Prom 18 - Barenboim Ring continues with Siegfried

Wagner: Siegfried (semi-staged)

 

Lance Ryan tenor (Siegfried) 
Nina Stemme soprano (Brünnhilde)
Terje Stensvold baritone (Wanderer)
Peter Bronder tenor (Mime)
Johannes Martin Kränzle baritone (Alberich) 
Eric Halfvarson bass (Fafner)
Rinnat Moriah soprano (Woodbird)
Anna Larsson mezzo-soprano (Erda) 
Staatskapelle Berlin
Daniel Barenboim conductor 

Royal Albert Hall, London, 26 July 2013

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Daniel Barenboim's sure hand on this first complete Ring at the Proms continued with an engrossing Siegfried.

The driving force in this came from dramatically compelling performances from Canadian heldentenor Lance Ryan, as the young hero Siegfried who does not know the meaning of fear, and Peter Bronder as the dwarf Mime who is bringing Siegfried up in the forest who was energetically characterised from the start, scheming and wailing, part villain, part pathetic figure.

The opera naturally turns on its Siegfried and what a difficult character it is to bring off.  As Wagner's libretto has him, he can be a very unsympathetic character, a brainless beefcake, enjoying his tormenting of Mime a little too much.  Certainly Ryan's portrayal veered in this direction initially with his wilful, adolescent Siegfried, but he built considerable complexity as Siegfried questions Mime and learns across the opera more of his parents and himself. His Act 2 disturbed the onward impulse of the opera, but it injected some fine humour into proceedings through the "Forest Murmurs" section as he interacted with the on-stage orchestra.  For his horn calls to the wood bird, the first french horn of the wonderful Staatskapelle Berlin came out front to deliver it impeccably.  "Got any others?" Ryan quipped. Audience laughter, during a Ring!

Lance Ryan

Come Act 3, things moved onto new levels in a whole range of ways.  The great fault line in the music of The Ring of course comes at this point.  Wagner, having written the music of Rheingold, The Valkyrie and Acts 1 and 2 of Siegfried, left it for 12 years during which he wrote Tristan and The Mastersingers and his compositional genius advanced enormously.  The mighty Siegfried Act 3 prelude is music on another planet, and The Wanderer (Terje Stensvold) returned in more expansive mood than his rather one-speed contributions to that point and together with Erda (Anna Larrson) deepened the emotions at this point.  With Nina Stemme's entrance as Brunnhilde we were again reminded of her great artistry.  She is a complete Brunnhilde, powerful on the top register but with great warmth and quality across the full vocal range. 

Barenboim may have not been as successful as in the stunningly good Valkyrie on Tuesday at maintaining an underlying pulse to the evening, but the Staatskapelle Berlin were again a marvel.  The burnished brass were absolutely outstanding and the woodwind section sublime whether in conjuring up the forest sounds of Act 2 or blending subtly with the singer's vocal lines.  The horns were flawless and had an extraordinary capacity, though only 5 metres from my seat, to sound as if 100 metres distant, over a hill.  All promises well for Sunday's conclusion in The Twilight of the Gods.

Peter O'Byrne

Prom 15: Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim and Kampe in stellar Die Walküre

Prom 15: Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim and Kampe in stellar Die Walküre

Wagner: Die Walküre (concert performance)

Bryn Terfel bass-baritone (Wotan)
Eric Halfvarson bass (Hunding)
Simon O'Neill tenor (Siegmund)
Anja Kampe soprano (Sieglinde)
Nina Stemme soprano (Brünnhilde)
Ekaterina Gubanova mezzo-soprano (Fricka)
Sonja Mühleck soprano (Gerhilde)
Carola Höhn soprano (Ortlinde)
Ivonne Fuchs mezzo-soprano, (Waltraute)
Anaïk Morel mezzo-soprano, (Schwertleite)
Susan Foster soprano, (Helmwige)
Leann Sandel-Pantaleo mezzo-soprano, (Siegrune)
Anna Lapkovskaja mezzo-soprano, (Grimgerde)
Simone Schröder mezzo-soprano, (Rossweisse)
Staatskapelle Berlin
Daniel Barenboim conductor


Royal Albert Hall, London, 23 July 2013

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The plush Staatskapelle Berlin inspired by the masterly direction of Daniel Barenboim and a first-choice cast including an electrifying Anja Kampe, delivered a memorable Die Walkure at the Proms last night.

Daniel Barenboim has taken to not so much giving concerts in London as much as masterminding events.  Previous highlights have been a complete Beethoven piano sonatas cycle  (2008), complete Beethoven symphonies cycle (2012), and a series of Mozart Piano concertos & Bruckner symphonies (2012).  Now he brings the first ever Proms The Ring of the Nibelung: Wagner's great pinnacle of opera writing consisting of three 4 hour operas The Valkyrie, Siegfried and Twilight of the Gods, preceded by the 2 hour "preliminary evening" of The Rhinegold.
 
This was a classic Proms experience; great artists performing a big work with very reasonable prices – a quarter of the norm for a staged version.  In the aftermath of a certain royal birth the previous day, this was democracy. 

Berlin Staatskapelle and Daniel Barenboim

Barenboim brought the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra he is the music director of for The Ring, but on each of the 4 nights there are varying casts.  And the hero of The Valkyrie was undoubtedly the Staatskapelle – revealed as a great Wagner orchestra.  What does that mean?  Well, it has a burnished tone and a complete absence of rough edges in its sound. At times it sounded like one instrument, not an ensemble of 100, which always marks out the best orchestras.  Horns emerge from massed woodwind, oboes blend with strings, harps underpin unobtrusively the total sound.  And all this is important in Wagner because his music is characterised by a continuously evolving, shimmering, transforming tapestry of sound.  

Richard Wagner

Blessed with seats level with the orchestra and virtually sitting at the back of the second violins, there were countless moments of jaw-dropping beauty. Time and again the ear was distracted from the stellar singers to admire yet another moment of insight from the orchestra.  The culmination was a sound of breathtaking aural lushness at the conclusion with Brunnhilde asleep on the rock surrounded by the flickering magic fire.


So what is the story of The Ring?  Well it can be told in many ways but two primary themes are that it is about human love and compassion and its struggle against social laws and conventions, and about the replacement of one social order – that of the gods – with a new one.


In The Valkyrie this plays out through a sequence of key relationships.  First, Sieglinde is stuck in a loveless marriage with Hunding and meets and runs off with her twin brother Siegmund (Act 1).  Second, Wotan is stuck in a loveless marriage with Fricka who – being the goddess of marriage – demands the death of Sieglinde and Siegmund.  This, Wotan very reluctantly agrees as he is the father of both Siegmund and Sieglinde.  Third, Wotan is very close to another daughter, the valkyrie Brunnhilde.  He instructs her to carry out Fricka’s wishes (Act 2). However Brunnhilde thinks she knows what her father really wants and instead saves Sieglinde.  Wotan, with no option, punishes Brunnhilde by leaving her asleep on a rock for the first man to come across her to be her husband.  But in the long and profoundly moving conclusion to Act 3, overcome by compassion and admiration for Brunnhilde’s spirit, Wotan changes the sentence so that she is surrounded by a wall of magic fire that only a man who knows no fear will be able to penetrate.

Anja Kampe

Throughout the performance, Barenboim’s direction was very satisfying, delivering  concentration and space for the long arcs of music to breath. Generally broad tempi did not prevent Wagner’s moments of uber-excitement to deliver: the Act 1 prelude storm, climax of Act 1 and Sieglinde’s farewell to Brunnhilde in Act 3 (impressively broadened) standing out.

These particular moments also had another connection: Anja Kampe was on the stage.  Having made quite some impression in December as Senta, she here confirmed her reputation for ringing high notes and artistic fearlessness.  She may lack the vocal warmth of some, but in Wagner she delivers powerful singing and utter commitment.  It was completely thrilling and her reception at the end for her solo bow had to be heard to be believed.  A tumult, even for the effusive Proms audience.

Nina Stemme

Bryn Terfel

Nina Stemme  as Brunnhilde was a nuanced presence, well paced and with a wide vocal range.  Bryn Terfel’s Wotan commanded the stage with the outsize personality we have come to expect.  Terfel chewed up the words with gusto, but seemed fractionally more weary than weighty come the end.    Simon O’Neill was evidently struggling with a cold.  One constantly suspects he will prove too vocally lightweight for Wagner, but his artistry shone through with a fine heroic quality to his Siegmund.

Simon O'Neill

 
This was luxury casting, and backed up with the Staatskapelle’s magic carpet of sound and Barenboim’s sure hand, the night was thrilling, exhausting and ultimately transporting. 


Peter O'Byrne