Live from the Met 2.04.11 - Wagner: Das Rheingold

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The first installment of Wagner's Ring Cycle, Das Rheingold, in which all the problems for the gods in Valhalla and mortals on earth are set up for the rest of the epic cycle. A stellar cast includes Bryn Terfel as Wotan with Fabio Luisi conducting.

Presented by Margaret Juntwait with guest commentator Ira Siff.

Freia ..... Wendy Bryn Harmer (soprano)
Fricka ..... Stephanie Blythe (mezzo-soprano)
Erda ...... Patricia Bardon (mezzo-soprano)
Loge ...... Arnold Bezuyen (tenor)
Mime .....Gerhard Siegel (tenor)
Wotan ...... Bryn Terfel (baritone)
Alberich ..... Eric Owens (bass)
Fasolt ..... Franz-Josef Selig (bass)
Fafner ..... Hans-Peter Konig (bass)

Chorus and Orchestra of the Metropolitan opera
Conductor ..... Fabio Luisi.

[DracoM]

Apart from Terfel, why is this cast 'stellar'?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The introduction and listings are from the BBC webpage of schedules for the coming week. Over here Bryn Terfel is a "star", but perhaps in New York some of those "lesser" names to us may well be stars over there.

[Belgrove]

Eric Owens' Alberich is certainly the best sung (rather than the kind of sprechstimme one often gets in this role) that I have heard. It will be interesting to hear Luisi's conception of the work rather than Levine's, which tends to be rather four-square, if not ponderous. The inadequate Loge of the previous run has been replaced. Let's hope that this time he is not made up to look like Gary Glitter.

[Auferstehen2]

I was going to start a new thread, but Eine Alpensinfonie's one is more interesting!

Some messageboarders may recall my first entry into the world of Richard Wagner, where I was taken gently by the hand through “The Ring” and subsequently through Lohengrin. I’m about to embark on Die Meistersinger for the first time, and wondered, in so doing, whether it would be worth my while to invest in Ernest Newman’s 4-volume treatise on the man.

I understand that RW was a nasty little man who used his friends for his own selfish purposes. I don’t think I’d like further details on this aspect of his character, although it would be interesting to conjecture how one can reconcile his indomitable egoism with his capacity for creating characters who display altruism and charity such as for example Brünnhilde and, so I understand, Sachs (although he is new to me).

Would Newman’s biography help in appreciating RW’s music at a deeper level, or would different recordings do a better job?

Thanks for any advice,

Mario

[DracoM]

Try to separate man from music would be my hint. How much of a help Newman others may judge.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Try to separate man from music would be my hint.

Agreed.

[Auferstehen2]

Ouch! Just asking folks...

But thanks anyway.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Ouch! Just asking folks...

But thanks anyway.

Please don't take it as a criticism. It's more or less what Stephen Fry was saying on his TV programme about Wagner, not long ago.

[Flosshilde]

Mario,
I wouldn't dismiss the idea of 'getting to know him', & I don't think that he can be easily categorised as a 'nasty little man'. He was a fascinating & complex man, deeply passionate about his music & used any means at his disposal to get it performed in the way he wanted - aided, later, by Cosima. He did have affairs with several women (Cosima tried to air-brush them out of her version of his life, or at least present them as purely cerebral or platonic), but was he any worse than his second father-in-law in that? At least he married (eventually) the mother of his children. His political writings are perhaps more problematic, but in the earlier stages they were prompted by a belief in the power of art, and social democracy. (his designs for the Festspielhaus were based on the idea that no seat should be better than any other). The most notorious pamphlet, Judaism in Music, can be seen in its earlier version as more an attack on the musical establishment that prevented his music being perfromed, especially in Paris.

Recent books that I've been fascinated by are 'Richard Wagner: the last of the Titans' by Joachim Kohler (trans. by Stewart Spencer) which examines the psychological background to his operas, and 'Wagner and the art of the theatre' by Patrick Carnegy, which looks at the historical background to Wagner's productions, and subsequent productions up to the present.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It's probably true to say that one of his most ardent admirers did more to damage Wagner's reputation than anything the man himself said or did.

[Flosshilde]

& he probably mis-understood the works & Wagner. Given Wagner's political views it's quite possible that he would have been under threat of execution for treason under AH as he was under the King of Saxony.

[StephenO]

At under a hundred pages, Bryan Magee's Aspects of Wagner is an excellent introducton to the man and his music. It doesn't skirt over the distasteful aspects of Wagner and his views but places them in context and manages to show how such an unpleasant character could create such sublime works.

As for Bryn Terfel - after his Hans Sachs at Birmingham last summer, I can hardly wait for Wotan from the Met!

[Flosshilde]

See here for a review (& selections from others) http://www.wagneropera.net/Articles/...-Rheingold.htm. The reviewer was not impressed by Terfel (although others thought he was OK).

[Don Basilio]

It's probably true to say that one of his most ardent admirers did more to damage Wagner's reputation than anything the man himself said or did.

Just like Gilbert and Sullivan.

(Mario - just ignore me.)