Prom 14 - 22.07.13: Wagner – Das Rheingold

[Flosshilde]

Ah well let us agree to disagree -It may not be the whole of the work, but it is the greatest part of it. I for one would not give it five minutes without the music, whatever can be performed without it. I doubt that the RAH would sell out to a performance of the Ring without music.
Each to his own.

The (dramatised?) reading at the British Library recently was well attended & well received, I believe.

[RobertLeDiable]

Remarkably so, given that the climactic sound of his striking the rock to initiate the storm was completely missing from the performance.

But alas here in Kent at least the thunder, lightning and deluge brought us no subsequent clearing of the air, no rainbow bridge, no promise of immediate respite: it's as hot and unpleasant this morning as it has been for the last week or so.

Thanks for the review and in particular for your comments on the staging or lack of it. If there were any dramatic benefits from the singers' placings to be had in the hall they all seemed to be smoothed out in the R3 balance: Erda in particular sounded as though she was standing cheek to cheek with all the rest of them, any sense of mystery and other-worldliness being completely absent: one of many missed opportunities.

I'm astonished that it's even possible to present any kind of performance of the Ring in a concert hall when there's next to no time to rehearse it because of all the other concerts occupying the hall. Have you any idea how hard it must be for sound engineers to balance something as complex as Rheingold with perhaps only two or three hours' rehearsal the day before or the morning of the performance, probably with the singers marking most of the time?

[RobertLeDiable]

I would also say that, listening again, I'm amazed at the quality of Ian Paterson's Wotan, which, as far as I understand it, was his debut in the role. Not bad for a policeman's son from Glasgow!

[Bert Coules]

Have you any idea how hard it must be for sound engineers to balance something as complex as Rheingold...

Given that I was, for many years, a sound engineer in BBC radio, yes I have a pretty good idea.

[Bert Coules]

The (dramatised?) reading at the British Library recently was well attended & well received, I believe.

Yes, indeed, as was discussed here .

[RobertLeDiable]

Given that I was, for many years, a sound engineer in BBC radio, yes I have a pretty good idea.

In that case I'm surprised that you complain about 'missed opportunities'. Did you ever try to balance a large scale opera in a difficult building like the RAH on a couple of hours' rehearsal? And if so do you think you could have seized all these opportunities? You also mention that Erda sounded as close as the other singers, but I read in the reviews that she was up at the organ console. She certainly sounded more distant when I listened.

[opera lover]

I meant *I* found it beautiful, not pretty-pretty sounding. I love the sound of the orchestra which is nothing like, say, the Met which I listened to and also went to the cinema performances of the complete cycle over two weekends about a year ago. And how do we know exactly what Wagner *would have* wanted? Instruments and acoustics, and indeed taste have developed since his day, as did interpretation. But yes, the further into the past you go the less beautiful it is -Toscanini etc.

[slarty]

I meant *I* found it beautiful, not pretty-pretty sounding. I love the sound of the orchestra which is nothing like, say, the Met which I listened to and also went to the cinema performances of the complete cycle over two weekends about a year ago. And how do we know exactly what Wagner *would have* wanted? Instruments and acoustics, and indeed taste have developed since his day, as did interpretation. But yes, the further into the past you go the less beautiful it is -Toscanini etc.

As far as acoustics are concerned, Wagner got exactly what he wanted by building the festspielhaus exactly to suit his music, including uncomfortable wooden seats and the shell over the opera pit. As for instruments, he also designed his own when nothing existed , Wagner Tubas , bass trumpets ect. So when one hears a performance from Bayreuth, whether it is the 1951 Parsifal or the 1955 Ring or Barenboims Ring in 1991 or Thielemanns recent Ring, we are hearing what Wagner wanted us to hear. No doubt the standard of playing has improved and the style of playing is also different, but all in all, the Bayreuth sound is as close as anyone can come to understanding what he wanted.
The only instruments that don't exist anymore are the original steerhorns, which were pinched by American soldiers after the war. They had to have new ones made based on the original designs.
As for taste, I beg to differ, I would much rather listen to Bayreuth from the 50s and 60s than something from today. As I write this I am listening to the tremendous Booing from the audience at the end of Siegfried Act 2 from this year's festival. Take a look at the URL pasted below for the kind of "taste" being foisted upon us today.

http://intermezzo.typepad.com/intermezzo/2013/07/bayreuth-ring-siegfried.html

[bluestateprommer]

I can't find any mention of such a phrase following a cursory examination of Ernest Newman's Wagner Nights where he appears to call it a tetralogy. I suspect it came into use via the recording industry.

Or, at the very least, with Flanders and Swann, from "Kokoraki" on the album At the Drop of a Hat (working from memory), after Swann has delivered multiple sung verses in Greek:

Flanders: "You're quite sure that's all?"
Swann: "Left out the last eight verses!"
Flanders: "Yes, we must have it in full some night - alternating with the Ring Cycle."

Besides, it's actually an appropriate term, as Anna Russell so snarkily noted many years ago in her classic "Analysis of the Ring", where the music at the beginning of Rheingold returns at the end of Gotterdämmerung, to "complete the cycle", or perhaps circle.

That aside, and admitting that I'm far from a Ring-head or immersed Wagnerite, I thought that this Rheingold was very well done indeed. While some have expressed disconcertion at the beauty of sound of the Staatskapelle Berlin, although it might have been perhaps just a bit much at the start, by the end, I was well caught up in the experience that any minor doubts as such got swept aside. One can even argue that the beauty of sound is appropriate at the start is appropriate, as a mirror of the Rhinemaidens' foolish innocence and overall innocence of the mood, until Alberich *()&#*&$'s it all up and sets the whole disaster in motion. I thought everyone in the cast was very good, although JMK was maybe a bit hammy as Alberich at times. I was especially looking forward to Iain Paterson as Wotan, having been impressed with his Gunther in the Met's HD Gotterdämmerung some while back, and he did a very fine job. No doubt he'll continue to grow in the role with the years. I was also impressed that Stephan Rügamer pretty much avoided Sprechstimme as Loge and pretty sung the role all the way through, AFAICT.

True that the lack of a John Culshaw-style thunderclap with Donner's hammer-blow was missing, but then at least you didn't get strobe lighting effects there in compensation at that moment. (Or might that have added atmosphere? )

BTW, in case anyone here missed it or wants to give it another go, you can still catch the audio, from the Proms' calendar page (not the R3 iPlayer page). Or at least you can for now.

[Bert Coules]

True that the lack of a John Culshaw-style thunderclap with Donner's hammer-blow was missing...

It wasn't the lack of thunder that I regretted: I can accept the timps and low strings at that point as a reasonable facsimile (though the score does specify "A violent clap of thunder" not a roll). It was the sound of Donner's hammer being "heard to fall heavily on the rock" which is not only in the stage directions it's actually notated in the score, and pitched to boot: C natural, ff.

Omitting it leaves an awkward hole in the music, for me.