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

Gustavo Dudamel

At home in the East

Vivier: Zipangu
Debussy: La Mer
Stravinsky: The Firebird (complete ballet)

Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra
Gustavo Dudamel conductor

Barbican Hall, London, 17 March 2013
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Gustavo Dudamel is of course one of the most glamorous conductors on the circuit today.  As is well known, he was a product of El Sistema - Venezuela's famed music academy which teaches underprivileged children musical instruments and oversees over 100 youth orchestras - and graduated to direct its flagship orchestra: The Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra.  He now also leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra where he was greeted with street posters shouting "Dudamel pasion".  It was this ensemble that he brought to London for a weekend residency, fronting it with an attractively unassuming stage manner. All music played was from the 20th and 21st centuries and it was in the most recent music that the biggest treasures were to be obtained from this conductor and ensemble.
The Sunday night programme was heavily weighted towards the early 20th century with masterworks of Debussy (La Mer) and Stravinsky (The Firebird).  These were delivered with the massive technical assurance which we have come to expect from this and other leading American orchestras.  But real orchestral magic was in short supply despite these scores providing abundant opportunities to conjure it up.  Dudamel seemed intent on clean, literal readings although the direct and fearless dispatch of Kastchei's infernal dance had some audience members spontaneously applauding.  Could Kastchei be the new March from Tchaikovsky's 6th in its ability to mislead listeners of the true ending? 
However Dudamel's more directional interventions could be electrifying.  No better demonstration of his obvious talent was in evidence than a mesmerising pianissimo transition into the final climax of the ballet.

Real musical intensity was delivered at the start with a work of Claude Vivier from 1980: Zipangu. Canadian composer Vivier's life was cruelly cut short when he was murdered in Paris in 1983. His ritualistic and colourful music was deeply influenced by extensive travel in Asia.  One of the countries he visited was Japan, and Zipangu was the name given to Japan at the time of Marco Polo.  

Claude Vivier, before his fateful visit to Paris

Igor Stravinsky, before he moved from Paris to 

Los Angeles

At the Barbican, the combination of excellent rehearsal, assurance and a strongly projected reading of the score provided the ideal kind of super-committed reading. "New" music deserves this treatment but does not always receive.  Through contrasting "typical" classical structures and more free forms suggestive of the natural world (bird calls on violins, the hum of forest life) the music skilfully created a strong sense of a culture clash between Europeans and the Japanese world.  The climax of sorts was a solo on the double bass - of all instruments - which pushed it outside its comfort zone, again enhancing the sense of a culture at its limits.

So, an eerie and memorable experience.  Not until that transition at the end of Firebird did this concert again deliver something so powerful.

Lutoslawski festival -  Salonen and Zimerman turn on the style 

Lutoslawski: Musique funebre
Lutoslawski: Piano Concerto
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe ballet
 
Philharmonia Orchestra
Philharmonia Voices
Esa-Pekka Salonen conductor
Krystian Zimerman piano
 
30 January 2013, Royal Festival Hall, London
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Lutoslawski with Salonen

Lutoslawski has been a particular favourite of mine since I discovered his stunning 3rd Symphony – Beethoven for the late 20th century.  So it is a particular pleasure that Esa-Pekka Salonen and his Philharmonia Orchestra are playing a full tribute to the Polish composer on the 100 year anniversary of his birth in 1913.
 
The first concert of three at the Royal Festival Hall kicked off with the work that grabbed international attention for the composer at the second Warsaw Autumn Festival in 1958.  The Musique funebre has a tone equivalent to Strauss’ Metamorphosen and commemorates the 10th anniversary of the death of Bela Bartok.  It remains an arresting composition and Salonen was a model of restraint, emphasising the subdued and intimate atmosphere it generates. 
 

Lutoslawski and Zimerman performing together

From this followed the much later Piano Concerto of 1988 and we were treated to a typically polished and prepared performance from the work’s dedicatee – Krystian Zimerman.  Lutoslawski first discussed the project with Zimerman in 1976 so it had an extended gestation.   Thinner, often luminous orchestration is coupled with much surprisingly traditional writing for the piano.  Zimerman evoked the sparse, probing opening with the crystalline beauty we have come to expect, and revelled in the passacaglia finale which contains writing of a Lisztian bent.  In between it was possible to imagine that Chopin or Brahms were involved, but Lutoslawksi’s characteristic structural clarity, superb orchestration and magica improvisatory qualities were everywhere evident.  Kissing the score, Zimerman departed the stage after an ideal performance of this fine work.

After such concise, focused brilliance in the first half, it was perhaps unfair to throw out one of Ravel’s most bloated scores.  Fair or not, Daphnis well outstayed its welcome, however brilliantly it was played and sung by the Philharmonia Orchestra and Voices.   The orchestration was at times ravishing of course, but much of the ballet feels like sub- Rimsky-Korsakov and the worldless vocalising of the chorus has not dated well.

Bring on more Lutoslawski!

Terfel, Kampe, Salminen - a Wagnerian triumvirate

Richard Wagner: The Flying Dutchman (concert performance)



Baritone Bryn Terfel

Bryn Terfel The Dutchman
Anja Kampe Senta
Matti Salminen Daland
Martin Homrich Erik
Fabio Trumpy Steersman
Liliana Nikiteanu Mary

Zurich Opera Orchestra 
Zurich Opera Chorus
Alain Altinoglu conductor


15 December 2012, Royal Festival Hall, London
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Anja Kampe



This performance of Wagner’s opera came straight from the Zurich Opera House.  As a result this was not one of those stilted concert performances which howls for sets and props.  The singers immediately created engaging relationships with eachother and the Festival Hall stage.  When underpinned by Wagner’s orchestral narrative, the evening was as enthralling as any staged version.

The Steersman and Captain Daland brought out humour as well as atmosphere from the opening and only Mistress Mary was an awkward presence, seemingly in two minds whether to act out her role as a very coquettish 50 year old, or hold true to more formal conventions of concert performance.

 
Wagner’s opera tells the tale of the Flying Dutchman, doomed to sail the seas until the day of

Richard Wagner

judgment unless he is redeemed by the love of a true woman.  He can return to land every 7 years to find such a person and the opera starts as he meets Daland, discovers he has a daughter Senta and strikes a bargain that he will give the father all his dazzling treasure in return for marrying her.  And – who would have thought - Senta has a picture of the Flying Dutchman on her wall. She spurns the advances of the hunter Erik in preference for awaiting the doomed man.  She is ecstatic on the Dutchman’s arrival but in the end the Dutchman suspects she has failed him and sails off.  Senta proves her love by throwing herself from a cliff into the sea as the opera ends.

Alain Altinoglu was directing this performance and was unfussy and direct throughout.  This brought greatest benefits when the orchestra reaches full frenzy as the human and ghostly ship crews dialogue in the final act.  Elsewhere it was not a reading of the score to set pulses racing.  Probably just as well though, because the singers were setting the air alight.

The evening had been marketed with Bryn Terfel as the headline act.  What we actually received was a spectacular triumvirate of Wagner singers: Terfel sharing the stage with two unforgettable performances from Anja Kampe as Senta and Matti Salminen as Daland.  When the three sang together at the climax of Act 3 this was clearly a vintage Wagner evening.

Matti Salminen

Salminen was the first on stage and his interpretation combined a powerful voice (a little hoarse sounding although he is a ship captain) with a wry and engaging interpretation of the character.  He brought a depth to the role that took it beyond the simple opportunism that it suggests. The Steersman was nicely clear and true.


The entrance of Terfel ratcheted up the temperature.  This was a vocal masterclass as Terfel introduced the audience to the Dutchman’s massive existential angst.  His delivery of the repeated calling for the end of the world was unforgettable.  As ever his voice combined power with great attention to the words and a remarkable ability to speak very directly to the listener.    


Kampe and Terfel together in the Zurich production

So far, all was going very well indeed.  Then Act II began.  After a bumpy spinning chorus and that slightly jarring Mary, Anja took control.  Even before she sang she seemed to radiate the type of indwelling confidence that a Senta should have.  After all she ignores all advice around her to wait for and then commit herself to a cursed ghost.  Once she was singing it became clear that she had a powerful voice combined with real artistic bravery.  She evidently has a few Sieglinde’s under her belt – I would pay good money to hear that on this showing.  She was far from flawless – suffering a power-failure in the Act 2 duet with the Terfel – but she sang with a generosity and abandon which suited the role very well.  Some Sentas may bring a more girl-ish aspect to both voice and acting, but Anja’s sledgehammer high notes at the opera’s conclusion were electric.  She all but knocked holes in the back of the hall. 


If Senta delivered the greatest thrills and spills Terfel’s Dutchman is difficult to imagine being bettered.  The intensity of his stage presence and singing was breath-taking and when he and Senta finally clinch, the moment was remarkable for its strangeness: Senta seemingly in a trance, the Dutchman consumed with not missing his chance at redemption. Tender it was not.  This was a triumph and a golden Wagner night.
 

Opera House Zurich (above) or Royal Festival Hall (below): which would you choose?

A watery grave 

Antonin Dvorak: Rusalka
 
Wioletta Chodowicz Rusalka
Mischa Schelomianski Vodnik
Anne Mason Jezibaba
Ladislav Elgr Prince
Tatiana Pavlovskaya Foreign Princess
Glyndebourne on Tour Chorus & Orchestra
Jakub Hrusa conductor

9 November 2012, Wimbledon Theatre, London
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As with so many fairy tales, this is a grim story.  The water sprite Rusalka falls in love with a prince.  But if she is to win him she must enter the world of humans and lose the power of speech.  Warned that this will be disastrous she goes ahead and finds that the prince tires of his mute bride and is drawn to a foreign princess.  Rusalka returns to the water cursed but the prince now follows and all ends dismally.

 
The opera turns on the duality of the water sprite’s world and that of the humans on land.  Glyndebourne’s production, directed by Melly Still, sought to convey this through elaborate choreography of the water scenes using long serpent tails and movement actors.  A tad over-fussy, it also proved quite intrusive when poor Rusalka is being lifted, spun and pawed by choreographic assistants as she sings her Song to the Moon.  This most famous music in Dvorak’s favourite opera was very nicely done by Wioletta Chodowicz, integrating it into the scene rather than separating it as an artificial “show-stopper”.

The wedding scene clearly had a good concept but the central angled walkway became a health and safety disaster when water was inadvertently spilt on it.  How the killer-heeled princess failed to fall remains a mystery, but it brought unwanted elements of drama to the celebration.

Don't slip!

Vodnik was a powerfully malevolent presence throughout and held our sympathies as Rusalka is undone at her wedding by the foreign princess.  His appearance at the climax of Act 2 was the musical highlight of the night.
 
All in all a fine evening at Glyndebourne on Tour, though this was a production with its heart in the sodden depths of the lake, which meant that the underpinning love story was underplayed.  While the tale is dark, it is the power of this love that triggers the plot.  At no point in Act 1 did it ring true – a fatal flaw.

Maazel finally delivers

Prokofiev: Romeo & Juliet ballet excerpts
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 "Pathetique"

Philharmonia Orchestra
Lorin Maazel conductor
Vadim Repin violin 

8 December 2012, Royal Festival Hall, London
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Lorin Maazel - teenage prodigy

A night that was never less than enjoyable finally achieved full lift off in the last movement of the Tchaikovsky.  After the histrionics of the third movement march the audience interrupted with extensive applause.  Maazel paused, and allowed an extended silence to intervene.  And then the great fourth movement lament was ushered in.  Maazel and the Philharmonia finally seemed to breath as one as he coaxed great monolothic phrases out of the orchestra in almost Brucknerian fashion.  The strings were at their most elequent in hushed pianissimo, and the conclusion was weighty and desolate. It was a masterly 10 minutes and worth the price of admission in itself. 
The Tchaikovsky had to that point been unimpeachably good, only held back by the Philharmonia's not always stylish contributions, whether in collective coordination or in individual utterances from the woodwind.  Maazel chose relaxed tempi but these navigated the emotional roller-coaster ride of this extraordinary work most effectively.  Much the same could be said of the Romeo and Juliet excerpts which scored big hits without removing the impression that the orchestral punches lacked the last ounce of sophistication.  Maazel started with a pungent Montagues & Capulets, proceeded onto the Tomb scene before ending with that most spectacular of show-pieces - The Death of Tybalt. 

Vadim Repin

Vadim Repin also delivered a cool Second Violin Concerto.  The first movement of this equivocal work did not entirely settle but the slow movement struck an excellent balance between the folk-derived emotion and Prokofiev's cool neo-classicism.  The finale was pressed on very urgently and spectacularly to its conclusion. 

Maazel today remains a conductor worthy of admiration.  His stick technique is a model of clarity, and he has a proven record of making the big moments count.  In New York I heard him resurrect in the last movement what had been a super-polished but sluggish reading of Brahms' 4th Symphony.  His Tchaikovsky in London formed a pair with that experience.  The magic again revealed at the end. 

Lorin Maazel in more recent years

A conversation at the ballet

A conversation overheard at the cinema during interval watching a live broadcast of the Royal Ballet between two well spoken ladies in the row behind me.  

Lady A:  ... afterwards I'll get a taxi up the road as I didn't bring my car here.  
Lady B: Do you live far away?
A: Oh not far, just in Hampton Road.
B: Oh well I can give you a lift, I'm going that way.
A: Well that's very kind of you.  Most kind.  Can I give you something for petrol money?
B: Oh no that's not necessary.
A: Well thank you again.  My name's Karen.
B: Mine is Susan.
[pause]
A: I'm going to New York next week, I hope to see the New York City Ballet.
B: Oh that would be good.
[pause]
A: Yes it will be all Star Wars and shopping.
[pause]
A: I'm a Jedi you see.
B: Oh?
A: Yes, I go to all the Jedi knight conventions.
B: Ah.
[Conversation ended by thunderous advertisement for Royal Ballet DVDs]