Met Siegfried 20th April 2013

[Bert Coules]

I reluctantly agree about Voigt. But though Hunter Morris is obviously tiring, I still find him perfectly reasonable to say the least. After all, what criterion should we be applying here? Are we comparing him to an hypothetical perfection? To the best we've ever heard? To what we think he should be achieving? What? I think there's sometimes a tendency - and I've done it myself - to forget that what we're listening to are real flesh and blood people trying their damnedest to do something that's unbelievably difficult.

Bert

[DracoM]

Crikey. Thank God for that orchestra.

[Bert Coules]

OK, I admit that that ending was a little unfortunate.

Bert

[Tapiola]

I reluctantly agree about Voigt. But though Hunter is obviously tiring, I still find him perfectly reasonable to say the least. After all, what criterion should we be applying here? Are we comparing him to an hypothetical perfection? To the best we've ever heard? To what we think he should be achieving? What? I think there's sometimes a tendency - and I've done it myself - to forget that what we're listening to are real people trying their damnedest to do something that's unbelievably difficult.

Bert

And Siegfried - famously the longest and most taxing tenor role in the repertory...

Bert, again, I agree with your sentiment. We may all have the tendency to be too harsh, especially when judged against our "ideal" performance. However, for any single role to work for any individual listener, the voice must please. For me, Siegfried's tonight, does not.

[Bert Coules]

However, for any single role to work for any individual listener, the voice must please. For me, Siegfried's tonight, does not.

A fair and valid point.

Bert

[Tapiola]

A fair and valid point.

Bert

Yet, Bert, you remain a Wagnerian whose experience, knowledge and sheer love for the music I can but aspire to.

[Flosshilde]

WEll, I listened through to the end - & what an end!

I've now got Windgassen & Varnay (Beyreuth, 1951) on

[Tapiola]

WEll, I listened through to the end - & what an end!

I've now got Windgassen & Varnay (Beyreuth, 1951) on

Oh flossy, you divil.

[Bert Coules]

Tapiola you're too kind, I wish I deserved that. And I do hope you won't think I'm throwing your compliment back in your face if I say that my love is for the works - there's an enormous amount more to them than simply the music.

Bert

[Tapiola]

Tapiola you're too kind, I wish I deserved that. And I do hope you won't think I'm throwing your compliment back in your face if I say that my love is for the works - there's an enormous amount more to them than simply the music.

Bert

Bert, pas du tout. And yes, it's about a lot more than the music. But, what music!

[gurnemanz]

I started listening in the car sitting in a carpark waiting for my wife to appear. I didn't take to Mime at all and I'm afraid I switched to the footie on Five Live.

[DracoM]

Of course, Bert is right. This is probably the longest and most taxing tenor role in opera, hence wear and tear inevitable.

It occurred to me overnight that although he may never have said it aloud, but might in his head, our Siegfried will have known that Deborah Voigt was about to join him in Act 3, at which time, he'd already been onstage more or less continuously and giving it wellie for -what? - well over three hours. As soon as she started, and I do mean as soon as, his heart will have sunk, knowing that he was going to have to carry it to the finish while she struggled and scratched around looking for her voice, and if we heard it aright, not finding it. The tension engendered in such circs can only be imagined. You strive even harder, you tense up, you over-sing in compensation, on top of which you're pretty knackered.

All that said, I just could not cope with all those huge open and outright ugly vowel sounds. I knew he reminded me of someone I'd seen in Vienna and heard elsewhere, and over breakfast it came to me: the Dresden tenor Reiner Goldberg. No cover, just open throated aggressive.

[Bert Coules]

In a vaguely similar case, though with an infinitely happier outcome, I once saw a Siegfried at the Coliseum with a last-minute replacement Brünnhilde who didn't know the production well. Remedios said afterwards in an interview that it was the most exhausting performance he'd ever given: helping the soprano with the moves, alerting her to the hazards of the set and doing it all without making it obvious to the audience was almost like having to play her part as well as his own. Both performers were tremendously good, as I recall, and of course the audience appreciated and loved the achievement.

I know she's a house favourite and also that the Met audience can be uncritical but I wonder if the great reception given to yesterday's third act was in part because Voigt was so obviously in trouble and the audience were responding to her efforts just to get to the end.

Bert

[Mr Pee]

Tapiola you're too kind, I wish I deserved that. And I do hope you won't think I'm throwing your compliment back in your face if I say that my love is for the works - there's an enormous amount more to them than simply the music.

Bert

Absolutely, Bert. Which is why I find listening to Live Wagner on the radio a mostly dissapointing experience. The huge demands of a role such as Siegfried are bound to tax all but the most superhuman of tenors; and without the additional involvement engendered by the rest of the Gesamtkunstwek then the flaws will be even more jarring.

I have greatly enjoyed this cycle on Blu-Ray recently; as I said on the Walkure thread, I think it is one of the most succesful recent productions, when taken as whole. And Jay Hunter-Morris I think is excellent in those performances, as is Deborah Voight. Overall it is an involving and well thought-out production, with some stunning stage images, particularly in Siegfried.

[Mr Pee]

http://schleppynabuccos.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/money-for-nothung-siegfried-at.html