Your Favourite Wotan?

[kernelbogey]

The St Endellion Festival last year got Tomlinson as a last-minute substitute in Walkuere - and they don't pay their professional soloists! I missed it but it had some terrific reviews.

[Osborn]

{D F-D] had been offered the role of Siegmund in the Solti Walkure - !- and had only turned it down after deep consideration).

I understand that all that happened is that John Culshaw, impressed by his vocal range, commented over a drink or something, that Siegmund lies so low that it was just about within D F-Ds compass. That's all; no 'offer' no 'deep consideration'. Solti would have had a fit.

Anyway, I heard Donald McIntyre in an abridged Walkure at the Longborough Festival a few years ago & he was still (at about 70) in very fine voice; but most of all he knows the character inside out & wonderfully projected Wotan's fury & frustration at being unable to control the uncontrollable & was incredibly moving in voice, gestures, expressions & body movement in the final scene. A great Wotan who needed to be seen not just heard on CD

[Bert Coules]

My first Wotan in the theatre was David Ward in a complete ROH Ring: even allowing for first-time impact it was a tremendous performance. I never saw Hotter on stage but did go to a Winterreise concert he gave very late in life: wonderfully theatrical and mesmerising and you could see how superb his Wotan must have been. Bailey's is the assumption I've seen most and would, I think, rate the highest of all.

Of course an awful lot depends on context: a good Wotan can be pulled down by a poor production, just as a merely competent one can reach unaccustomed heights in a great staging.

Bert

[ARBurton]

There is a quite wonderful recording of Wotan's Farewell made in the doomed city of Dresden in 1944 by Josef Herrmann and I would have given away the Nibelung Hoard itself for a complete portrayal on disc.

Interisting - who`s the conductor?

[Petrushka]

Interisting - who`s the conductor?

Karl Elmendorff and it's available on a fascinating Profil disc that includes a complete Die Walkure Act 1.

http://www.mdt.co.uk/MDTSite/product//PH07048.htm

[Chris Newman]

A superb bass-baritone who sang on Hotter's nights off at Bayreuth was Hans Reinmar. Sadly he did not make many recordings or appear at Covent Garden:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gur0eJZW0Kw

His son is the bass-baritone Franz Mazura.

[RobertLeDiable]

My first Wotan in the theatre was David Ward in a complete ROH Ring: even allowing for first-time impact it was a tremendous performance. I never saw Hotter on stage but did go to a Winterreise concert he gave very late in life: wonderfully theatrical and mesmerising and you could see how superb his Wotan must have been. Bailey's is the assumption I've seen most and would, I think, rate the highest of all.

Of course an awful lot depends on context: a good Wotan can be pulled down by a poor production, just as a merely competent one can reach unaccustomed heights in a great staging.

Bert

I was lucky enough to hear David Ward sing the 'Walkure' Wotan with Scottish Opera at the Edinburgh Festival. Helga Dernesch was the Brunnhilde and really wonderful in those days before all her vocal problems. Their father-daughter relationship was very movingly done, and I remember him giving her a great bear-hug at the curtain. Ward's voice wasn't beautiful but he had a huge stage presence rather like John Tomlinson. Alexander Gibson was the conductor - and what a great Wagnerian he was.

[Bert Coules]

Ward is scandalously under-represented on record, at least on legitimate issues. I believe there was an extract from Wotan's Farewell on an old gala-type LP set issued by Covent Garden, but I can't think of any other releases. A real pity.

Bert

[Curalach]

The first complete Ring Cycle I heard, on successive nights, was Scottish Opera's first in 1971. I was accompanied by my new wife who was petite and slim. Alex Gibson introduced us to David Ward as Wotan. He was a very large man and I recall my dear wife disappearing in an enormous bear-hug!
Ward had been a pupil of Hotter and Gibson and Hotter became firm friends. David Ward retired from the stage in his 50's to take up sheep farming in New Zealand but sadly died aged only 61 in Dunedin.

For these, personal, reasons it's Ward for me.

[slarty]

I will resurrect this thread for the sake of two great Wotan's and a few more good ones.
1) David Ward - at Covent Garden from 1962 as the Wanderer until 1975 as the Rheingold Wotan under Goodall (yes Goodall at CG) and all the other Ring Cycles at CG under Solti and Edward Downes was my greatest Wotan. I saw him in many performances from 1966 on at CG and also with Scottish Opera under Gibson.

2) The one that got away - JAMES MILLIGAN - sang the Wanderer in Siegfried under Kempe at the 1961 Bayreuth Festival. the quick way to describe his voice, and the impact he had on every one was simply Gobsmacking!! The voice was big, round ,dramatic, full and also with great feeling for line and phrase.
he was sadly dead from a heart attack by the end of the same year (1961) at the age of 33. This is a performance that anyone should beg,borrow or...... in order to hear it.
the broadcast tape is in superb sound - it really should be issued.

3) In October 1967 I had tickets for the Rheingold and Walküre at CG under Downes. The RG turned out to be Hotter's final appearance at CG after 20 years service.
He was in very good voice and the occasion remains in my memory vividly. He developed a throat infection the next morning and had to cancel that night's Walküre giving CG a
tremendous problem. Theo Adam who had sung the first cycle under Solti had returned to East Germany and was unavailable.David Ward and Amy Shuard were busy moonlighting, singing a Ring cycle at the Teatro Colon in Beunos Aires so there was no help there.
We arrived at CG that evening to the announcement that a singer was arriving on a flight from Hamburg and would hopefully not delay the beginning of the second act. His name was Herbert Fliether and he arrived at the stage door as the closing strains of Act 1 were heard.
He quickly made up and proceeded to give one of the best performances I have ever heard. Memory does not play tricks here, the performance was broadcast on the third programme so one can hear just how well he sang it. He was a house singer at the Hamburg Opera and almost 50 years old. He was never celebrated like some others were,
but how glad would we be of his like today? As a postscript to this story, he had to return to Hamburg the next day for performances there - CG asked him to sing the Wanderer in Siegfried as Hotter would not recover in time. He agreed but due to his prior commitments could not return immediately. CG therefore performed Götterdämmerung out of sequence and finished the Cycle with Siegfried! Fliether returned to CG once more to sing Klingsor in Parsifal under Goodall in 1971. He was standing in,yet again,this time for the indisposed Donald McIntyre, who eventually recovered to sing the broadcast.

3) GEORGE LONDON. Another what might have been. Having recorded Rheingold for Solti in 1958, he began to sing the roles on stage. Rheingold MET 1961 and Siegfried MET 1962 are magnificent performances. Enough to convince Wieland Wagner to plan his new 1965 Bayreuth Ring Cycle with London as Wotan-Wanderer.
In 1962 at the Cologne Opera, Wieland mounted a try-out Ring cycle under Sawallisch with London. A Rheingold from this cycle survives to confirm his magnificent interpretation of this role.
By 1964 London was suffering badly with the onset of a paralysed vocal chord, which would end his career and he cancelled his Bayreuth contract in order to rest up during the summer in the hope of recovering his voice. This was not to be as the 1965 MET broadcast of Walküre would confirm. Anyone who admires this singer should stay well away from this recording, it is painful to listen to.He would retire soon after at the age of 45.
The cancellation of London for Bayreuth 1965 gave Wieland a real headache. He engaged Theo Adam to sing the roles in 1965, but he could not master the Wanderer in time.
The role was sung brilliantly by Josef Greindl, the broadcast confirms this.Greindl sang this role again at bayreuth in 1968 under Maazel. By the time Philips arrived to record the Ring in 1966-67 Adam had taken over and gave a fine performance, another fine Wotan.
By the 1980's I had moved to Germany,(where I still am) and saw many other Wotan's good and bad. One who impressed me a great deal was Leif Roar who sang a great deal around Europe. He also was a fine Hans Sachs in Meistersinger, a performance of which was televised by the BBC in early 1978 from the Royal Opera in Stockholm with him in this role.

more later.

[gurnemanz]

Here's a nice cheap Hotter box which I might have to acquie.

[amateur51]

Here's a nice cheap Hotter box which I might have to acquie.

Cheapest from The Grocer, I think gurney

[verismissimo]

The first outstanding Wotan that I saw was Norman Bailey in the early 1970s. In more recent years as others have said, John Tomlinson was consistently excellent.

Can't say that for several Brunnhildes! Or Siegfrieds.