Götterdämmerung concludes a Ring for the ages

The world ended again last night. It ends fairly frequently in performances and in recordings, and that schedule tends to innoculate us against Richard Wagner’s political and philosophical messages. If ever there were to be a performance to transcend that, it would come at the Proms, at the conclusion of its first full performance of Der Ring des Nibelungen. This, after all, is a festival at which – as our conductor put it in his now traditional speech – “the communion between us musicians and you [the] public” is heightened by an intensity of listening that belies the size of the audience.

Götterdämmerung is a work that warns against idols even as it lauds heroes so insistently that we in the 21st century might find it hard to believe in them, but the potential always remains that any amount of dull routine might still be redeemed. If anyone could usher the world to its end and make it work for those of us left behind, Daniel Barenboim could. He and the frankly astonishing Staatskapelle Berlin opened with a sound full of sorrow for the plight of a history under Alberich’s curse, and concluded with final bars that for once were strong enough to redeem it. Barenboim kept our destination firmly in view even six hours from its arrival, gently underlining the promise of a new world with a glistening crescendo as Third Norn Anna Samuil told of the coming fires. By the end, with the body count topped out, he still managed to make that inevitable conclusion sound miraculous, Siegfried’s theme lingered over through its crashing cymbal crown, Brünnhilde’s stealing in so tenderly on high violins that it felt as if it could never possibly triumph – and yet it did.

Barenboim’s Wagnerian credentials have never been in doubt. Throughout this series of performances what has struck most has been the restraint of his mature interpretations, the way in which he tailored this trilogy to the specifics of the Royal Albert Hall. From his orchestra he extracted playing so quiet and so light that singers were able to whisper from the front of the stage and penetrate the sounds with ease even from the organ loft. At minuscule volume a rare clarity allowed this music’s rigorous development to emerge anew, and newly vital.

Were it in some senses not so patently un-Wagnerian, one could almost say that Justin Way’s lightly-staged approach was preferable to yet another execrable production, whether “radical” or “conservative”. It made the orchestra the star without lessening the contributions of the singers. Nowhere is that more important than in Götterdämmerung, for here, with Tristan and Die Meistersinger already under his belt and armed with a more exalted theoretical view of the orchestra’s role than he had sketched when he composed Das Rheingold, Wagner expands its import still further from earlier in the Ring. Perhaps only Barenboim could have imparted such swagger to Siegfried’s music, swagger enough to convince us of the necessity of the hero’s deeds regardless of how repulsive the character remains, and perhaps only he could invest such cumulative power to the drama that the funeral march seemed deserved. Few other conductors could hope to bring such translucence and twinkle to the clouds around Brünnhilde’s rock or a distant Valhalla, or adequately capture the chintz of the Gibichungs’ bourgeois hall, or the inherent vapidity of Gutrune’s approach to love, or the nigh-on Schoenbergian horrors of the second act’s thematic ruptures, or the fury of this drama’s multiple betrayals. Few orchestras, too, could bring out such tiny but important details, like the different timbres found by flautist Thomas Beyer for Brünnhilde, Hagen, and Gutrune, or the way the horns – Siegfried’s own instrument – mocked the hero when Gunther gave Gutrune to him. The orchestra almost became the drama in itself, and rightly so.

That would be unduly to diminish the efforts of a fine cast, though. Nina Stemme could scarcely improve on her Brünnhilde, a role she now inhabits with all the power she has brought to her Isolde, rightly leaving us in no doubt that while Siegfried gets the funeral march, it is Brünnhilde who is the true hero here. In Andreas Schager, she might also have found a Siegfried worthy of the name. Blithe, arrogant, even crass at times, and yet with voice and stamina to spare, Schager possesses a rare combination of acting prowess and musical depth, and deployed both convincingly. Mikhail Petrenko as Hagen seemed rather one-dimensional an artist in comparison, scheming in voice and dark in demeanour, yet oddly underpowered vocally. Anna Samuil and Gerd Grochowski fully grasped that Gutrune and Gunther are merely useful idiots in Wagner’s scheme, and Samuil was deliciously fake as Gutrune, the epitome of a trophy wife. Johannes Martin Kränzle reprised his Alberich with the requisite nastiness, while our three Rhinemaidens sang with a blend so sumptuous that it was easy to understand why first Alberich and later Siegfried would be interested in them. The Chorus of the Royal Opera House was, as ever under Renato Balsadonna’s leadership, beyond criticism. And what is left to say of Waltraud Meier? As Waltraute, her attention to the text was, as ever, unrivalled, conveying her shame at Wotan’s plight and yet the mysterious glory of his renunciation of the world.

So the world ended, again, in a gust of hot, red light that blazed over audience and stage alike. The rest was silence, a silence held by Barenboim for so long and observed so profoundly that the world may well have ended for real and few present would have noticed. Wagner leaves us with so many questions at the end of Götterdämmerung, not the least of which is what happens after Siegfried and Brünnhilde redeem the corrupt bargains Alberich and Wotan made. After fire and water purify the earth, what next?

To answer that, we need Wagner’s music as much as ever. Too often we hide this music’s political consequences behind professions of its technical challenge. That is understandable, given our collective history, but it is not enough. It might be the highest praise one could give this Götterdämmerung that it finally made one understand that.

David Allen | 29 Juli 2013

For anyone experiencing Wagner’s Ring cycle, the final opera is not just an endpoint but a culmination. The audience response at the close of this extraordinary Proms performance founded on Daniel Barenboim’s conducting of the Staatskapelle Berlin suggested that cumulative expectations – already high – had in fact been exceeded.

For nearly six hours Barenboim maintained an approach that emphasised Wagner’s lyricism while never short-changing his drama; beauty of tone was paramount, combined with a sense of flow that felt as consistent as it did effortless. Though there were genuine highlights, these were subsumed within the ongoing development of a sonic fabric whose continuity was reflected in miniature in the sharp simplicity of Justin Way’s semi-staging.

The cast shone individually as well as collectively. Waltraud Meier brought out the fierce urgency of Waltraute’s unheeded exhortation to Brünnhilde to relinquish the ring. Less vocally weighty than the traditional Hagen, Mikhail Petrenko nevertheless conveyed the super-subtle malevolence of Alberich’s son, while Gerd Grochowski hinted at a latent strength in Gunther that never quite rose to the level of effective action. Anna Samuil’s innocent Gutrune was immaculately realised, both vocally and dramatically.

Taking on the major challenge of Siegfried, Andreas Schager generally acquitted himself with distinction, if occasionally sounding stretched; physically, he registered as an unusually plausible young hero. Nina Stemme, meanwhile, completed her third assignment as Brünnhilde in world-beating fashion. Her vocal security was absolute, her soprano full and luminous, whether driven by love, fury or a determination to right an entire civilisation’s wrongs. Placed behind the orchestra but in front of the organ console, she crowned the evening with an Immolation Scene that flooded out into the auditorium in an unending stream of perfection. No one who heard it will ever forget it, nor the magnificent interpretation that led up to it.

George Hall | 29 Jul 2013

This conclusion to the BBC Proms’s first single-season Ring cycle – one was produced not so long ago with an opera per year, each opera’s first complete outings here – capped in exhilarating fashion what has been a revelatory traversal of Wagner’s epic Buhnenfestspiel Der Ring des Nibelungen. Revelatory because of the exceptional quality of the playing of Staatskapelle Berlin, guided by the vision of its Chief Conductor for Life Daniel Barenboim, who crafted a reading of this music that brought out its inherent drama: yearning, development of love, darkness and ultimate redemption through sacrifice.

Barenboim had the measure of all things for Götterdämmerung, putting into the mind a landscape and thrill-ride, with not a longueur anywhere. He relaxed when the characters’ sadness and resignation were to the fore, but then drove-on to exalted heights of excitement. This was Old School conducting: ‘Siegfried’s Funeral March’ was stately and heroic, and Brünnhilde’s ‘Immolation’ reached heights of rare transcendent beauty with its stately procession (once she had departed) – the overflowing of the Rhine, with the strings’ evocation of the Rhine’s waves, was exquisite, and stillness for the new dawn resulted in many seconds of stunned silence.

Nina Stemme was a glorious Brünnhilde, still very much the girl-in-love during the ‘Prologue’ as she sees Siegfried off on his merry way. Her bewildered realisation that someone else has entered her fiery rock (Siegfried disguised with the Tarnhelm) was caught with apprehension and layered with foreboding. At the realisation of her betrayal (when she sees the Ring on Siegfried’s finger) she developed abject dejection into a bitter resolve that her betrayal will not go unpunished, and her ultimate realisation (while immolating) that Siegfried is the true hero was sung with power and ardour. Placed above the orchestra in front of the organ console, she was above the fray of man’s petty squabbles. Her voice – the notes ‘all there’ – carried through the heavy orchestration, and was a glorious beacon to the New World. Stemme’s Brünnhilde was at once immediate and also beyond this existence: a magnificent, defining interpretation of the role capping her great assumption during these performances.

Andreas Schager delivered a strong and boyish Siegfried, the put-upon and manipulated hero. His Heldentenor rang true throughout, the top notes held no fear for him when expressing his desires. Schager’s narration that leads to his downfall and murder (he tells of his betrothal to Brünnhilde unwittingly, so confirming his betrayal of blood-brotherhood with Gunther) was consummately delivered. Mikhail Petrenko’s Hagen was the one weak-link of the cast: he simply did not have nastiness and bite in his voice, or much power. His bass, which has a sweet edge, was fine when pouring black words into the ears of Gunther, or when egging-on Alberich, but the “Hoiho!” cries were rather limp. Johannes Martin Kränzle Alberich’s dialogue with his son Hagen was desperate and frenzied, Alberich so keen to get back that ring as he plotted with all the malevolent guile he could muster. It was not always clear exactly what motivates Gunther, but given how much he is being manipulated by Hagen, and how comfortable his life is – the idle rich – that made sense in itself; Gerd Grochowski inhabited this with aplomb.

Luxury casting brought Waltraud Meier to the role of the Valkyrie Waltraute (and Second Norn). Her long dialogue with Brünnhilde (where she regales of the god’s torment and tells her sister to return the ring to the Rhinemaidens) was one of many highlights: Meier’s characterisation mixed care for her sister with determination that her view should prevail, and tinged solemnity with sadness because of her ultimate failure to save the deity. Gunther’s sister Gutrune was ably sung by Anna Samuil: a small role, her situation was nevertheless given with steely determination – she has seen the possibilities and wants her prize, and her ultimate devastation at Siegfried’s corpse was tangible. The Three Norns (past- present- and future-Sayers) added refined mystery to the opera’s beginning, whilst the other trio (of Rhinemaidens), whilst still mourning their lost gold, mixed-in resigned defeat. The Royal Opera Chorus put in a rousing contribution as the hoard of Vassals and women.

This has been an exceptional Ring Cycle. The casting was stellar, Staatskapelle Berlin revealed details within Wagner’s scoring that are often lost, and the unbelievable way in which his music telescopes time meant that its passing was always engrossing. The stamina of the players deserves mention – playing (as was the musicians’ wishes) in white-tie and tails in sweltering conditions without a hint of slacking – and warrants the highest praise.

A postscript: much speculative drivel and unfounded gossip has been written about an apparent verbal spat that took place after Act Two of Die Walküre between Barenboim and Staatskapelle Berlin’s long-serving Konzertmeister Wolf-Dieter Batzdorf. Obviously, Barenboim was unhappy about something during the performance and took it out on Batzdorf. Let’s be clear: Barenboim is an artist and wants the very best, as was apparent in his ebullient praise at the end of Götterdämmerung for the audience. And he not only embraced Batzdorf, but went on to announce that this was to be his last as Konzertmeister after “nearly forty years”; he ensured that Batzdorf took his own bow and that the audience “give him the loudest ovation of the evening” for his superlative service to Staatskapelle Berlin and its music-making. More hugs between the two ensued. Barenboim, with “so much to be thankful for”, heaped praise on the audience for building a “communion between musicians and public” and, praise be to God, he thanked the spectators for their silence as much as their enthusiastic response.

Kevin Rogers | 28 July, 2013

By the end of the first act, I was convinced that, barring a catastrophe of, well, Götterdämmerung-like proportions, this would now turn out to be the greatest Ring since Bernard Haitink’s 1998 Royal Opera performances– also semi-staged, also at the Royal Albert Hall. And so it came to pass. Not only did we continue to hear superlative conducting from Daniel Barenboim and equally superlative playing from the Staatskapelle Berlin. (To guard my back, unlike Siegfried, I shall mention in passing very occasional signs of tiredness towards the end, if only so as not to have to return to such Beckmesserish thoughts.) We also at last heard a Siegfried and Brünnhilde worthy of the roles. Götterdämmerung, by virtue of its placing as the third ‘day’ of the Ring, should always be a special occasion, though sadly that is anything but a foregone conclusion; this performance, however went beyond ‘special’, to ‘great’.

The weight of history was apparent in those portentous opening chords to the Norns’ Scene, but so was sonorous magic. Wagner’s goal-orientation is not Beethoven’s, though it is not diametrically opposed either; Barenboim’s guiding of this crucial scene opened up possibilities rather than closing them, whilst at the same time ensuring that the drama’s tragic import won out. The bassoon line following the Second Norn’s ‘…woran spannst du das Seil?’ sounded as if it were itself the guiding thread of the Norns’ rope of Fate. More often than one might expect, conductors misjudge Wagner’s climaxes; often, indeed, they try to introduce irrelevant climaxes of their own. There was no such danger here, the outbreak of Dawn judged to perfection, the Staatskapelle Berlin in truly glorious sound, followed by a scene with an ebb and flow – Wagner’s melos – in which words and music truly melded together to form a musico-dramatic whole. And the tenderness of the strings, for instance when Brünnhilde here embraced Siegfried, far surpassed anything the BBC SO had been able to conjure up the previous evening, for Tristan. The final climax to the scene sounded as fully achieved as if Furtwängler himself had been at the podium; not that we should forget here the extraordinary contributions of Andreas Schager as Siegfried and Nina Stemme as Brünnhilde, on whom more below. As ever, Barenboim proved worthy of Wagner’s ‘most subtle art’ of transition, that wonderful Dawn followed by a masterly Rhine Journey, placed aptly midway between Beethovenian playfulness and Mahlerian contrapuntal involvement. (Special mention here should be afforded to the glockenspiel, veritable icing on the orchestral cake.) Once we reached the Rhineland proper, moving towards the Hall of the Gibichungs, we were afforded a veritable pageant, noteworthy not just in itself, but, in its ‘secondary’ diatonicism (to borrow from Carl Dahlhaus on Die Meistersinger, the mediated diatonic harmony being predicated upon the chromaticism it both negated and incorporated) already conveying the mediated unease of ‘civilisation’. Beneath the surface lay not only the nixies of the Rhine, but more worryingly, the snares of Hagen’s plotting. The aural stench of decay – how truly, truthfully ugly some of Götterdämmerung’s music is! – led us to the Hall itself. There was already something of the unhealthy air of Venice, of the Palazzo Vendramin.

And so to the first act proper. The sturdiness Barenboim imparted to Gunther’s rhythms – Lohengrin, as it were, aufgehoben – immediately made clear the hopelessness of that character’s plight. (If only Gerd Grochowski had managed a little better the difficult balancing act of a strong portrayal of a weak character, but anyway…) Throughout the act, orchestral exultancy would bid Siegfried to new deeds, all the more movingly for our knowledge of Hagen’s snares, his Watch again sick with chromatic decay, whilst the transition to Brünnhilde’s rock drew us into a more intimate, tragically fragile world. The phantasmagoria with which Brünnhilde’s anger was transformed into evening twilight again had to be heard to be believed, likewise the cruellest of interruptions – more so even the coitus interruptus of Tristan’s second act – upon Siegfried’s appearance (as Gunther). The violence of rape horrified, as it must, at the close.

How one relished the richness of the bass line – reinforced by those eight double basses – at the opening of the second act! The architecture of every act was perfectly in place: long familiarity, for conductor and orchestra alike, clearly pays off; the vengeance trio proved no mere set piece, but a true culmination. But moments told equally truthfully, whether the trombone interjections of ‘Hagen’ as Brünnhilde screamed of her deceit. Then the new sound-world of the third act came as a breath of fresh air, though just as soon as one had thought that, necessary doubts set in. The orchestra sounded languorous, almost Debussyan; one often hears Liszt here, in this first scene, but Barenboim’s balances imparted intriguing and apposite presentiments not so much of Pelléas as of Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and even the Images. Integration was, as ever key, the Funeral March all the more impressive for acting as interlude rather than interposed set piece. Barenboim’s greatness in Beethoven now fully informs his Wagner, and did so until the closing bar, bathed in the after-glow of orchestral flames that might well have burned us. And yet, at the end there was a message of equivocal hope. Barenboim has no fear of comparisons with anyone, not even Haitink (from whom, in any case, we are extremely unlikely to hear another Ring).

From Siegfried’s very first line, we heard what had been missing earlier on. Lance Ryan had proved serviceable in the previous instalment, yet Andreas Schager proved preferable in every respect. The beauty of his voice alone here showed what earlier had been lacking, let alone the dramatic commitment he would show when acting his third-act narration or, indeed, stiffly as ‘Gunther’ with the Tarnhelm. It was clear even in the Prologue that this was a fully mature Siegfried, a man, no longer a boy, despite his fatal flaws; Schager’s interaction with the orchestra as part of a musico-dramatic whole that extended far beyond any single contributor was not the least of his virtues. Drinking the potion brought a touching hymn to lost innocence, soon enough followed by an eroticism entirely lacking in many portrayals (let alone Robert Dean Smith’s Tristan, the night before). There was, moreover, real anger to his contesting Brünnhilde’s claims in the second act, betokening a psychological understanding rarely present in this role. One might have taken dictation, of words and music, from either him or Stemme, for pretty much the whole of the performance. Anyone who did not respond both to the irrepressible vitality of this Siegfried’s swagger with the Rhinemaidens and to the detailed, loving narrative of his deeds recalled would be satisfied with no one, not even Lauritz Melchior. This might actually have been the first time I was moved as I should have been by the moment when he recalls Brünnhilde: a true monument to a truer love than I have heard.

Stemme’s Prologue ‘O heilige Götter!’ was a paean to a glorious age, an age which yet had passed; the realm of the gods was not belittled, but there was no doubt that the future held something different. The dramatic urgency she imparted to the Waltraute scene was every bit the equal of Waltraud Meier’s. ‘Denn selig aus ihm leuchtet mir Siegfrieds Liebe!’ revelled in tragic irony: Stemme sang in the present but the orchestra – and we – knew that she sang of the past, the ecstasy of her love notwithstanding. Her fear before Siegfried (as Gunther) was palpable, yet without loss to the commanding nature of her performance. And her Immolation Scene, delivered from the organ, somehow bringing together the strongest virtues of Flagstad’s womanhood and Nilsson’s authority, should become the stuff of legend. Meier’s turning to her sister as the latter asked ‘Weisst du, wie das wird?’ was a dramatic moment worth all (or most of) the stagings in the world. How she later made the words come alive as she told, for instance, of Wotan taming Loge! Though Meier’s Waltraute may be dangerously close to definitive, that is no excuse for overlooking the excellence of her contribution, here with a true sense of epic narrative in telling her tale of Wotan’s depression. Increasing desperation urged on the orchestra, as it in turn urged her on. Her departure had one think of Cassandra herself.

Mikhail Petrenko’s protean Hagen is now a known quantity. Sometimes, from force of habit perhaps more than from dramatic necessity, one finds oneself expecting a darker voice, but Petrenko’s vision is in many ways more dangerous than the traditional Ridderbusch-like performance. Rather than pitch-black ‘mere’ evil, we hear someone devilishly intelligent, and troublingly alluring. Not that Petrenko’s voice is without heft, but, for instance, his ‘Heil! Siegfried, teurer Held!’ as the hero brought his boat ashore was curdled with a menace that went beyond brute force. (After all, it is through cunning that he will slay Siegfried, not though overpowering him.) ‘Dir ha ich guten Rat,’ seemed almost throwaway: ‘I gave you good advice,’ but the words were made to tell, to inform us that such advice to Siegfried was anything but ‘good’, however that might be understood. Aggression and restlessness suggested a power-lust that might have been enhanced by substances the modern would tends to deem illicit. This Hagen was one dealer no one would wish to encounter upon a dark night.

Johannes Martin Kränzle’s Alberich once again showed a fine way with words. His injunction to Hagen, ‘Hasse die Frohen!’ seethed with Nietzschean ressentiment, whilst the ghostliness of the regfrain, ‘Schläfst du, Hagen, mein Sohn,’ chilled as it should. Our trio of Rhinemaidens if anything surpassed its excellence in Das Rheingold. Anna Samuil, alas, proved somewhat on the shrill side as the Third Norn and blowsy as Gutrune, her vibrato, especially during the first act, uncomfortably unsteady. She was more honeytrap than dupe, and less interesting for it. There was, though, real vocal presence to be heard from Margarita Nekrasova’s First Norn. The Royal Opera Chorus excelled, its weight as impressive as its clarity.

All were rightly commended by Barenboim in a few closing words. Charming as ever, he praised the audience for its silence as well as for its most fulsome applause, and forewent to mention the selfish **** (fill in as appropriate) who had interrupted Hagen’s opening advice to Gunther with a mobile telephone call. There were many stars to this Ring, but once again, this proved above all others the achievement of Barenboim’s Staatskapelle Berlin, no secret to those of us enamoured with the German capital, but now firmly ensconced in Londoners’ hearts too. Wolf-Dieter Batzdorf took a well-deserved bow, retiring as concert-master – surely only Barenboim could get away with an implicit Führer gag here, explaining that Germans do not favour the English term, ‘leader’ – but applause resounded for the whole of Wagner’s Attic chorus. And, one hopes, for Wagner himself, a fitting tribute, which is really saying something, to the composer’s bicentenary. Now, please, someone, a CD release…!

Mark Berry | 29 July 2013

Daniel Barenboim concludes his ‘Ring’, and achieves a defining moment in Proms history

And so Wotan’s ravens flew home and at the twilight’s last gleaming the immortals were consumed by fire and water. All was finally and irrevocably redeemed by the power of love, and the most beautiful of all the leitmotifs in Wagner’s Ring rolled out across the Albert Hall like a benediction. It was a defining moment in Proms history, no doubt, and was greeted with a few moments of perfect – and I mean perfect – silence.

After minutes of rapturous applause, Daniel Barenboim spoke spontaneously and without a microphone to the huge capacity audience. He talked of the way they listened and the quiet intensity with which they listened, and how that made for a communion with him and the performers which ultimately made the extraordinary possible. And make no mistake, this Ring was extraordinary.

It was, of course, very much Barenboim’s show, Barenboim’s enterprise, and the micro-management I spoke of after Die Walküre grew more apparent as each segment unfolded. But it was inspirational and felt spontaneous (the art concealing art), and there were things that I had never heard in decades of listening and will never forget. In Götterdämmerung it was the dawn arriving in myriad dynamics of shifting light and, at the close of the piece, the new dawn, heralded by a swell of resolving brass harmonies which broke like one last wave over the proceedings and ushered in the final statement of that serenely lucid “redemption of love” motif.

There were profound pianissimi that you never quite believed and would in the blink of an eye transform the atmosphere in the hall; there was articulation from the Staatskapelle Berlin, not least in the strings, that lent the whole mighty edifice uplift and direction, and phrasing that moved and excited and shaped. Indeed the playing was so supremely good that a split note in the horns at the start of act three elicited an almost audible gasp of surprise.

Even the Royal Albert Hall – the most problematic of venues – became a theatrical temple with stage director Justin Way underlining Wagner’s spatial effects so that Siegfried’s Rhine Journey and Hagen’s hunting horns could tantalise and surprise us with changes of direction. And there were just simple things like having Siegfried and Brünnhilde celebrate their union from the vantage point immediately in front of the organ console, where several hours later she will deliver the moving eulogy for her superhero.

She, of course, was Nina Stemme, a singer and a voice of prodigious power and focus but, more importantly, warmth and evenness of production. In joy and in fury she was thrilling, and what a change to hear a Brünnhilde with a proper, as opposed to a pushed, top C. She crowned the dawn duet with an absolute stonker.

And speaking of top Cs, Andreas Schager’s Siegfried did not shirk his, either. On the contrary. What a discovery he is – a virile and throughly physical Siegfried, lithe and lissom, bounding across the stage like the fledgling hero he is, innocent and wilful. It was a total performance, and though his is a change of Fach in its early stages one hopes it may develop into something durable.

The Hagen here, slightly over-parted in this size of venue, was Mikhail Petrenko (pictured left), a major departure from the weighty and black-voiced Hagens we have grown accustomed to. He was a presence, though, and manifested his evil intent through grotesque distortions of key words, stretching and curling vowels into malevolent snarls. The playground of his scheming – Gibichung Hall – was the setting for a second act of thrilling urgency and immediacy, Barenboim tightening the screw remorselessly, treachery and deceit piling up in some of the most visceral music Wagner ever wrote.

And Wagner must have the last word – and did – in that great final scene where his grasp of the epic and refined sense of the intimate and that which is innately (and destructively) human come full circle. A supreme account of a supreme work of art, no question, and one after which we must take a deep breath if it is not to make an anticlimax of everything still to come in this 119th season.

edward.seckerson | 29 July 2013

Barenboim’s Ring Reaches its Climactic Conclusion

At the end of this Götterdämmerung, marking the close of the BBC Proms’ first complete Ring cycle in a single season, Daniel Barenboim addressed the Proms audience to thank them for ‘what you went through with us, this is something I never dreamt of … the communion between musicians and public depends not only on us but also on you, and you have brought so much silence!’ So by not leaving the last word to the composer, this farewell from Barenboim to his year’s Proms confirmed this was almost as much his Ring as Wagner’s.

I only heard (and saw) Die Walküre (my review and this Götterdämmerung: it was undoubtedly a stunning achievement for a London audience to be able to experience over a short period of time Wagner’s epic tetralogy at reasonable prices for the first time since 1998. Of course with Barenboim leading the exceptional Staatskapelle Berlin the music-making could only have been of the highest order and together they lived up to expectations once again in the pivotal moments, despite the horns maybe having a slightly off-night. Siegfried’s Rhine Journey, his Funeral Music or the incandescent musical absolution that is the ending of the work can rarely have sounded more glorious in the concert hall.

The mighty outbursts of the Gibichung vassals in Act II also was quite special because of the involvement of the lusty voices of the Royal Opera Chorus, however my best moments of the operas I saw were generally when the voices didn’t intrude to spoil it for me. As before, occasionally ennui set in from time to time, notably the brief orchestral interlude that dragged us from the hall of the Gibichungs back to Brünnhilde’s rocky summit. So whilst the orchestral playing was often quite exceptional – please do not buy into some of the hype that these were possibly the greatest Wagner performances ever.

Here at the end of the Ring there is a cleansing of the old order and the purging – though the power of love and the sacrifice of ‘the eternal woman’ Brünnhilde – of the curse which has mired humankind in misery. At this point of the evening the lights around the Royal Albert Hall came on more as if to emphasise the future is in our hands – the future of both the World we currently live in and will leave behind. It also emphasised how Wagner’s music is received now the horror of WWII – for which the long-dead composer was made guilty of by association – is even more of a faded memory.

When is a semi-staging a genuine one came mind, as with everyone fully committed to putting on a show the evening was, surprisingly, dramatically convincing? How much the stage director, Justin Way, had to do with this I’m not sure: experienced singers are fully capable of working things out like this for themselves but I guess someone needed to coordinate the lightning and the exits and entrances and so Way succeeded better here than in Walküre. Certainly as everyone has become more aware of the problematic acoustics of the Royal Albert Hall placing Siegfried and Brünnhilde behind the bust of Sir Henry Wood in the organ loft was a great idea and from there she sang her final address and took leave of the human world. Crucially this meant that especially during the final scene Barenboim could reign in his accompaniment and not drown out his singer in the ensuing tumult. Also, there had been some great interaction between the Rhine daughters who sang from the back of the platform with Siegfried searching for where the noise was coming from, at the front by the conductor.

Some of my moaning about Walküre (and all opera at the Proms) could not be addressed at short notice such as a lack of surtitles that gets more ludicrous as the years pass – just think of how many trees were cut down to print the bulky librettos on the night – and even then the BBC often do not produce enough and frequently sell out so I am told. Then there is the matter of those lighting panels behind the orchestra that could have been used much more atmospherically in these operas – quite what glimpses of the Royal Albert Hall had to do with the Ring I wasn’t sure, but all we got were intermittent – and often arbitrary – changes to a panoramic starscape, a blue sky with while clouds, hints of water or flickering fire, as deemed appropriate. There was a total lack of imagination here which was disappointing considering how long ago these performance must have been planned. (With help I could have done a lot better – here I am if anyone wants me!)

I have never heard Andreas Schager before or read much about him but his performance as Siegfried was absolutely as great as Bryn Terfel’s Wotan a few evenings earlier. I had heard Lance Ryan sing the role in Berlin and his voice is more suited to Loge and although Schager is a former David in Die Meistersinger – and still has that sound – there is a depth and range to his voice that Ryan, for me, totally lacks. He bounded around with endearing wide-eyed enthusiasm often playing to the audience with raised eyebrows and a quizzical look on his face and he swept Gutrune into his arms at the first opportunity. His voice is lyrical, tireless but occasionally, for now, Schager gets a little too caught up in throwing himself into the story that he runs out of breath. As an Austrian he can communicate the meaning of every word and I certainly want to see him again. I hope he never changes this fresh approach to Siegfried that can go a long way to demystifying how difficult it is to act or to sing.

Surrounding him was some good casting and some miscasting. Firstly what an excellent trio of Rhine daughters we were presented with (Aga Mikolaj, Maria Gortsevskaya and Anna Lapkovskaja). Johannes Martin Kränzle’s Alberich has little to do and his voice seemed small for the Royal Albert Hall but he made a good impression. Waltraud Meier brought us some reminiscences as Second Norn and her commanding vignette as Waltraute of what an incomparable Wagnerian she was in her prime. Alongside her and also doubling as Third Norn and Gutrune, Anna Samuil, revealed an occasionally tremulous and fragile voice. Gerd Grochowski sounded too dark for Gunther and perversely Mikhail Petrenko was a rather light-voiced, blustery Hagen. (Note to casting directors: these two fine singers would be heard to much better effect if they swopped these roles.)

This bring me finally to Nina Stemme who acted impeccably whether it was the first flush of burgeoning love, scorn at Wotan’s plight, anger at her own predicament or her emotional leave-taking. However my Wagner goes back to the larger-scale and often more heroic sounds of Birgit Nilsson, Gwyneth Jones and Rita Hunter. These were true soprano voices with great reserves of power, a bit of steel and piercing high notes. More recently Deborah Polaski was another who excelled as Brünnhilde. For Paris’s Opéra Bastille in May Götterdämmerung brought to the stage Petra Lang’s Valkyrie for the first time. She has a marvellous range that goes from contralto depths to a youthful bright top that brings you to the edge of your seat through her totally involvement with the character. Nina Stemme’s vocal performance was more grounded in feminine, slightly thick mezzo-like tones with careful, totally secure, added top Cs. Stemme’s Brünnhilde took no risks and she seems temperamentally unable to go to that ‘edge’ and beyond in this role on stage, though it was all perfectly fine for this concert performance, or for a recording studio.

Anyway I suspect Wagner would never have really believed he could change the world with his Ring and equally I will not dispel all the hype surrounding these performances in one review. Having been chair of the Wagner Society in the days when performances of Wagner were few and far between (but often had the best singers) I am still thrilled by all this interest in the composer in his bicentenary year, through what has happened so far at the 2013 BBC Proms ..… with more yet to come!

Jim Pritchard | London 28.7.2013