Götterdämmerung R3

[Bert Coules]

Listening to this is proving an amazing contrast to my experience of seeing Siegfried last Sunday. For the first time I can understand why some are so critical of Susan Bullock's vocal delivery: in the house (and so close to the stage) I simply wasn't aware of the heavy beat in her voice. Vinke too sounds less impressive than when I heard him live.

I'd say that the Gunther is having an unfortunate off night if he hadn't been just as weak as Donner in Rheingold.

Donald Macleod's description of the staging isn't making me warm to it I'm afraid, and the lady he's talking to doesn't exactly seem ideally suited to the task, but the orchestra is sounding fine and the whole thing is bowling along nicely.

Bert

[DracoM]

The woman commentator is behaving like a gushing, over-hyping teen, getting beyond the hearing of a bat in her shrieking enthusiasm. John Deathridge was fantastic, but DM is a just a different bloke with this woman. Frankly, I am getting very, very irritated and confused by all the trendy carp both are now congratulating / outdoing each other on spotting. Warner's explanations? Erm.......?? That helped us, did it?

Orchestra is unrivalled terrific, loved the insights and pacing.

Bullock is IMO unreachably, but totally unreachably awful - the wobble and screech are getting worse! She sounds totally out of her vocal depth. Waltraute good, Gunther OKish, John Tom hamming it disgracefully but very effectively and making Hagen into the blackest, nastiest thug you ever heard.

[Vile Consort]

Far too much wobbling and poor intonation all round, I am afraid, as well as poor ensemble both within the orchestra and between it and the singers. The brass playing in the introduction to Act III was very poor indeed. I have tuned in a few times but found it very much less than enthralling and tuned out again. Time for some Tallis, I think.

[Nick Armstrong]

Orchestra is unrivalled terrific, loved the insights and pacing.

From what I've heard, I'd agree completely

Bullock is IMO unreachably, but totally unreachably awful - the wobble and screech are getting worse! She sounds totally out of her vocal depth.

Perhaps a little o.t.t. Draco, but in general yes - over the radio, it sounded the sort of opera singing from which I run a mile...

Listening to this is proving an amazing contrast to my experience of seeing Siegfried last Sunday. For the first time I can understand why some are so critical of Susan Bullock's vocal delivery: in the house (and so close to the stage) I simply wasn't aware of the heavy beat in her voice. Vinke too sounds less impressive than when I heard him live.

This reactivates a point I've made several times over the months and years - what the hell do modern BBC radio mikes do to voices? They seem pitilessly to expose and distort voices, especially in the upper register, and exaggerate shortcomings.

I remember writing about this at length having been to hear the choir of King's College Cambridge, sitting very near the choir - in the flesh, it was fabulous... but a live recording, heard later, was completely different - harsh, tremulous, ragged trebles.

Does the live experience really blunt one's ears to vocal imperfections? Or do the microphones and digital processing wreak havoc with the reality?

I have no idea.

[Prommer]

I enjoyed this Ring in the theatre, but when recollected in tranquility and over the wireless it suffers. Vinke was good to hear because he made it through and his stage persona was suited to the role, but then at home on goes Windgassen and oh dear, mind the gap!

There are so many wonderful recordings out there. Yes, the orchestra is great but is the conducting and the vision there? Pappano is a great man but his Wagner does not wholly convince.

[Alison]

On the evidence of last Friday, I'd love to see Mark Wigglesworth in charge of a Covent Garden Ring.

[maestro267]

On the spur of the moment, I decided to listen to today's performance. As it was my first full Wagner opera, I can't really give a proper critique of the performance, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Well worth the 7 hours.

[jayne lee wilson]

The woman commentator is behaving like a gushing, over-hyping teen, getting beyond the hearing of a bat in her shrieking enthusiasm. John Deathridge was fantastic, but DM is a just a different bloke with this woman. Frankly, I am getting very, very irritated and confused by all the trendy carp both are now congratulating / outdoing each other on spotting. Warner's explanations? Erm.......?? That helped us, did it?

Orchestra is unrivalled terrific, loved the insights and pacing.

Bullock is IMO unreachably, but totally unreachably awful - the wobble and screech are getting worse! She sounds totally out of her vocal depth. Waltraute good, Gunther OKish, John Tom hamming it disgracefully but very effectively and making Hagen into the blackest, nastiest thug you ever heard.

It's that phrase "the WOMAN commentator" and the rest of your first sentence that bothers me...
Free speech etc., but I'd keep an eye on that tendency if I were you.

[DracoM]

To distinguish her from the MAN with whom she was discussing the opera. I didn't catch her name.

[David-G]

I enjoyed it very much. Now looking forward to Rheingold live on Friday!

[Simon]

To distinguish her from the MAN with whom she was discussing the opera. I didn't catch her name.

Ah, but didn't you know, that's all old hat. There is absolutely no difference these days between the sexes and merely mentioning that someone may be a wom... (oops, nearly got caught there myself!) or a ma .. (oops again) is enough to make the libbers scream for you to be castr... (oops again - forgot - they've disappeared as well).

Make sure you take JLW's warning to heart. As she says, she's all for free speech, but never must there be any implied criticism of those formerly known as wom....

Or else the Sisters of the Left will be paying you a vis aaaaarrghh.

[DracoM]

Susan Bullock is a woman? Or Have I got that wrong too? Or was she the one singing Siegfried? FGS, picky or what?

I resist nostalgia as far as possible - the present are the things we live among etc - but hearing SB as B'hilde made me put on Birgit Nilsson's fiery, steely tones to remind myself. She could ride a Wagner orchestra in full cry without forcing the tone and losing accuracy. Of course she too would have had off nights.

In that Gotterdammerung, it seemed to me that Mme Bullock's tone spread more and more uncomfortably and consistently under pressure at the top such that it blurred and tended to a wobbly screech in an effort to dominate, and in that opera, naturally, any B'hilde is almost always under pressure against heavy orchestral textures. I just kept asking myself why she had decided to tackle the role. I have heard her numerous times in other works and her voice sounded in nothing like as much distress as in this.

I really did not think the singing in general was much cop - chorus excepted. Vinke was better for me in this than in Siegfried, and rather tellingly, the Alberich was very nearly the best on view. I know he only has a smallish bit to do in it, but it was a focused, malevolent and striking voice. John Tom is at the mo the fag and more than slightly hammy, panto villain end of the life of one of the very greatest operatic voices I have ever heard live, but even in its autumnal years, it still sung almost everyone else out of sight among the principals.

Yes, I agree that inexplicably the band had some bad collective moments at the start of Act 3 - why? Curious indeed. Almost as if the brass were last in and the stick came down before they were ready?!!

[underthecountertenor]

To distinguish her from the MAN with whom she was discussing the opera. I didn't catch her name.

Oh come on. You know the identity of the MAN, as your post shows. You describe the woman as a commentator. Would you have said 'the man commentator' or 'this man'? (Oh no - of course - you refer to men as 'blokes'). The repeated use of the word 'woman' in the context ('gushing, over-hyping teen...getting beyond the hearing of a bat...shrieking') created, for me, the overwhelming impression that this was a misogynistic rant. An impression which your accustomed ex post facto attempt at self-justification (with a pinch of passive aggression thrown in) does nothing to alter. And to cap it all, you have received the enthusiastic support of Simon, which speaks volumes. I see you have also referred to 'Mme Bullock' which, again in the context, creates a similar impression.
Frankly, I find most of this thread utterly dispiriting. It may well be, as Caliban suggests, that the BBC mics did some of the voices an injustice (something I too have experienced before), and of course the radio listener will get but a fraction of the Gesamtkunstwerk, and miss the Personenregie (which was outstanding) but, having been in the House last night, I have to say that I wouldn't recognise the performance I witnessed from the sheer vitriol of the criticism directed at some of the performers here.
Still, back to Choral Evensong next week, eh?

[amateur51]

Ah, but didn't you know, that's all old hat. There is absolutely no difference these days between the sexes and merely mentioning that someone may be a wom... (oops, nearly got caught there myself!) or a ma .. (oops again) is enough to make the libbers scream for you to be castr... (oops again - forgot - they've disappeared as well).

Make sure you take JLW's warning to heart. As she says, she's all for free speech, but never must there be any implied criticism of those formerly known as wom....

Or else the Sisters of the Left will be paying you a vis aaaaarrghh.

Is this an extract from a letter you had in draft to the Daily Telegraph circa 1972, Simon?!

Like T E Utley on a bad day

[DracoM]

As I hope my posting made clear, I have heard Susan Bullock on a number of occasions and never found her voice to sound as distressed as in that perf of Gotterdammerung. And I speculated as to why she felt that it was a role for her.

And I'm sorry I can't afford to be at ROCG for a Ring Cycle, thus I have to take as I find on air from [and am very grateful to ] R3. If you read the thread thoroughly, you may see that Bert Coules ALSO makes the point about the difference between being in the house and listening to the same perf via iPlayer and being very surprised at how different they sounded.

It is NOT vitriol, just disappointed surprise.

And I repeat that I genuinely did not catch the name of the woman with DM doing the between Acts stuff, and thus the only way I could distinguish between them for the posting was to call her a woman. What else can one do in the circs, please? And I will not budge in saying I thought she was poor, particularly in comparison with John Deathridge in the Siegfried analysis.