probably cost the Royal Opera House a lot of money, but it is doubtful whether it can ever be revived, unless it is substantially restaged, because it would lose money on account of the number of expensive seats which could not be sold, or only sold at a reduced price, because of  the poor sightlines. I fear that this may mean that it could be some years before Tristan is staged in London again. I hope I am wrong.

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A MEDITERRANEAN RING

A review of the Ring performed in Valencia by CHRIS ARGENT

Juha Usitalo (Wotan),Charles Taylor (Donner), Germán Villar (Froh),  John Daszak (Loge), Matti Salminen (Fasolt), Stephen Milling (Fafner), Franz-Josef Kapellmann (Alberich), Niklas Björling Rygert (Mime), Anna Larsson (Fricka), Sabina von Walther (Freia), Daniela Denschlag (Erda), Torsten KerI (Siegmund), Matti Salminen (Hunding), Eva-Maria Westbroek (Sieglinde), Jennifer Wilson (Brünnhilde), Lance Ryan (Siegfried), Marina Zyatkova (Woodbird), Stefan Stoll (Gunther), Matti Salminen (Hagen), Elisabete Matos (Gutrune) and Catherine Wyn-Rogers (Waltraute), with the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana and Cor de la Generalitat Valenciana, conducted by Zubin Mehta, directed by Carlos Padrissa, La Fura dels Baus, with sets by Roland Okbeter,

            To say that the performance of the Ring given in Valencia as part of the 2009 Festival del Mediterrani was unusual is perhaps an understatement. To start with, the opera house where it was performed (the Palau des Artes) is built in a dry river bed, along with a variety of other modernist white concrete, steel and glass palaces, designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, making for a stunning concatenation of arts and science buildings. Before providing any account of this Spanish Ring, an explanatory introduction is necessary. The enterprise was directed by Carlus Padrissa along with La Fura deis Baus, the latter being given star billing in the programme. La Fura deis Baus is a cult Catalan theatre group founded in 1979, whose hallmark and perhaps working ethos is to exploit the human body en masse. Time and time again in all four components of this Ring cycle, the stage was flooded with extraneous semi-naked bodies arranged in a variety of striking tableaux though they were often a disturbing distraction.

           Directors endeavoring to respect Richard Wagner’s essential scenic requirements are confronted by almost impossible demands. How to present the golden treasure of the Rhinedaughters in a reasonably explicit manner without setting Alberich an impossible task in carting off his stolen trophy; how to represent a ring fashioned from the gold filched by Alberich so that it is visible from the furthest end of a theatre, and how to arrange a rainbow (that optical figment of the imagination) so that one can believe the gods are really processing into a never-never land, even if Loge has assured Wotan that the giants had erected a well-built and sturdy sanctuary. In Valencia, the director and set designer (Roland Olbeter) portrayed the gold as a projected image of a human embryo coloured gold, the ring by an immense bracelet-sized ring studded with glowing red lights set in its circumference, and the rainbow by a video projection of coloured lights that repudiated Newtonian physics. To a remarkable extent, all the sets devised for the Valencia Ring depended on imaginative video projections (attributed to Franc Aleu), considerable ingenuity having been expended in fulfilling many of Wagner’s scenic demands: the Rhinedaughters cavorted – swimming, diving and singing – in suspended plexiglass cubes of water which they used delightedly to shower Alberich when he overstayed his welcome, while Fasolt and Fafner were encased in giant steel skeletons that enhanced their height, size and imputed power. The director made substantial use of elevating dollies (as might be found in a film studio, rather than a child’s toy cupboard) that were inhabited off and on by all the protagonists in Das Rheingold, and half of the Valkyries (who must have experienced considerable G forces as they were rapidly raised and lowered during their up and down ride); thankfully, the dollies were more or less forgotten during the remainder of the cycle except to support the boat that brought the humiliated Brünnhilde and Siegfried back to the Gibichung Hall. When the singers were projected by the dollies beyond the stage and over the orchestra, there was a notable enhancement of the penetrative power of their voices.

            The deployed technical wizardry certainly intrigued the mind but, truth be told, somewhat deflected one from an appreciation of the music arising out of the substantial pit. The video projections in themselves were used to great effect to suggest the birth of life and, subsequently, the complexity of the personalities of the gods and ordinary mortals. Using twelve rectangular video projection screens, disposed in a variety of formations (including their reverse sides in one scene in Götterdämmerung to define the space in which the action was occurring), the video scenes forcibly suggested the damage done to the environment and to the planet Earth by the cupidity and depredations of man (motivated by avarice and the pursuit of power that is inherent in the species). There can be little doubt that a remarkable attempt was made to achieve Wagner’s dream of Gesamtkunstwerk with its integration of music, drama, video sequences and dancers (even if they were mostly immobile). At the start of the Vorspiel, with the pit in complete darkness as the E flat chord initiated this new adventure, flashes of lightning appeared followed by a projected image of flowing water in which Brownian motion could be discerned and, subsequently, twisting, turning algal-like filaments and elementary helixes of DNA. Each of the three Rhinedaughters occupied her own plexiglass cube of water suspended from the flies, cavorting with carefree abandon and spending as much time under the water as above it. These images led on to the appearance of the golden embryo, later to be seen in scene 2 of Das Rheingold where the projected images were of an assembly line of golden eggs that sequentially splintered into golden shards and the occasional golden embryo: Alberich perhaps building up his army to conquer the world. As Alberich renounced love, the face of the embryo transformed into the face of a decrepit old man signifying, one presumes, that greed inevitably compromises innocence. Having forsworn love (but not lust), Alberich removed the plug from each of the water-laden cubes leaving the Rhinedaughters distressed and floundering without their aqueous support systems.

            To achieve the change to the mountain top of the god’s domain, the curtain was dropped and reopened on a propless stage backed solely by a bank of a dozen video screens and peopled by two elevating dollies harbouring Wotan and Fricka; Donner, Froh and Freia subsequently appeared on like dollies each operated by at least two black-garbed stagehands. Fafner and Fasolt lumbered into view within their cavernous steel skeletons, and Loge turned up exuberantly on a motorized tricycle most of its form concealed below a long flowing cape decorated with rows of glowing red lights (that unfathomably turned blue as the gods processed into Valhalla). Nibelheim was represented by a stage-wide video picture of a monstrous factory where golden eggs were being mined and manufactured on an assembly line in front of which a procession of gold-coloured human bodies were suspended upside down, like carcasses of meat, and moved along a rail while rows of attendants stroked, prodded, brushed them in some sort of surreal finishing process. The gods seemed not to have any coherent clothing pattern: Wotan’s dress was remotely Babylonian with its skirt and large silver pectoral, Fricka wore a smart white gown topped with a strikingly large cowl, Freia carried a glowing red sphere supposedly representing one of her golden apples and wore a white hedjet (like the pharonic crown of Upper Egypt) while Erda was equipped with a similar, but black crown. Erda arrived on stage somewhat unceremoniously, horizontally, being pushed on in a low-lying dustcart. Alberich’s transformation deserve comment: the Wurm appeared as a train of small metallic wagons each bearing one of the ubiquitous bodies with a flaming torch – a laughable contrivance sufficient to generate the hypocritical fearful reaction from Wotan and Loge. The second, sadly, was a cop-out for although a splendidly bejeweled toad momentarily appeared, its – Alberich’s – capture was not visible as all the stage lighting was doused at the critical moment.

              The most outstanding aspect of this Rheingold, apart from the ingenuity of the video projections and the sometimes over emphatic utilization of bodies so beloved of the Fura deis Baus, was the enthusiasm and sheer exuberance of the orchestra in which the brass and woodwind shone forth. Zubin Mehta kept a tight rein on the pacing, developing a tempo and an attack which kept one sitting on the edge of one’s seat savouring every moment of the performance. Of the singers, Matti Salminen was supreme as Fasolt (as indeed he was in his two other roles, though perhaps most impressive as Hagen where the weight and depth of his voice lent an aura of sheer malevolence to his characterization). Judging Franz-Josef Kapellmann’s performance by the degree to which he induced a spine-tingling reaction in Alberich’s curse, one has to acknowledge that it was less than fear-inducing, but he was totally convincing as a creature thwarted in love and determined to compensate with the exercise of power. Juha Uusitalo’s voice seemed (to me) to be somewhat underpowered and his performance as Wotan rather underwhelming. Anna Larsson was splendid as Fricka conveying neatly that her penchant for dressing up with golden trifles illegitimately acquired from Alberich overcame her sisterly regard for the safety of Freia. The orchestral conclusion to Wagner’s first evening had all the triumphalism that Neil Kinnock might have deemed appropriate in Sheffield in 1991 with the sardonic Loge looking on with a world-weary demeanor.

          The imaginative inspiration that had permeated the presentation of Das Rheingold particularly in the projected video images continued unabated in Die Walküre, from the opening bars as Siegmund’s stride towards the doubtful sanctuary of Hunding’s habitation was accompanied on the video screens by images of moonlit trees passing by above Siegmund’s head at the same pace as that of the orchestral tempo, sometimes accompanied by a ghost-like image of a wolfs head – an image that would be repeated in the glow of the fire in Hunding’s hut as Sieglinde described the intrusion by a man with but one eye during her wedding feast. Sieglinde was represented as a cowed, tethered creature who was nervous of moving except on her hands and knees (until her persecutor, lord and master had succumbed to his wife’s sleeping potion). That the twins soon realized that they shared a genetic link was made quite evident, there being an untoward degree of fondling, by Siegmund of Sieglinde’s face, even while Hunding was still present. With Hunding drugged, Torsten KerI launched into a very confident rendering of ‘Winterstürme’, having earlier in ‘Ein Schwert verhiess mir der Vater’ held on to each of those two long cries of ‘Wälse!, Wälse!’ for almost ten seconds without perceptible strain. This was accompanied by a video projection of a stage-wide ash tree (one assumes it was an ash tree) against a black background spinning around a vertical axis stage centre so that as the branches of the tree appeared to pass across the front of the stage they accelerated sharply, sometimes shedding ribbons of Hindi words, or letters from Siegmund’s name, the significance of all of which was lost on me. Clearly the director and his cohorts were in playful mood as a cartoon style owl took up residence in the video tree as did a pair of ravens, the owl occasionally blinking knowingly, the ravens lazily flapping away perhaps to await instructions from Brünnhilde in Götterdämmerung.

              Thankfully, there was no extraneous stage business, projected or otherwise, during the confrontation between Wotan and Fricka or while Wotan told Brünnhilde of the bind into which he had driven himself. However, before Hunding and Siegmund came to blows, an immense aluminum structured mobile was gradually unfolded from the floor of the stage being pulled up from the flies until it subtended the whole height of the stage. While this made for a stark and dramatic backdrop to Siegmund’s death, its relevance seemed questionable. The Valkyries made a very satisfying racket (à la Anna Russell) during their up and down ride on the dollies to a video projected background of a nineteenth century battlefield scene, the stage picture being somewhat cluttered by a swinging Foucault pendulum (shades of the centenary Chéreau Ring) the bob of which was formed by a swarm of gold-swathed bodies – the dead heroes destined for Valhalla? After Wotan had duly dismissed Brunnhilde’s sisters, Jennifer Wilson sympathetically evoked the pathos of Brunnhilde’s distress at having incurred Wotan’s rage, an anger with himself for having consented and contributed to his own son’s death that rather unfairly and vindictively was directed at his errant but favourite daughter. She was eventually and finally consigned to the safety of a ring of fire supplied by a squadron of bodies each bearing flaming brands – a very effective conclusion to the act.

              The bodies were only too evident at the start of Siegfried where the stage was literally crawling with gold-garbed figures who brought to mind a bed of maggots (perhaps representing the corruption and degradation of mankind). The bodies were subsequently to be seen draped artfully over the steel mobile resurrected from Act II of Die Walküre. The backs of many of these bodies were now equipped with rows of steel rods, and several acted quite aggressively to the movements of Siegfried and the Wanderer around the stage: for once, Siegfried’s bellicose nature seemed thoroughly justified as he drove off these bodies with his boots and with Nothung. Earlier, the bodies had formed themselves into a bed on which Siegfried lounged while Mime endeavoured to curry favour with his unwilling charge. For the scene between the Wanderer and Mime, the director introduced a remarkable coup-de theâtre in the form of an electronic device that apparently recorded the features of the character being questioned, the device then being plunged into a transparent tank of water and remaining visible with the image moving independently. The resultant image of the Wanderer retained its distinct features but that of Mime unaccountably became distorted and sank to the bottom of the device’s screen; all this was possibly pre-programmed, but was eye catching for all that. The Wanderer’s questioning of Erda in Siegfried Act III was quite aggressive as though he felt she was responsible for his dilemma.

        My notes reminded me that this production reached the absolute pits as the bodies mimicked with hand and leg movements Siegfried’s actions in filing down Siegmund’s broken sword as well as the hammer tapping in the forging sequence, thereby completely destroying the sense of drama engendered by Wagner’s score: syncopated movement should be restricted to operetta of the Gilbert and Sullivan variety! To signify his triumph in reforging Nothung (one wonders how he knew the name of the sword), Siegfried mounted a cradle hanging conveniently from the flies which was hoisted high above the stage where he waved the sword vigorously and violently to the accompaniment of a video-projected starburst: not very effective in demonstrating the power of Nothung.

          Video images that were reused from earlier parts of the cycle included the head and shoulders of a chicken-wire man, the rotating Earth where the coasts of the continents were outlined with fire, remote sensing views of Africa and, particularly, of the volcanic A far region of Ethiopia, and the granular surface of the Sun’s photosphere – eclipsing and eclipsed by the Earth overlaid (at the point where the Wanderer consults Erda in Act III) with a single blinking eye complete with eyelashes. Siegfried’s battle with Fafner was poorly staged, the dragon being represented by a simulacrum of a segmented metallic crocodile with neither eyes nor mouth. If killing Fafner was supposed to be an heroic deed, perhaps the director was making it obvious that in his view (with which the writer concurs) it was no such thing. With the signaled death of Fafner the dragon, Fafner the giant appeared on one of the elevating dollies which looked, for all the world, like a NASA Mars excursion rover, powered (but of course) by our old friends the ancillary bodies. Fafner’s face was blacked up and he had three antennae stuck in his head. Siegfried’s journey towards Brünnhilde’s mountain top, initially guided by a silver-garbed Woodbird suspended from the flies with outstretched papier mâché wings, was a video-projected wild ride up hill and down dale and through precipitous Alpine peaks. And so to the end of Siegfried after a splendid awakening scene from Jennifer Wilson who overcame with conviction the problem of not exactly being built in the Kathleen Broderick, Gwyneth Jones mould.

          The production team seemed so enthralled with the possibilities provided by modern video technology that almost every scene of the Valencia Ring was peppered with a perplexing variety of symbols, many superimposed one on the other in multi-layered complexity. Recalling the dressage for each scene consequently became a trial of memory akin to the Christmas party game of remembering all the simple domestic objects on a tray. It came as a breath of pure joy when the video screens were reversed to become the only props for some of the later scenes of Götterdämmerung, giving a visually still centre where the drama itself and the music formed the only focus, notably for the swearing on Hagen’s spear in Act II. But so many of the scenes portrayed a panoply of projected images on the screens, on the front scrim and on a down stage stage-wide screen: some the old familiar images of the Earth and Sun plus an array of numerical combinations beautifully presented but of no apparent relevance. What was appropriate was the adornment of the costumes worn by Hagen and the Gibichung fraternity with Euro and Yen signs: these are go-getters who are not too fussy about the techniques used – a nice little allusion to the behaviour of the bankers in 2008 with their huge unsecured advances to all and sundry. The three Norns who led off the drama in Götterdämmerung were each suspended from a pulley hanging from the flies, with whomsoever was telling the story or asking the question being raised above the level of the others, a nice idea as the raised position of the singer made it possible to identify who was singing in the subdued lighting and gave the singer a distinct advantage in penetrating the orchestral web of sound. At the Gibichung Hall, where Hagen awaited the arrival of Siegfried, he was to be seen playing with the digital photoframe from Act I of Die Walküre, duly immersed in a tank of water, on which could be seen the image of a white-garbed athlete going endlessly through the same routine of a few jerky arm and leg movements – another distraction of little significance. Siegfried’s Rhine journey, played most evocatively by Mehta’s well-trained orchestra, could be tracked from the sight of Siegfried behind a tall screen above which the turbulence of the river was interestingly portrayed by the waving of clusters of clear ribbed plastic bottles, a possible allusion to the pollution of the River Rhine itself though the bottles were remarkably crystalline in appearance. On his arrival, Siegfried changed from his rough wolf clothing to a smart grey business suit and his long flaxen hair was remarkably quickly transformed into a smart short back and sides. The liquid in the tank containing the photoframe provided Gutrune with the wherewithal for the potion to be served to Siegfried though the plot was thickened by Gutrune producing three drinking vessels each containing the same liquid leading to an hilarious sequence where Hagen and Gunther kept offering salutations to Siegfried in the hope of getting him to down his drink while they themselves simulated drinking. The self-same tank was used to catch the ‘blood’ from the wrists of the blood-brothers, the liquid within it turning deep crimson. While the action was proceeding, the video screens displayed Léger-style figurations, sequences of illuminated numbers chief among them ‘547’ and Chaplin-style Modern Times images of industrial processes. At the conclusion of the first act, Gunther-Siegfried secured the ring from Brünnhilde by the simple expedient of knocking her down with a violent blow to the head and calmly removing the ring. On his demand for sanctuary, she led him to the circular canvas sheet on which she had slept after being put to sleep by Wotan, but which had become infested by a horde of yellow-garbed writhing bodies into which morass she sank as did Siegfried after unsheathing Nothung.

           For Hagen’s watch, the singer was seated high above the stage with Alberich nearby on a flies-suspended pulley: full marks in this production for keeping Hagen immobile during the course of Alberich’s appeal for filial faithfulness and single-minded devotion to the task of recovering the ring. After Siegfried’s return from Brünnhilde’s rock, he was greeted by Gutrune (dressed as though auditioning for Cherubino) in a geodesic sphere reminiscent of that used by Freia in the Mariinsky Ring, and then improbably suspended upside down to report his success in capturing Brünnhilde: Lance Ryan overcame this hurdle with considerable sang-froid. The actions called for by the director after Brünnhilde had spotted that Siegfried was carrying the ring were novel: Siegfried first endeavoured to hide the ring behind his back and then tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade Gunther to take it from him. The act then proceeded to its inevitable conclusion with Gutrune accepting all of Siegfried’s unconvincing explanations about his night on the bare mountain top. The principal innovation for Act III (and, in a sense, the climax of this Ring cycle) occurred after Siegfried’s murder. His body was ceremoniously hoisted onto the shoulders of a clutch of Gibichungs, taken off stage and then slowly processed through the theatre, finally returning to the stage. This was incredibly moving as Siegfried’s Funeral March suffused the whole auditorium in all its pathos and glory and we all became witness to what is in effect the denouement of the Ring where Wotan could be seen to have completely failed in his attempt to regain the ring: ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. After Brünnhilde stopped Hagen from taking the ring from Siegfried’s corpse, his body was moved down stage, there to be surrounded by what looked like packets of plastic explosives. As Brünnhilde threw a lighted torch onto the pyre, the video screens moved across the front of the stage bearing images of a line of fire as might emerge from a volcanic fissure, and then parted to reveal the three Rhinedaughters in their water-laden cubes with Wellgunde triumphantly holding the ring aloft – just as Alberich, Wotan, Fafner, Siegfried and Brünnhilde in succession had done previously.

            This account has devoted much more attention to the setting and production because it was so unusual: it remained true to Wagner’s basic story line if not to his detailed stage instructions, but honest attempts were made to represent most of the dominant symbols and events in the Ring. It was a relief that no overall ‘konzept’ was forced onto the production and yet there were messages embedded in the presentation, basically ones related to man’s disregard for the health of the planet. Had not the playing by Zubin Mehta’s orchestra been of such high quality and the singing by so many of the principals been so good, the whole expedition through Wagner’s Ring cycle in Valencia (as in Firenze from whence it came) might have been deemed unsuccessful because of the distracting maelstrom of visual motifs thrown into the ‘ring’. It is only fair to single out Matti Salminen’s performance especially as the power hungry Hagen, Eva-Maria Westbroek as an intensely lyrical Sieglinde, Torsten Kerl’s unstrained Heldentenor in the role of Siegmund and Lance Ryan as a confident Siegfried, with Jennifer Wilson giving her considerable all as Brünnhilde despite being encumbered by the most unflattering costume imaginable. As it was, the production was fascinating and the performance of considerable merit, spoilt only by the intrusion of all those extra bodies: it was these self-same bodies that formed the final geometrical pattern of acrobats hanging from the flies in diamond formation just as they had at the Singapore Music Festival in 2007.

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LONGBOROUGH FESTIVAL OPERA

         Longborough Festival Opera continues its full Ring Cycle with a new production of Die Walküre to be performed on 24, 27 & 31 July 2010. The cast includes: Andrew Rees (Siegmund), Mark Richardson (Hunding), Jason Howard (Wotan), Lee Bisset (Sieglinde), Alwyn Mellor (Brünnhilde) and Alison Kettlewell (Fricka), conducted by Anthony Negus, directed by  Alan Privett with sets by  Kjell Torriset .  

         Booking has already opened for Benefactors, Friends and Patrons; it will open on 8 March 2010 for the general public. Box office: Longborough Festival Opera, Longborough, Moreton in Marsh, Gloucestershire GL56 0QF, telephone: 01451 830 292.

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E-MAIL ADDRESSES

        At a time when there are delays and disruptions to the postal service a good way to keep in contact with members is by e-mail. David Waters (Hon Secretary) sends out much interesting information on a variety of topics including Society meetings, cast and/or date changes to performances of Wagner, radio and television broadcasts and offers of reduced price tickets. If you are not already on his list and would like to be added to it please contact him at: david_m_waters@btinternet.com.

           Please note that it the policy of the Society not to make either its membership list or e-mail addresses available to third parties. The only exception is every year the Society provides an up-to-date list of members to the Kartenbüro at Bayreuth.

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NEW RECORDINGS

            A CD recording of the Ring made in 2008 at the Festspielhaus Bayreuth was due for release on 1 November, 2009. The cast includes: Albert Dohmen, (Wotan), Ralf Lukas (Donner), Clemens Bieber, (Froh), Arnold Bezuyen (Loge), Kwangchul Youn (Fasolt), Hans-Peter König (Fafner), Andrew Shore (Alberich), Gerhard Siegel (Mime), Michelle Breedt, (Fricka), Edith Haller (Freia), Christa Mayer (Erda), Endrik Wottrich (Siegmund), Kwangchul Youn (Hunding), Eva-Maria Westbroek (Sieglinde), Linda Watson (Brünnhilde), Stephen Gould (Siegfried), Robin Johannsen (Woodbird), Ralf Lukas (Gunther), Hans-Peter König (Hagen), Edith Haller (Gutrune) and Christa Mayer (Waltraute), with the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Christian Thielemann

Opus Arte 14 CDs OACD9000BD

         Christian Thielemann takes up the post of principal conductor of the Staastkapelle Dresden at the beginning of the 2012/13 season. In recent years this orchestra has provided the largest number of musicians at Bayreuth

              A DVD of the present Bayreuth production of Tristan und Isolde by Philippe Arlaud is due to be released in January.

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DIE MEISTERSINGER

A review of the performance given at the Graz Opera House on 26 September 2010 by DAVID WATERS

 James Rutherford (Sachs), Wilfried Zelinka; (Pogner), Jochen Schmeckenbecher; (Beckmesser), Burkhard Fritz  (Walther),  Marlin Miller (David), Gal James; (Eva), Dshamilja Kaiser (Magdalene) with the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus of Graz Opera conducted by  Johannes Fritzsch;, directed by Alexander Schulin with sets by Alfred Peter;

              We were fortunate enough to see James Rutherford perform Hans Sachs in Act III scenes 1-4 of Die Meistersinger at Bayreuth Bursary Day last December (see Wagner News No. 190 February 2009); we also attended his masterclass on the Wahn monologue with Sir John Tomlinson at the Aldeburgh event in May (see Wagner News No. 193 August 2009), and so we very much looked forward to James’ full role debut as Sachs at Graz on 26 September and we were not disappointed.  This was the first new production of the tenure of a new Intendant (Elisabeth Sobotka) and there was quite a buzz around on the opening night.

           After Katharina Wagner’s Meistersinger at Bayreuth one no longer knows what to expect from a new production of Meistersinger: this director’s konzept was to set everything inside a village hall in Nuremburg about 1948, and it might just have been a dream by Hans Sachs (as it opens and closes with a scrim of the empty hall). The constrained setting only worked well for the first scene, where initially the choir was rehearsing the chorale on a stage with a conductor.  In the following scene however a gymnastics class with men performing handstands and exercising on rings and a pommel horse was an irritating distraction vying for attention during David’s exposition of the rules and preparation for the Mastersingers meeting.  When Pogner explains his intentions of the song contest Eva, dressed in white, is exhibited on the stage and the masters all spruce themselves up.

          Act II was set within the village hall but there was an inclined floor which had areas marked out for Sachs’ and Pogner’s houses, but no scenery or props apart from Sachs’ stool.  David and some of the Mastersingers dossed down in their allocated areas until they formed part of the action; thus Beckmesser, Pogner, Eva, Walther, Magdalena, Sachs and David all acted as if there was scenery allowing some privacy and separation.  Sachs also sang the Nightwatchman’s role, acting as some sort of warden, but implausibly immediately after his first call he started making a great disturbance when Beckmesser began to serenade Eva’s lookalike.  The Polterabend fisticuffs was a very congested slow-motion affair with all the women segregated on the balcony.

             At the beginning of the final scene of Act III there was a thunderstorm outside which was the director’s justification for holding the pageant inside the hall. After the pageant as Sachs was speaking out about Holy German Art and ‘Verachtet mir die Meister nicht’ the masters and the crowd showed signs of disapproval and walked offstage silently.  The original scrim came down, Sachs finished his monologue, and the curtain came down behind Sachs and then he looked horrified and made a quick exit.  Walther never did receive the Mastersingers medallion!  As might be expected there was plenty of booing for the production team at their curtain call.

        Jochen Schmeckenbecher played Beckmesser without many of the customary mannerisms and managed to get a lot of genuine laughter from the audience in the last scene.  The Eva (Gal James) was matronly and looked like a character from ‘Allo ‘Allo but sang well.  Wilfried Zelinka was a young but authoritative Pogner and was vocally very impressive.  Burkhard Fritz (Walther) was uninspiring and no more attractive or youthful than the Sachs, but at least we were thankful that he got through the role.  James Rutherford’s Sachs was beautifully sung throughout and he was especially impressive doing the Nightwatchman’s calls and throughout the third act – a magnificently judged marathon! 

          We are sure that James will develop his interpretation of Sachs over the years and look forward to his tackling the role of Wotan.  The Grazer Philharmonisches Orchester (with four double basses and fewer strings than normal) was generally competent but unpolished and there was a particularly overenthusiastic timpanist.

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SIEGFRIED

A review of the performance given at The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Los Angeles on 1 October, 2009 by MICHAEL BOUSFIELD

John Treleaven (Siegfried), Graham Clark (Mime), Vitalij Kowaljow (Wanderer), Oleg Bryjak (Alberich), Eric Halfvarson (Fafner), Jill Grove (Erda), Stacey Tappan (Woodbird) and Linda Watson (Brünnhilde).with the Orchestra of Los Angeles Opera conducted by James Conlon, directed and designed by Achim Freyer

           Ten years in gestation, Los Angeles Opera has been revealing its first ever Ring Cycle piecemeal over the past year and with three full cycles planned for May/June 2010, at a cost of $32 million. The original plan, announced in 1990 called for a high-tech special effects Ring with budget estimates of $60 million – but the post 9/11 economic slowdown put an end to that.

             Whereas some American Rings have been more traditional (such as those at the Metropolitan Opera and San Francisco of recent memory) this Ring is as unconventional as you can get! The father and daughter team of Achim Freyer (director, designer and lighting designer) and Amanda Freyer (joint costume designer) have created as revolutionary a concept as this thirty-year Ring aficionado has ever experienced. As the LA Times reviewer stated: ‘Freyer’s Ring is singular spectacle, part circus, part eccentric art project, part light show . . .’

               Although one of the world’s leading opera directors, Freyer is barely known in this country and as we will be hearing much more about this Ring a few words of introduction may be helpful. A protégé of Bertold Brecht, Freyer was born in 1934 and started his career as a professional painter before turning to the theatre, where he has worked as stage director, set and costume designer. In 1982 his Zauberflöte in Hamburg has successfully gone down in theatre history and after celebrating twenty triumphant years, whenever presented, it still plays to sold-out houses. He interpreted this work again for several other theatres, in Vienna in 1991, for the Salzburg Festspiele in 1997 and in 2002 for both the Schwetzinger Festspiele and the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg.

             Further productions have included Glück’s Orfeo ed Euridice in 1982 at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Rossini’s La Cenerentola in 1997 at the Wiener Volksoper, Tristan und Isolde in 1994 in Brussels (his only previous Wagner). In 1994 for his Turandot/Persephone he received the Italian Critics Award for the best production of the year.

              No stranger to LA Opera, Freyer made his American debut there in 2002 with a controversial abstract version of Bach’s B Minor Mass. This was followed by his Damnation of Faust – a hugely successful production (featuring giant masks, flying effects and a children’s chorus appearing as fifty-four angels’ heads popping up through holes in the stage). This led to his Ring appointment, highly praised by the Artistic Director of LA Opera (Plácido Domingo) who stated: ‘We knew he would be able to give us a breathtaking Ring that would fit in with what I see as LA Opera’s vision’.

              The production has no actual sets – just a severely raked stage with a turntable in the middle and virtually no props, indeed, no forge, no sword and no anvil! The singers have individually numbered low-rise platforms on which to perform. On the vast stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (an auditorium seating 3,200) all effects are achieved by lighting, projections, and clever use of costume – plus an ensemble of about a dozen actors. The set is a linear space marked by even rows of white neon lights. Left stage is a signpost marked ‘Ost’ linking the opera to Die Walküre where we learnt that the East is the area least likely to be visited by Wotan. Throughout the opera (often disconcertingly) black clothed ensemble members walk very slowly across stage – sometimes as many as half a dozen at the same time: all this, presumably, indicating the gradual momentum of the work towards its stunning conclusion.  Many of the ensemble wield fluorescent tubes of different and changing colours among which is a glowing blue tube which, when required, serves as Siegfried’s sword. Sometimes they carry items – such as a giant hammer to indicate Mime’s smithy.

               There are also projections on front and back scrims to create a three-dimensional effect of breathtaking colour. In tandem with them, at the top of the stage is a massive eyeball (presumably Wotan’s all-seeing eye) which also moves west to east as the opera progresses. During the confrontation between Siegfried and the Wanderer, the eye suddenly flashes intermittently – and then disappears completely once the latter has been vanquished.  (This is reminiscent of the hour glasses at both sides of the stage, in Glyndebourne’s wonderful Makropulos Case, which imperceptibly drained from top to bottom as the opera progressed.)

              During the riddle scene in Act I, the stage revolves clockwise and to the rear of the stage we see enactments of the topics being discussed: such as two giant puppets fighting over the ring, one decapitating the other; Alberich in a gold top-hat smoking a cigar; and, when Valhalla is mentioned, we see a small castle with Wotan sitting cheerily aloft and waving at us.

             In Siegfried’s opening appearance he is not accompanied by a bear: he is the bear. The upper part of his pale grey costume is soon removed and, for the remainder of the opera, we see him in the lower half of the costume, along with a bright blue shirt (which turns a stunning shade of red when aroused by Brünnhilde) and Harpo Marx-like bright yellow tousled hair. In other words a clown’s outfit – but hardly that of a hero! Mime and Alberich wear massive grotesque head masks which, having no neck, actually do make them look like dwarves. Although not a participant in Act I we see Alberich constantly hovering in the background.

             In the forging scene, Siegfried simply stands in the same position and moves his hands and arms vigorously thereby causing the neon lights to move in various directions. The Woodbird and Wanderer appear as a single entity showing that the former is very much Wotan’s agent both by informing Siegfried of and leading him to Brünnhilde. Grane is a half horse/half bicycle metallically projected contraption that constantly changes shape in the background – a somewhat unnecessary piece of clutter.

              When a leitmotiv of a character sounds in the orchestra, a member of the ensemble appears on stage in that person’s costume – even if that person does not appear in that act or even that opera.  And, rather over the top, when Siegfried speaks of seeing an image of himself in the water, one of the ensemble, in identical costume, makes a fleeting appearance. When Brünnhilde speaks of both her reflection and Siegfried’s, two ensemble members in identical costumes suddenly emerge!  Rather more cleverly, when Siegfried and Mime discuss what it might be like to fear something, we see flickering flames of the Fire Music in the background.

              The production apart, both musically and vocally I found this a highly satisfying performance. Many of the principals were leading international Wagnerians John Treleaven (Covent Garden Siegfried); Linda Watson (Bayreuth Brünnhilde 2006-2009); Graham Clark (everywhere!)  – surely one of the greatest Mimes ever, headed a superb cast. The Ukrainian bass, Vitalij Kowaljow (Wanderer) has had rave reviews over the last decade and looks to be a great talent for the future. All other roles were well cast and sung to an international standard.

         Treleaven’s was a stirring performance and one which I preferred to his Covent Garden Siegfried.  A bad stumble in the last few bars affected him momentarily and he could barely hobble on stage for the curtain calls. Whereas I sometimes find the vocal pyrotechnics of the closing scene rather overdone, this was deeply moving and hauntingly beautiful.

               Linda Watson, a native Californian (who currently has five different Rings in her repertoire) and now one of the world’s leading interpreters of the role, has been singing Brünnhilde since her first appearance in Siegfried in 1996 (in Bonn). She was in fine voice and thankfully held back somewhat so as not to overpower her partner.

             Music Director, James Conlon, is one of America’s leading conductors, and it is largely due to his influence that LA is developing a Wagnerian tradition. Apart from the Ring, they have recently performed Tristan (again with Treleaven and Watson), Lohengrin and Parsifal.  He has instigated a modification of the orchestra pit cover – along Bayreuth lines – and he and the LA Orchestra gave a stunning musical performance.

                        One disconcerting item: near the front left and right stage were two seemingly large rocks, at least to the audience in the lower part of the auditorium. Those in the upper tiers (as I was) could see what was behind them: two prompters with their illuminated music stands and scores, merrily conducting away!

             Accompanying the warm but not prolonged applause, there were boos, catcalls and shouts of ‘rubbish’ – but then what is new? It was surely ever thus and ever will be. Is it really worth $32 million? – especially when there were many empty seats in the auditorium at the start – and rather more at the end of the opera! There are conflicting rumours: some that it will bankrupt the very well endowed LA opera – others that next year’s cycles are nearly sold out only time will tell!

               So what did this reviewer really think of it all? Perhaps, somewhat philosophically and maybe immodestly, I can say that I have seen enough Wagner to have slightly matured in my outlook.  I accept (rightly or wrongly) that this is the era of directors; that they feel they must introduce fresh ideas and new images, sometimes shocking and revolutionary; and that many feel that ‘more is better’. If, however, the music and singing are of the standard I expect; if the production does not unduly insult my intelligence and/or the composer’s intentions (which I cannot really say this one does); I guess I must just be grateful that Wagner operas are still being performed in ever more locations worldwide and must realize that for the occasional brilliant new insight the price to pay is a lot of the clutter and other extraneous material we see all too often these days!

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AUDIO AND DVD REVIEW

By PAUL DAWSON-BOWLING

Die Walküre

Robert Gambill (Siegmund), Mikhail Petrenko (Hunding), Willard White (Wotan), Eva-Maria Westbroek (Sieglinde), Eva Johansson (Brünnhilde) and Lilli Paasikivi (Fricka) with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Simon Rattle, directed by and with sets by Stéphane Braunschweig 

BelAir Classiques BAC 034, two DVDs

         The news of a DVD of Die Walküre with these forces was an inviting prospect; the Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle roused expectations, but those expectations were only partly fulfilled.

              The first drawback is the recording. There is not anything positively bad about it but there are indefinable fudgings and blurrings of mixing and balance that confuse the picture, so that this thoroughbred orchestra sounds run of the mill.  The solo cello and oboe come out of it sounding inflated, but Wagner’s climaxes are shrivelled down, and perhaps this makes it difficult to appreciate Simon Rattle’s performance.  The sound is actually better on Bruno Walter’s (1937?) Vienna 78s of Act I, at least, better balanced and more consistent, and as things are this DVD creates the impression that Rattle is more of a joiner tacking episodes together than a master visionary with a strategy for the whole. The sound makes it all too clear that he rushes the climax where Siegmund draws Nothung from the tree, and it is difficult to believe generally that this is the same glorious, lustrous, radiant, breathtaking Berlin Philharmonic that Karajan had taken into the opera pit for the very first time and for this very same opera – almost exactly forty years before this performance was given.

               Stéphane Braunschweig directs a rather mundane stage conception, or perhaps a non-conception. Anyone bold enough to bin Wagner’s own ideas needs something special to put in their place, but simply having Wotan hanging round as an observer during most of Act I does not qualify. Braunschweig set Act I in a kind of infinite greenhouse rising sharply into the distance like a child’s none too successful exercise in perspective. It contains the mandatory table, very rough and wooden, and a metal pole to hold the sword. Act II is in another room, or rather a walled box, of battleship grey containing that same table. It has a single tiny window high at the back. Act III is much the same again but with a big staircase rising up at the rear.  

              Dramatically it was mostly limp. It takes some doing to nullify the appeal of Robert Gambill, and yet this Siegmund, a shabby figure in his grubby sweat-shirt and denims, was so unheroic and unremarkable that it was a mystery why Sieglinde should feel the slightest attraction for him; except that he did sing as well as ever, and as Braunsweig’s conception of Sieglinde was more like a hearthrug than a heroine, perhaps it was a case of ‘beggars can’t be choosers’. Eva-Maria Westbroek as Sieglinde did not even offer the compensation of fine singing as Robert Gambill did, and Mikhail Petrenko as Hunding was so much classier than either, that Sieglinde’s preferences seemed lunatic. As for Wotan, Willard White is admirable here, just as sonorous and steady vocally as two decades ago for Scottish Opera; but in that production he was allowed opportunities to show the complexities he grasps in the character of this god in chains. Perhaps this was because he was working with an imaginative director (Richard Jones, no less, before he went peculiar!), quite unlike his routine presentation here. Fricka, one of Wagner’s subtlest and most ambiguous creations, (think of Chéreau’s version!) was here no more than an office harridan, even though played by Lilli Paasikivi, who is normally quite a singer. Perhaps the Brünnhilde of Eva Johansson raised the stakes. She is no Gwyneth Jones or Nilsson, and hers is not a vocal sound that is gracious in itself; but her musicality made something of ‘Der diese Liebe mir ins Herz gehaucht’. She presented Brünnhilde as a strong-willed woman but highly strung to the point of being unstable, her eyes often staring out like saucers – disturbing. The Valkyries can be made to work well as warrior maidens, as happened at New York in Schenk’s marvellous but hugely maligned production, but here the steel helmets, evidently borrowed from a German arsenal from before the First World War, seemed ludicrous, though all of a piece with their ugly trench coats.

               The concert performances of the Dutchman at the Barbican, or Götterdämmerung at Manchester both packed far more punch than this DVD and where it did succeed, the triumph was Wagner’s. When just left to itself, as in Act I and its conclusion, the drama made a radiant, gripping effect, and happily the end of Act III was allowed to play itself out untrammelled by ‘innovative’ and otherwise barren ideas. Five years ago ENO’s director, foisting alien conceptions onto The Valkyrie, showed that it is actually possible to wreck this ineffable scene; but at least this did not happen here. Braunschweig let Willard White and Johansson show what they could do when simply absorbed into their roles; with their faces working, their body language and their singing, and the score itself, they created deep magic and timeless majesty.

Lohengrin

Kwangchul Youn (Heinrich), Johan Botha (Lohengrin), Adrianne Pieczonka (Elsa), Falk Struckmann (Telramund) and Petra Lang (Ortrud), with the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, WDR Rundfunkchor Köln, NDR Chor and Prager Kammerchor, conducted by Semyon Bychkov

Profil Medien (edition Günter Hänssler) PH09006, three SACDs

          What criteria do people apply to a new recording of Lohengrin? This one is a rare genre, a new studio version of a complete Wagner opera.  Semyon Bychkov demonstrated at Covent Garden last Spring that he is a fiery Wagnerian, if not as impetuous as Sawallisch on his Bayreuth recording which is now, unbelievably, almost fifty years old. Bychkov’s recording here, like most of his performances at Covent Garden, is ultra complete, restoring the second half of Lohengrin’s narration at the end of Act III as Furtwängler did at Bayreuth in the 30s and as Barenboim and Leinsdorf did on their recordings. Wagner himself had asked Franz Liszt to make the cut in all the first performances at Weimar and he had it carried through into the printed score. The extra material holds things up dramatically, but it makes better sense musically, developing the Lohengrin theme gradually up to its final fortissimo so that this does not burst on the scene at random.

            Bychkov has a fine cast, much the same as at Covent Garden.  Falk Struckmann has never sounded better, as effective in Telramund’s pianissimo insinuations as at full roar. Kwagchul Youn is a sonorous King Henry who compensates for an occasional unsteadiness with a saturnine authority. After Edith Haller’s delectable, heartrending Elsa at Covent Garden, it seemed a pity not to have her for this recording but from her opening ‘Mein armer Bruder!’, Adrienne Pieczonka promises the same kind of sensibility as Haller, and she manages the challenging heights of her Act II tessitura with such finesse that it arouses a keen interest in hearing more of her soon. Petra Lang was a wonderful Kundry at Leipzig three years ago and her timbre here still has the same appeal, mingled cream, honey and whisky. She also deploys the same musicality and depth of feeling as made her so extraordinary in ‘Das Lied von der Erde’ at the Festival Hall last year, but she does not quite muster the terrifying power and venom that Waltraud Meier or Astrid Varnay unleashed in the role. As for Johan Botha, his large dimensions are no impediment on a sound recording, and this is a wonderfully wrought Lohengrin, sweet sounding and sweet natured; even his vehement declaration of Elsa’s innocence does not compromise his lustrous appeal.

              The dynamic range of the recording is enormous. Its sonority has more of cyberland than any real life acoustic but the sound is lovely; and responses to it must be a matter of individual taste. In the great chorus in Act II, telling Elsa to walk in blessings, the individual voices are not as blended and burnished as on some rival versions, and when the brass take up the grand descending line they it does not tell as on Karajan or even on Jochum’s historic DG recording, and this points up some of the issues about whether to buy this Lohengrin.  It is a performance which genuinely captures the work’s extraordinary aura, its blues, its golds and its radiance.  On the other hand, it is not the best of all versions, nor is it possessed of an individuality so striking that people will automatically want it for something unique.  Kempe’s classic version with the Vienna Philharmonic has a phosphorescence found on no other, and as well as Christa Ludwig, it has Jess Thomas as Lohengrin; his stunning glamour and his sensibility from his very first entry is all that Lohengrin should be. Andre Cluytens at Bayreuth in 1958 had Thomas’s absolute peer in Sandor Konya, and the sound-only recording somehow carries over some of the magic and the fantastical beauty of Wieland Wagner’s ultra-romantic conception. Wieland Wagner drastically modified his ideas by the time Sawallisch was his conductor – and recorded it – re-framing it as a terse and gripping music drama, with many tiny tucks in the fabric of the music.  Karajan’s performance underlines the far flung grandeur of Wagner’s conception, Lohengrin on the most immense scale. Colin Davis is special for getting his ppp trumpets to perform miracles of tonal shading. The comparisons could go on endlessly. Perhaps the most reasonable conclusion is that the merits of the new Bychkov are considerable; and that anybody wanting a document of outstanding contemporary performers with a stunning sound in the latest fashion of sound-engineering should be well satisfied.

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OPERA NORTH RING

          It has recently been announced that Opera North will give a series of concert performances of the Ring beginning with Das Rheingold in June 2011 followed by Die Walküre (2012), Siegfried (2013) and Götterdämmerung (2014). It will be conducted by Richard Farnes and Sir John Tomlinson is the Artistic Consultant for the project. Casting will be announced in April 2010, it promises to ‘blend new and experienced artists’. . The dates for Das Rheingold are: Leeds Town Hall: 18 & 29 June, 1 July; Birmingham Symphony Hall: 24 June; Gateshead The Sage: 26 June and Salford Quays The Lowry: 10 September.

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

From CLIVE ROBINSON (Hither Green)

         Paul Dawson-Bowling seems to have completely misread the point about Katharina Wagner’s production of Die Meistersinger (Wagner News No. 194, October 2009). Far from sending out the message that Nazism was all the result of Die Meistersinger what she is actually saying in this production is that those that cling conservatively to the aspic preserved image of their cultural heroes and frown on innovation and inventive interpretation only leave themselves open to exploitation by the extreme demagogic Right and that the natural conclusion to that is censorship and worse.

            Bayreuth has still not shed its image as being one of the cultural mouthpieces of Nazism, Katharina Wagner and many post war theatre and film directors are finally confronting what many Germans have for years been brushing under the carpet

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Views expressed in Wagner News are not necessarily those of the editor.

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