Siegfried from Paris

[Bert Coules]

Did anyone else hear act one of the Paris Siegfried today? Once again it was very enjoyable and bowled along nicely, if perhaps not quite reaching the heights of excitement of Rheingold and Walküre. My personal preference is for the title character to be rather more vulnerable and uncertain than Torsten Kerl's interpretation, but he gave a perfectly fine performance, helped I suspect by the closely-miked balance on the voices. On the whole I like the sound but there were times when I wanted more sense of distance and perspective, as with Siegfried's magical first call from off after the Mime/Wanderer scene: Kerl sounded as if he was downstage centre and looming over the footlights - which on reflection, I suppose he might well have been, since the staging is notoriously controversial. There were storms of booing for the production team at the first night but little or nothing of what prompted the reaction came across in sound only. The scenery's always better on the radio!

There's a review with pictures here.

Bert

[Chris Newman]

Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke is magnificent as Mime: just as good as his as his Loge for Opera North.

It may be me but the sound does seem to come and go (microphones?) in an alarming manner in this performance.

[Bert Coules]

Chris, do you mean the overall sound, or the sound of the voices against the orchestra?

Bert

[Chris Newman]

I am at the point where Siegfried is about to start grating Nothung to bits. Up till now I have found the singers and the orchestra come and go. The Wanderer (Wotan) sounded as though he was mumbling closely into a microphone with his mouth full of food. His voice is not very pleasant and has an enormous beat (rather like DF-D in the 70s and 80s when he put the heat on) which ranges across three notes. I am probably more impressed by the Siegfried than you. It is a very manly helden-tenor (hint of Dowd/Vinay or even Vickers?) with a bright top but not whining or barking. Mind you, Ablinger-Sperrhacke is the best Mime and Loge I have heard since Gerhard Stolze (John Dobson was good too) but if he put his mind to it I think Ablinger-Sperrhacke could be a fine heldentenor as well: he has the metal and heft there.

[Bert Coules]

Chris,

Listening via Freeview I can't say I noticed any marked waywardness in the overall sound.

I was very happy with Torsten Kerl: I don't fault him because his (or his producer's) interpretation is not the one I personally prefer, and there are way worse Siegfrieds around. Assuming that this recording is of a single evening's performance it will be interesting to see how well he holds up until the end. He looks good, too, though as several reviewers of this production said, the ill-conceived costume does him absolutely no favours.

I agree about the Wotan: the part surely needs a more authoritative sound than Juha Uusitalo's, though he was well on top of it in the dramatic sense, I thought. And yes, the Mime was fine, as so many Mimes are and have been: in act one the character tends to be overshadowed by Siegfried's sheer presence and his challenging set pieces, but it's Mime who's onstage throughout and playing a demandingly varied and complex role: it's the sort of part that a singing actor can really rise to.

Have there ever been performers whose careers encompassed both parts? I can't think of any, though Gregory Dempsey (Mime in the first ENO Ring) also sang heroic roles including Aeneas in The Trojans (which was also a noted success for his Siegfried, Alberto Remedios) and I've often thought that the Karajan DGG Siegfried would have been really interesting if Stolze and Jess Thomas had swapped parts.

Bert

[Chris Newman]

I did not realise Gregory Dempsey sang Aeneas (that is a helluva role!). He was supposed to sing Hylas from the Trojans at my first Prom but we had Alexander Young (which made sense: what a beautiful voice). I know Dempsey sang Grimes. A versatile singer, he made a fine Prince in "Love for Three Oranges" and the three cameo parts in "Tales of Hoffman". I first heard him as David on the third evening of Sadlers Wells start at the Coliseum. In the overture a gentleman had to be removed for heckling: he thought it was still a cinema and had expected to see "The Greatest Story Ever Told" in widescreeen Todd-ayo.

Swapping Stolze and Thomas would have been interesting. Thomas was best in the more lyrical heldentenor roles: I liked his Walter and Parsifal (he appeared a lot at the ROH as Walter) and on record his Lohengrin. I heard his Walter many times with Solti, Varviso and Josef Krips. Someone told me he once stood in for Remedios at the Coliseum (singing in German). I would have loved to hear his Tristan. Siegfried in Siegfried was too wild for his intelligent approach. I suppose Stolze was really a character singer: Monostatos and Mime spring to mind.

bws
Chris

[Bert Coules]

Someone told me he once stood in for Remedios at the Coliseum (singing in German).

That would have been something to see. It wasn't in the first run: I was at all the performances and Remedios was never absent. I did once see Graham Clark take over Mime (in German) opposite Remedios and Raimund Herincx: fascinating for those who knew the work but a bit disorientating, I suspect, for any newcomers.

Jess Thomas's Tristan was a wonderful interpretation: I saw him opposite Ludmilla Dvorakova in the Peter Hall/Solti production at the Garden (and again on the last night, when Birgit Nilsson was jetted in and ruined the end of the Liebestod by refusing to do the proper moves). As you say, Thomas was intelligent and incisive and never conventional.

Bert

[Bert Coules]

Bravo to Torsten Kerl, a Siegfried who not only sounded almost as fresh at the end of the opera as he had at the start but also played the role with a nicely varied delivery and a fine sense of what it's about. I thought he came over rather better than his Brünnhilde, who gave the impression of tiring near the end of her one (admittedly pretty lengthy) scene: maybe the production has her doing all manner of exhausting antics? We were given no hint, the introductions being strictly generic (and not entirely accurate: Erda [importantly] isn't a goddess).

Another fine instalment I thought, if perhaps not quite reaching the great heights of parts one and two. On to the Big Finish...

Bert

[umslopogaas]

Bert Coules (post 8), if Erda is not a goddess, what is she? She is described as "earth goddess" in both my Rough Guide to Opera and the notes that accompany the Solti recording. Admittedly, she does not live in Valhalla with the rest of them, but I guess that's her choice ...

[Bert Coules]

Erda is older and greater than the gods: perhaps the closest term in English to what she is would be "an elemental". "Mother Earth" is a near equivalent in our mythology: Wotan refers to her as "mother" and of course she actually is one in the literal sense, the three Norns and Brünnhilde being her daughters.

It's significant that when she first appears, in Rheingold, Wotan hasn't the faintest idea who she is.

Bert

[umslopogaas]

Ah, thanks Bert Coules, that distinction had escaped me. The plot of The Ring is amazing, not to mention the music, but when you take on the whole of the creation of the world and the destruction of the supernatural, the power of love,, revenge, redemption and retribution (phew, did I miss anything?) its not surprising there are a few less than seamless joins. It is a bit hard to believe that Wotan is surprised by the appearance of Erda, he is after all the chief God and ought to know. So we have a bunch of Johnnycomelately gods who dont know who's who? Entirely possible. The gods as satire of contemporary society? The gods as juvenile delinquents? The gods as the return of the repressed? I think I've heard of them all. OK, I just made the last one up, but I doubt I could have done so if I hadnt a memory of it somewhere. Its a terrible warning, when folk forget the ancient powers, I feel a surge of Tolkein in the air. Must put the kettle on, I'm sure Gandalf would like a cuppa ... did I hear someone muttering about a golden ring? No good will come of it, you take my word, young fella ...

[Chris Newman]

Just caught up with Act 2. A recalcitrant tooth has interfered with my music the last two days: oh well, it comes out on Tuesday.

Very impressed with Kerl, Sidhom, Abling-Sperhacke and the Wood-Bird not to mention the Cor-Anglais and solo Horn. It is sad that Fafner (Stephen Milling) sounds far better than the Wanderer. I though Alberich and Mime's big argument in Scene 2 was magnificent.

[Bert Coules]

It is a bit hard to believe that Wotan is surprised by the appearance of Erda, he is after all the chief God and ought to know.

My reading of that scene is that he and the other gods know of Erda's existence (or perhaps her fabled existence) but they have never seen her, never known her interfere in the affairs of the world. That she appears at that moment is an indication of how serious the situation has become and how great the potential dangers. As she herself says:

Today I myself, drawn by dread, come to advise.

So the gods aren't stupid or ill-informed: Erda's sudden manifestation is shocking and the implications are frightening, but once she's named herself they know perfectly well who she is: when Wotan tries to stop her returning to her own realm so he can question her further, they're horrified: it's something akin to blasphemy for them.

In some ways, the label "the gods" is a little misleading: they're an elevated, more-or-less immortal race, but not really comparable to the conventional all-knowing omnipresent supreme-being Creator Gods of most western religious thought.

Tolkien was fond of publicly denying that he'd been influenced by Wagner, but in a private talk once with a friend of mine was happy to display a good knowledge of The Ring and the parallels between it and his own magnum opus.

Bert

[Chris Newman]

I have just been listening to Juha Uusitalo's Wotan/Wanderer on that wonderful DVD set conducted by Zubin Mehta from Valencia. He acted very well there but the last 5 years of Wagner singing have not been kind to his voice judging by the Paris Ring. Never mind, the rest are excellent.

[Chris Newman]

Ah, Act 3. Now that was very fine. Juha Uusitalo's voice had improved tremendously by the time he meets Siegfried. And what a Siegfried!! Golden, powerful, as sweet as Remedios but seems to take more risks. It all moved along very dramatically and fairly swiftly: I AM rather used to Goodall and Mehta these days. On the other hand I like Philippe Jordan's Wagner very much. It may be fast but he cares about the line and does not jerk about like Solti. It is not too solemn: I do not think the Ring should be so as it actually deals with mortal gods (do I hear someone suggest the Murdochs?) but with Jordan it has a fine sense of the drama involved.