Barenboim’s Rheingold doesn’t disappoint

A Beethoven cycle last year, The Ring this year: what will Daniel Barenboim bring to the 2014 Proms? Perhaps, given the recent success of extracts both at the Proms and at Lincoln Center Festival, the smart money is on Karlheinz Stockhausen’s 29-hour, seven-opera cycle Licht. Then again, perhaps not.

Anyhow, this Ring cycle is more than enough to be getting on with, and Barenboim and his Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra gave it precisely the kind of high-quality opening that everyone had been hoping for since rumours of this Proms series emerged years ago. Though this was his first Wagner opera in the UK, this is a man who knows his way around The Ring, and his wealth of experience was put to ample use last night. The soloists were mostly taken from the casts he has had for his Ring cycles in Milan and Berlin, and it is hence no surprise that the result was supremely well-oiled. Are there inherent limitations in how far a concert performance of The Ring can ever make it? Perhaps, but this Rheingold was about as good as it could realistically have been.

Imagining a stronger collection of singers would be a tough ask. From the brilliant clarity of Aga Mikolaj’s opening strains as the Rhinemaiden Woglinde to the sepulchral depths reached by Erik Halfvarson’s Fafner, any of these singers would have stolen a lesser show. Iain Paterson brought a lyrical edge to Wotan though also had the power to command a scene where necessary, and though this cycle’s future Wotans (Bryn Terfel, Terje Stensvold) are nothing to complain about, I would have enjoyed hearing Paterson take the role through the next two operas. As his wife Fricka, Ekaterina Gubanova may not have had the busiest evening, but her strong, elegant tone was a marvel: the orchestra often comes right down for her lines, and as a team they achieved a magical stillness in such moments. I found Johannes Martin Kränzle as Alberich a little uneven across his range, and his renunciation of love was untidy, but he acted well, and had an excellent sparring partner in Peter Bronder, playing his brother Mime.

The most entertaining vocal part in Das Rheingold is that of the trickster-god Loge, whose tenor part contains some attractive melodic lines and comes as close as anything else in the vocal score to the opera of the past. Stephan Rügamer cut a dapper figure vocally, singing smoothly with an enthralling legato line. Contralto Anna Larsson reprised the role of Erda she also took for Simon Rattle and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s Rheingold in 2004, and her authority with the part was beyond doubt.

Erda’s abrupt appearance during a moment of panic for Wotan also made for this performance’s most dramatic moment, with her suddenly spotlit high above the stage, between the two choirstalls. Other effective lighting innovations included the obligatory rainbow for the final procession into Valhalla, and it was pleasing to see the the Albert Hall’s brightly lit strips just above the stage put to dramatic use here, rather than simply displaying an arbitrary colour or two as they are sometimes wont to do. The direction, on the other hand (such as it was) didn’t come across so convincingly: describing it as “semi-staged” is exaggerative. With no props, the singers moved about the stage a fair bit, but not always in ways that seemed immediately logical, amusing though it was to use the Proms arena as the “sulphurous cleft” through which Wotan and Loge descend to Nibelheim. Of course, it would be impossible to concoct a semi-staging that didn’t come across as disappointing when you’re meant to witness a dwarf turn into a toad in front of your eyes – but (slightly) disappointing it remains.

Even if one were to put down the (beautifully presented) libretto and shut one’s eyes, though, this was an evening that more than lived up to high expectations, musically speaking. The orchestra took a while to find its feet – the opening is hardly easy, after all, especially with so much soft writing for brass – but later on, it was staggering, the climaxes in the later scenes overwhelming. And Barenboim, naturally, shaped the whole thing like the master craftsman he is. Everything flowed together, forming the single, compelling thread of music that this unwieldy, monolithic entity can be in the right hands. There was even a sense at the end that we had only just begun. Listen keenly for the rest of this cycle.

Paul Kilbey | 24 Juli 2013

Barenboim’s Impressive Rheingold Augurs Well for Rest of Ring Cycle

Daniel Barenboim’s much anticipated Ring cycle got off to a great start with this evening’s Rheingold. He’s just finished a Ring staging with his company in Berlin, and these Proms performances are essentially concert versions of those. So there is plenty of musical coherency here, with the soloists attuned to Barneboim’s vision for the score. The whole thing has been reduced to a barely dramatized—let’s call it quarter-staged—concert version for the Proms by Australian stage director Justin Way. He just gives us the bare bones, so that you can work out what is going on from the minimal interactions on the stage (the Albert Hall acoustic, so-called, prevents any words from being audible), letting Barenboim present the music without undue distraction. We came for Barenboim’s Rheingold, and that’s exactly what we got.

But Barenboim is an unpredictable Wagnerian. It is easy to get frustrated by his readings that stick rigidly to unyielding tempos with little sense of breadth in the climaxes. But then he can take the same work to a different company and present it completely differently, full of sensitivity and expressive detail. This evening’s Rheingold had a bit of both. There were occasional passages where he seemed to be on autopilot, but he gave the set pieces plenty of weight. I love the way he makes each of the thematic expositions into real events. The first time we hear the Valhalla motif for example, or the giants’ theme, it is as if the continuum of the music has been temporarily suspended for this major announcement.

The Berlin Staatskapelle fielded a band this evening that almost filled the stage. The throaty German brass instruments were a real treat, and completely different from anything you will hear from a British orchestra. The six harps were predictably inaudible in the Albert Hall, but it was nice to see them anyway. No anvils for some reason. All we got were some pre-recorded anvil sounds, and very feeble they sounded too. I’ve no idea why: this is one of the few effects in Wagner’s orchestra that could be guaranteed to project to the upper tier.

Justin Way had some interesting ideas about the placement and interaction of the singers, although for the most part they were lined up along the front of the stage, but then, given the number of characters he had to deal with in Scene Four, what else could he do? Curiously, the cast, even though they were all in concert dress, all seemed to resemble the characters they sang. Johannes Martin Kränzle, who sang Alberich, is a born actor, and there is no stopping him from immediately transforming into the part he plays. Then there is Stephen Milling as Fasolt, who really is a giant, and Peter Bronder as Mime who really is a…well, maybe he’s not literally a dwarf, but he was by far the shortest singer on the stage.

As a whole, the cast that Barenboim assembled was strong. No singer stood out as particularly weak, and some of the main leads gave real world class performances. It was a very international cast too, with many names we in the UK have only heard so far from recordings, but who, with any luck, will be visiting us again in the near future.

The first scene took place at the back right of the stage, a risky strategy, given that it meant the singers were even further from the audience. But both Kränzle as Alberich and the three Rhinemaidens had the projection to bring it off. Kränzle was last seen in the UK as Beckmesser at Glyndebourne. That too was and excellent performance, but his acting is so convincing that any memories of the Nuremburg stooge were distant indeed as he presented instead the reptilian Alberich. From Scene Two the action moved to the front of the stage, introducing Iain Paterson as Wotan and Ekaterina Gubanova as Fricka. Paterson is a likable and very human Wotan, with good diction and a very discursive approach to the part. He has a rich tone in store too, but reserves it for the more emphatic and dramatic passages. Gubanova is more lyrical in tone, and her every line was a musical delight. She has a rich and complex alto, elegant rather than pretty, but able to convey the drama of every phrase just through her timbre. I read from her biography that she also sings Brangäne, and I can imagine that she has few serious rivals for that role. Stephen Milling, I’m guessing, is one of the few singers here unfamiliar with Barenboim’s reading, as he and the conductor were out of synch on a few entries. But both he and Eric Halfvarson as Fafner have the deep, bassy voices required to make the giants sound convincing. Stephan Rügamer is light of tone as Loge, but still manages to project well. Anna Samuil is a bit Italianate for the role of Freia, but she’s there more to be seen than heard anyway. And Jan Buchwald and Marius Vlad are both convincing as Donner and Froh, and both are singers who could potentially shine in more demanding Wagner roles.

The Nibelheim scene sans anvils (or transformations of course) was a bit of a weak spot dramatically, although Way did a good job of the scene changes, with Wotan and Loge descending from their mountain top into the arena, and then arriving in the netherworld via one of the high staircases to the side of the stage. There were a few neat tricks in the final scene too, not least the appearance of Erda (Anna Larsson) up behind the bust of Henry Wood, who would no doubt have heartily approved of the whole enterprise. Larsson’s intonation was a little unstable at the start of her “Weiche, Wotan, weiche”, but she soon found her form. And the conclusion to the opera was a proper climax. It turned out that Iain Paterson had been saving the best for last, and his final exclamations were given with real power and gravitas. Jan Buchwald also upped his game for Donner’s final thundery invocations. The orchestral conclusion as the gods enter Valhalla was just thrilling, and gave no suggestion that either Barenboim or his brass players were holding anything back. An impressive Rheingold then, and one that augers well for the following instalments later on this week.

Gavin Dixon | 23/07/2013