Prom 20 - 28.07.13: Wagner – Götterdämmerung

[Belgrove]

Andreas Schager will be inundated with bookings for Siegfried on the strength of his performance tonight. A ringing tone that carried to my seat but for the end of the evening. Great stage presence too, he was a cocky, swaggering adolescent personified. Again Martin Kranzle impressed, his short scene with (a rather light toned) Hagen was the stuff of nightmares, flesh crawling horribleness.

But I agree with Bert that overall act 2 did not surpass act 1, which was epic. I found the chorus a little underpowered and Gronchowski's Gunther did not extract the tragedy, bitterness and flawed nobility that role embodies.

Steme was excellent throughout with plenty of spare in the tank for The Immolation.

Götterdämmerung always astonishes and astounds me. The score is a miraculous product of dramatic form and function - but it is not a given that it always works. It did tonight with Barenboim's majestic performance when most things came together. It is a performance that will live long in my memory. Magnificent.

[PhilipT]

There was an extraordinary Parsifal at the Proms same years back, conducted by Boulez. For the next week or so the conversation about it was almost entirely focussed on the incredibly loud shout - scream almost - of BRAVO! from one Prommer at the very micro-second the final note of act three faded away. He must have taken a deep breath in preparation during the last few seconds. Several of the national newspaper critics mentioned it too. Very odd behaviour and completely fatal to the atmosphere of the end of the piece.

More recently, there was a run of Mahler 6s where someone regularly did this from the West Stalls. We christened him the "Bravo Buffoon". But then we had a Mahler 6 conducted by someone (Sinaisky?) who only had two crashes of mallet-on-wooden-box, not three, and this seemed to catch him out and he hasn't been back. (Hooray!)

Just got back home from Götterdämmerung. It's not an opera I know well, but I thought Nina Stemme was excellent, and was so pleased that Barenboim held that silence at the end. Some of the diction by the male soloists didn't come across clearly at the back of the Arena and I kept losing my place in the libretto.

[David-G]

After having heard part of the other three operas on the radio, I decided that I had to come to the hall to see Gotterdammerung. I queued early and got a place in the Arena which had a good view, and proved to be excellent acoustically.

I felt that this was an outstanding performance, one of the very best Gotterdammerungs I have seen. The singers were uniformly excellent. In addition to Stemme and Meier who were wonderful, I particularly liked Schager as Siegfried. He has a very engaging stage personality and is a natural comic. When he came on in Act 2, he crept up to the sleeping Hagen so as to “hoiho” straight into his ear, and gave the audience a big wink. He was entirely natural in the role, and Siegfried came across as a fully credible character, the best I have seen for a long time. I must also commend Schager for a most successful impersonation of Gunter.

Gerd Grochowski was a more forceful Gunter than one often hears, Gunter can often seem rather a wimp. As well as being one of the excellent Norns, Anna Samuil was a very touching Gutrune. Mikhail Petrenko seemed a youthful Hagen but was the personification of menace.

I thought that the direction was excellent, and that it could essentially be regarded as a staged performance. It just goes to show that you don’t need complex sets with crashed aeroplanes to stage he Ring satisfactorily. In their Act 1 duet Siegfried and Brunnhilde were on high behind Sir Henry, and Stemme returned there for the Immolation scene. The Rhinemaidens were where the choir had been, with suitable blue lighting right behind them. Somehow them being on high with Siegfried stage front below them did not seem perverse, probably due to Schager’s convincing acting. Siegfried’s murder was staged very simply; Hagen moved behind him and made a spear-throwing gesture, upon which Siegfried fell. But it was deeply shocking, much more so than in the “fully-staged” productions I have seen. Gutrune was a fully credible character, thrilled to have such a wonderful fiance, but a pawn among the powerful machinations around her, and ultimately crushed and devastated by them.

Following the final note Barenboim held his hand high to discourage applause. Finally he lowered it. The roar that followed was spontaneous.

The ovation at the end was terrific, and lasted 25 minutes. The end of a Ring always engenders excitement and an ovation; but I had not witnessed anything like this since the ovation for the Goodall Ring forty years ago. Barenboim made a nice speech in which he praised the audience and its silence; in fact he said that he and his fellow artists were in awe of us! He also praised the leader, whose final performance with the orchestra this was, after forty years with them.

How nice to be able to come home and read all your views on the performance.

[Bert Coules]

Andreas Schager will be inundated with bookings for Siegfried on the strength of his performance tonight.

The very fact that he can sing the part at all almost certainly means that he already has bookings lined up for the next few years at the very least. I think he must have sounded better in the hall than he did on the broadcast (or maybe, once again, it was just me) - to my ears he came over as thin-voiced and with a pronounced beat, though I agree that it was a commited and intelligent performance.

The casting which really surprised me was the Hagen: yes, light-toned is right. A bass who sounds more baritonal than your Gunther is not a natural choice for the part and the balance of the drama suffered, I thought, especially in acts two and three which call at least occasionally for sheer heft and power as well as deviousness and intensity.

David-G, thanks for the notes on the staging. Much appreciated. What a pity that the Ring was (presumably) too expensive for the Beeb to televise.

[David-G]

Bert, you will have read my comments above on Schager's excellent stage presence. But apart from that, I thought he sang extremely well. No beat, and not thin-voiced. Excellent.

I can understand your remarks about Hagen. I felt that his stage manner made up for what he lacked in vocal depth. But of course you could not see that.

[Bert Coules]

It's a difficult problem, isn't it? Should a dramatic work which is being broadcast to a potentially far larger audience than will see it in the hall be cast for that unseeing audience or for the smaller one who can appreciate the subtleties that a visual dimension can add? There is, of course, no easy answer. I'm not too sure that there's even a hard one, or at least not one that could come close to pleasing everyone involved.

And it works both ways: that final silence sounded magical over the air, and the suspicion that Barenboim might have "conducted" it didn't really detract from the spell, at least at the time. In the house, I suspect that (however unreasonably) I might well have been irritated by what he did.

[jayne lee wilson]

After having heard part of the other three operas on the radio, I decided that I had to come to the hall to see Gotterdammerung. I queued early and got a place in the Arena which had a good view, and proved to be excellent acoustically.

I felt that this was an outstanding performance, one of the very best Gotterdammerungs I have seen. The singers were uniformly excellent. In addition to Stemme and Meier who were wonderful, I particularly liked Schager as Siegfried. He has a very engaging stage personality and is a natural comic. When he came on in Act 2, he crept up to the sleeping Hagen so as to “hoiho” straight into his ear, and gave the audience a big wink. He was entirely natural in the role, and Siegfried came across as a fully credible character, the best I have seen for a long time. I must also commend Schager for a most successful impersonation of Gunter.

Gerd Grochowski was a more forceful Gunter than one often hears, Gunter can often seem rather a wimp. As well as being one of the excellent Norns, Anna Samuil was a very touching Gutrune. Mikhail Petrenko seemed a youthful Hagen but was the personification of menace.

I thought that the direction was excellent, and that it could essentially be regarded as a staged performance. It just goes to show that you don’t need complex sets with crashed aeroplanes to stage he Ring satisfactorily. In their Act 1 duet Siegfried and Brunnhilde were on high behind Sir Henry, and Stemme returned there for the Immolation scene. The Rhinemaidens were where the choir had been, with suitable blue lighting right behind them. Somehow them being on high with Siegfried stage front below them did not seem perverse, probably due to Schager’s convincing acting. Siegfried’s murder was staged very simply; Hagen moved behind him and made a spear-throwing gesture, upon which Siegfried fell. But it was deeply shocking, much more so than in the “fully-staged” productions I have seen. Gutrune was a fully credible character, thrilled to have such a wonderful fiance, but a pawn among the powerful machinations around her, and ultimately crushed and devastated by them.

Following the final note Barenboim held his hand high to discourage applause. Finally he lowered it. The roar that followed was spontaneous.

The ovation at the end was terrific, and lasted 25 minutes. The end of a Ring always engenders excitement and an ovation; but I had not witnessed anything like this since the ovation for the Goodall Ring forty years ago. Barenboim made a nice speech in which he praised the audience and its silence; in fact he said that he and his fellow artists were in awe of us! He also praised the leader, whose final performance with the orchestra this was, after forty years with them.

How nice to be able to come home and read all your views on the performance.

Wonderfully vivid evocation, D-G, thankyou...

After extraordinary experiences with it some years ago, I didn't feel I could take The Ring on this time; but accounts of evenings like this make me think - yes, perhaps, one day... I'm glad it was so special for those who attended.

[mercia]

the speech

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01dfn76

just heard the joke about the concertmaster - "you say leader, but that doesn't translate well into German"

[KipperKid]

Actually, no he didn't. He made a single ambiguous remark about the end of act one which for many years was treated as a firm instruction not to clap at that point, with the absurd result that people who did applaud found themselves loudly hissed and booed by the "real Wagnerians" resulting in a far more unpleasant and mood-damaging experience than the clapping alone would have been. And Wagner later made it quite clear that he approved just as much of applause for Parsifal as he did for his other pieces.

On one splendid occasion, sitting in the audience for a Parsifal performance, he himself applauded during act two (at the flower maidens, naturally) whereupon the person behind him told him in no uncertain terms to shut up and respect the music.

Gurnemanz, I envy you having no memory of the boorish bravoer. His contribution still sometimes rings in my memory.

I had read the 'no applause for Parsifal' thing in a book some years ago and took it for granted that it was true.

Thank you for setting things right.

[amac4165]

Andreas Schager will be inundated with bookings for Siegfried on the strength of his performance tonight.

Which if he has any sense he will turn down !

[David-G]

And it works both ways: that final silence sounded magical over the air, and the suspicion that Barenboim might have "conducted" it didn't really detract from the spell, at least at the time. In the house, I suspect that (however unreasonably) I might well have been irritated by what he did.

It really did not seem like that (to me, anyway). I felt Barenboim's indication of silence was a gesture of respect to the artists, to Wagner, and even to the audience.

[slarty]

For me the pause was magical and no less so for being deliberate. It would not normally happen in the opera house because audiences have a habit of breaking into applause as the curtains begin to close, negating the effect and jolting us too quickly back into reality.
I agree with David-G that it was a gesture of respect, but for me it was for the music itself. The pause was of Furtwänglarian magnitude.
This was a Great Ring cycle, warts and all. Barenboim deserves all credit for such an interpretation. One for the ages.
I hope that the many who have not heard the Ring "live" before have now an understanding of how different it is to a studio recording.
This is about as good as it can be today, Pace Bayreuth.

[Simon Biazeck]

With the disparaging comment above about the chorus, it was nice to hear this from a renowned professional, and choral expert, in the upper circle - "Chorus were terrific - piano text crystal clear and very exciting at full-throttle."

[Stephen Smith]

With the disparaging comment above about the chorus, it was nice to hear this from a renowned professional, and choral expert, in the upper circle - "Chorus were terrific - piano text crystal clear and very exciting at full-throttle."

I'll have to catch up with Acts 1 and 2 in iPlayer, I'm afraid. At the last run at RoH the chorus were thrilling (as it was in a previous run of the Flying Dutchman) - was there also the extra chorus (giving the "critical mass") last night?

[Simon Biazeck]

I'll have to catch up with Acts 1 and 2 in iPlayer, I'm afraid. At the last run at RoH the chorus were thrilling (as it was in a previous run of the Flying Dutchman) - was there also the extra chorus (giving the "critical mass") last night?

Just heard it on playback and the chorus balance was, as ever with the BBC, a little distanced, but very clear, incisive and powerful. With most of the full chorus on their Summer break there was extra extra chorus making up the numbers last night, many of whom have done it at the ROH and elsewhere. I don't know anything about live sound engineering, but it must be very difficult to keep it balanced as a whole without drawing attention to individual voices. To be fair, I think the people on the desks did pretty well.