The second part of Daniel Barenboim’s Proms Ring cycle was less obviously derived from the Berlin performances he conducted in the spring of this year than the previous evening’s Das Rheingold had been. Of the principal singers, only Ekaterina Gubanova as Fricka had also taken part in Die Walküre there, but the cast that had been brought together at the Albert Hall was very close to being as good as any that could be assembled from singers today.

But the great common denominator between the Berlin Staatsoper Ring and this one is the orchestra. Though Barenboim may perhaps have one or two peers as a Wagner conductor today, there’s surely no other ensemble in the world that has this music more deeply ingrained in its collective psyche than the Berlin Staatskapelle. Even with some of the greatest Wagner singers of the present day onstage here, it was the orchestral playing that regularly demanded the attention, whether it was the effortless depth of tone in the strings, the sheer solidity and easy assertiveness of the brass, the perfectly defined pianissimos or the immaculate articulation of every solo detail. Even in a swelteringly sticky Albert Hall, not a note was out of place.

And however well one knows Daniel Barenboim’s Wagner conducting from disc, its immediacy and fluency live are still overwhelming. Tempi seemed perfectly judged, neither over-excitable – even the closing moments of the first act of Walküre, which send some conductors into a frenzy, had poise and shape, nor over-deliberate – the Annunciation of Death in the second act, which can almost grind to a halt, was always moving forward. With Barenboim there is always the sense of the whole and not just of the passing moment, and it is a precious quality in Wagner.

Voices did occasionally disappear into the orchestra but that had more to do with the direction in which singers happened to be facing in Justin Way’s semi-staging than anything else, and Bryn Terfel managed to get every whispered word of Wotan’s second-act dialogue with Nina Stemme’s Brünnhilde across just as consummately as he projected his more confrontational exchanges with Gubanova’s steely Fricka, and every gently moulded phrase of his Farewell; Stemme was her usual unstintingly engaged self as Brünnhilde, not a psychologically complex character but an intensely likable one. Simon O’Neill’s one-dimensional Siegmund was the only disappointment; his performance seemed lustreless alongside Anja Kampe’s glorious, touching Sieglinde and Eric Halvarson’s utterly secure and implacable Hunding, and especially against the background of such glorious orchestral playing and superbly shaped conducting.

Andrew Clements | 24 Jul 2013

This was one of those nights to remember at the BBC Proms. It might have seemed impossible that anything would equal the performance of Die Walküre given by the Royal Opera in 2005, when Plácido Domingo made his Proms debut, but at the very least this ran it close.

By the second opera in this Ring it is clear that the exceptional playing of the Staatskapelle Berlin will be the ongoing glory of the cycle. Having been immersed in Wagner with Daniel Barenboim since he arrived at the Staatsoper in 1992, the players have acquired a deep and natural understanding of how the music should go. At the end of the second act Barenboim furiously berated the leader of the orchestra, apparently because he felt the violins had been dragging (not that anybody else noticed). Perhaps Berlin audiences expect to hear Wagner played better than this on a daily basis. Nobody else in the world does.

After a modestly sung Rheingold on Monday, the big guns were brought out for the cast of Die Walküre. There is surely no finer pair of Wagner singers around than Nina Stemme and Bryn Terfel. On another very hot night in the hall, both seemed at times to be suffering. Terfel, his brow glistening with perspiration, was visibly about to melt by the end. But how they sang! In the past couple of years Stemme has stepped forward as the next international-quality Brünnhilde, a rock-solid singer with a voice of real size and mezzo-like depth, even if she sings strangely occluded words. Terfel’s Wotan is simply a towering portrayal. From the innermost nooks of Wotan’s mind to the soaring heights of his lofty vision, Terfel now has every aspect of Wagner’s greatest operatic creation powerfully within his grasp.

There were no weaknesses. Anja Kampe, who always gives 100 per cent, was at her exciting best as Sieglinde, supported by the confident, bright-voiced Siegmund of Simon O’Neill. Ekaterina Gubanova made an intensely dramatic job of Fricka’s scene of marital showdown and Eric Halfvarson offered a fearsome, near-caricature of Hagen. The Valkyries were a wild, shrieky bunch, but nobody is likely to have minded. Wagner nights are rarely as inspiring as this.

Richard Fairman | Jul 24 2013

Wonderful Playing from Staatskapelle Berlin in Die Walküre

I did not review Das Rheingold the previous night but this was the second of the four concert performances of the Ring operas this season that presents them as a ‘cycle’ for the first time in the history of the Proms. Most of the reviews you will read about this were probably written in advance because Barenboim – performing triumphs notwithstanding – is a legendary figure because of his other tireless work; whether it is for reconciliation in the Middle East, for performances of Wagner in Israel, or against the perceive elitism of music.

Making their Proms debut is one of the world’s greatest orchestras who finally revealed to a British audience what the Ring should sound like and it is a level of performance for this work not heard in this country since Bernard Haitink at this same venue for the Royal Opera in 1998. Once again I must remind readers that I have to go back to 1984 when Reginald Goodall, in his twilight years, conducted an exciting and emotionally gripping Die Walküre in Cardiff for Welsh National Opera: these are my ‘musical benchmarks’ for my experience of this opera and nothing I heard here surpassed that.

Wagner knew what he wanted from his ‘Artwork of the Future’ and I am sure he never envisioned singers performing mostly behind the conductor’s back in a venue that is not well-known for having the best acoustics and in the most rudimentary semi-staging (from Justin Way) that had all the singers make up their own all-purpose semaphore gestures. Add to this, because of the continuing absence of surtitles, a third of the audience had their noses buried in a bulky libretto, with a further third having no idea what was going on … and the rest Walküre veterans like me! It was like this in 1998 and nothing has changed 15 years on. The youngest of those present were genuinely distanced from getting the most of the evening by not being able to follow the enfolding story. The LED boards behind the orchestra were not used very imaginatively and could easily have displayed the translation and with a few extra TVs elsewhere around the auditorium, no one should have been at a loss as to what Wotan was droning on about in Act II.

I am not going to be entirely negative I assure you, but while I am ‘on a roll’ as to how long the BBC Proms have known about these performances; I suspect it must be five years or more. I felt for Simon O’Neill when he held his empty fist up in the air and exclaimed ‘dies Schwert’, he looked embarrassed because there was no sword – and so was I. We do not need a full panoply of horned helmets but a semi-staging of a Ring cycle possibly needs at least a ring, one or two spears, a ‘tarnhelm’, a ‘forge’ … and a sword: it is not a lot to ask for. Though I suspect for some nothing is better than some of the directorial clutter at Covent Garden recently.

The singers for the four evenings seem to have been brought together on the basis of who is the best available on the night, there are different Wotans as there will be two Siegfrieds: I suspect most have worked previously for Barenboim either in Berlin or at La Scala. The common denominators are the conductor, his wonderful orchestra and just a few singers. The warm strings, expressive woodwind, totally secure brass and the overall precision of the glorious sound must make the Staatskapelle Berlin – not forgetting the always reliable ad hoc annual Bayreuth orchestra – one of the world’s best ensembles to perform Wagner. Such a great Wagner conductor could not fail to give the audience a visceral thrill in many familiar orchestra highlights, such as the Prelude, the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ and ‘Wotan’s Farewell and Fire Music’, but Barenboim seemed conflicted at times about overindulging in the glories of all this music with the tempi seeming to veer from perfectly judged to somewhat listless without any real musical justification. I have certainly heard him lead more dramatically nuanced performances of this opera in both Bayreuth and Berlin.

Also, I was surprised how his singers seemed the least of his concerns from time to time and they were occasionally overwhelmed or cast adrift, such as when Nina Stemme forgot some words near the end and Barenboim didn’t seem to realise … or care. It took a whisper from her Wotan, Bryn Terfel, to get her back on track. And what was the reason for the ‘heated discussion’ between the conductor and his concertmaster, Wolf-Dieter Batsdorf, at the end of Act II? Perhaps the stifling heat in the hall was getting to 70-year-young Barenboim as such things should really be left backstage.

Regarding the singers I was most impressed by Bryn Terfel’s authoritative Wotan who was in much fresher voice than for the recent Ring cycles at Covent Garden. Terfel uses his rich and full bass/baritone voice to imbue this role with fierce pride, self-loathing, and fatherly concern in his dealings with Fricka and Brünnhilde that is more totally human than god-like. His has great control of his wonderful voice though I wonder how many of his whispered passages that were full of genuine import in the stalls were heard in at the back of the circle seats in the vast Royal Albert Hall. For me the other standout performances were from Eric Halvarson as a brutish, glowering, Hunding and Ekaterina Gubanova’s nagging Fricka who certainly shows Wotan who is boss and brings him, literally, to his knees in reverence before her.

I didn’t feel any real chemistry between Simon O’Neill’s Siegmund and Anja Kampe’s Sieglinde who often found themselves on opposite sides of the platform. O’Neill was the least engaged in the semi-staging singing out and up to the farther reaches of the vast auditorium in front of him most of the time. Surprisingly on this occasion his tenor voice often sounded a little too light and bright for Siegmund and lacked a little heroic warmth the character needs, but his Act I ‘Wälses’ were gloriously full-throated and he was totally believable in his vehement protection of Sieglinde in Act II. At least I could understand every word he sang, unlike Anja Kampe’s Sieglinde whose German was often indecipherable to me – though this is not an unusual occurrence for a German singer singing in their own language. She will sing this role in the new Ring at Bayreuth this summer and it will be interesting to see how it is received there. Kampe sang well as far as I could hear but never brought Sieglinde to life in the way I have seen others do in the past. I am also surprised that Barenboim could not have fielded a more vocally secure and commanding gaggle of Valkyries and that probably explains why he had them high up behind the orchestra and was more content than ever to let his music do the talking at the start of Act III often drowning them out completely – at least from where I was sitting.

This leaves me with Nina Stemme’s Brünnhilde to consider and I think I will leave the final verdict until after Götterdämmerung next Sunday (there will be a review of Siegfried before that, but not by me). My initial thoughts were that as Wotan’s favourite daughter she sounds a little too matronly and similar in many ways to Susan Bullock at Covent Garden, though Stemme has far better top notes. Again her diction surprisingly was not entirely clear and many of the words were lost. The foundations of her Walküre Brünnhilde is a gloriously rich, if rather mezzo-ish, chest register that I don’t think will work well in the more strident passages in Götterdämmerung when the psychologically complex role should take her over completely – but I look forward to being proved wrong … and will say so if I am.

Die Walküre is where the Ring becomes human and this performance exuded humanity – with Barenboim on the podium could it have done anything else? – but it was only a good performance without ever reaching the heights I hoped it might.

Jim Pritchard | London, 23.7.2013

Dipping my toes into the murky waters of the Wagner-fest at the Proms this year for the first time, I found myself confronted with the monumental second installment of the Ring cycle, Die Walküre. Of the four “music dramas” in the cycle, being given as a whole for the first time at the Proms, Die Walküre is probably the work that stands most comfortably on its own, and the most easily approachable. It balances Wagner’s earlier, more traditionally “operatic” style with his later, more intense and harmonically complex manner. There are very few longueurs, and it is bookended by two of the strangest and most rapturous love duets in the whole of opera – firstly that between twin brother and sister and then at the end between father and daughter.

And what a ride it proved to be! At the reins was the legend that is Daniel Barenboim – boy-wonder pianist, once husband to an even bigger legend (Jacqueline du Pré), and more recently a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. Behind all this upfront celebrity, however, sits one of the most extraordinary musical minds of his, or any other, generation. Partnered by his well-schooled orchestra, the excellent Staatskapelle Berlin, this was a performance which put the orchestral part on an equal footing to the singing at all times.

From the scurrying strings that open the Act I prelude onwards, there was an electricity about the music-making that quickly led one into the red-blooded Wagnerian world. This single-scene act should ideally have a sweep from the first to last, that feels as natural as the action on the stage is unnatural. Barenboim adopted mainly swift tempi to help create the necessary urgency. Both Simon O’Neill (Siegmund) and Anja Kampe (Sieglinde) found a wide range of colours and the necessary power in their voices to carry off this extended tease. The lack of staging in this act seemed to matter little, as the acting between the two singers carried its own innate theatricality – testament to their previous experience of singing the roles together in a recent stage performance. Eric Halfvarson, whose big-voiced, brutish, two-dimensional portrayal of the spurned husband Hunding, seemed just right for a mere pawn in the monumental drama that leads to end of the world.

In Act II we find ourselves in the midst of the drama, with several of its major protagonists. The scene introduces the character Brünnhilde, plotting to save the lives of the offending twins with her father Wotan, who also happen to be their father. Nina Stemme as Brünnhilde threw herself into the opening Valkyrie greeting with strength and steadiness of tone, qualities that she maintained throughout her performance – lacking only that heroic edge of danger to be found in a Birgit Nilsson or Gwyneth Jones. At this stage of her journey, this is a level-headed and capricious Brunnhilde. Hopefully, by the end of Götterdämmerung, when she is burning on the pyre that destroys the world, she will be a little less self-contained.

The Wotan of Bryn Terfel has a familiar quality; his strong/weak character is thoroughly recognizable as being humanly flawed. One senses that Terfel will carry this performance with him wherever he sings the role, and who could argue with it? Particularly impressive in this act was the performance of Ekaterina Gubanova as Fricka, often a thankless role, with her nagging and whining. However, there was a strength and nobility about Gubanova’s performance that made the part – rightly, one feels – more sympathetic. The swift battle at the end of the act, with the fate of the twins and of Brünnhilde settled in a muddle of good intentions, was powerful pulled together by Barenboim and the furious final bars were thrilling indeed.

In the final act we find ourselves immersed in some of the most exalted music penned by Wagner, or indeed any other composer. The glorious set piece entrance of the Valkyries always impresses musically, while it often disappoints visually when performed on stage. Therefore, this semi-staged performance by Justin Way seemed more than adequate, leaving the legendary settings to be conjured up by the listener’s imagination. Barenboim carefully balanced the lusty crew of Valkyries with the massive orchestra at full force. With the entrance of Brünnhilde and the angry approach of Wotan in pursuit of her, the drama seemed at its most striking.

This led seamlessly to the moving final scenes of the act that seals Brünnhilde’s fate and breaks Wotan’s heart. This is Stemme and Terfel’s big moment, and they largely proved equal to the task. Again, Stemme sang exquisitely, but lacked the last edge of passion one could have wished for. Likewise, Terfel’s performance was polished and at its best, very moving, but there was a nagging sense of the routine – he’d seen it all before and knew what he was doing.

Overall, this was a beautifully judged and sung performance, which never dragged or felt overly pushed. When we arrived at the last few minutes with its fabulous orchestral tapestry, so melodically rich and potent it would surely melt the hardest of hearts, the whole, wonderful performance came to a sublime end.

Chris Garlick | 25 Juli 2013

The Royal Albert Hall felt like a bear-pit for this performance of Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre, the ‘First Night’ of his four-part epic music-drama Der Ring des Nibelungen. Into the sweaty and heady mix of the Hall’s hot air were thrust the brutality of the characters’ conflicts and passions: domestic bitterness between Sieglinde and Hunding; the former’s incestuous passion with her twin brother Siegmund (Siegfried will be the heroic offspring of that abominable union); a wife (Fricka) who knows best and causes grief for her husband (Wotan); and the latter’s unbearable sorrow for his daughter Brünnhilde’s disobeying of his orders. This opera is about the manifestation of different kinds of love, how it gestates, what love is, and what it means to different people. That evolution of love spread itself across the whole evening as a giant arc, and is what made this performance such an inspirational triumph.

Typically, a superb cast was assembled for this instalment of the tetralogy. Nina Stemme is scheduled to be Brünnhilde throughout, but the Wotan of Bryn Terfel was for this evening only; Eric Halfvarson, who sang Fafner in Das Rheingold, was Hunding, and Ekaterina Gubanova reprised her svelte Fricka. Once again, Staatskapelle Berlin’s members put in a sterling performance, whether in consort or as individuals, and Daniel Barenboim’s approach allowed plenty of room for the music’s expansiveness whilst being full of detail. His tempos were generally broad and determined, but when required to conjure action he would drive the music on to electrifying effect. This was an orchestral performance full of emotion: the charge planted at the very opening during the Storm was carried to the denouement that is the frictional confrontation between Brünnhilde and Wotan. The navigation of Act Two’s dialogues and confrontations gripped, as did the thrill-ride-cum-tearjerker Act Three over which Barenboim’s cumulative overview was best realised.

Bryn Terfel, Daniel Barenboim and Nina Stemme in a performance of Wagner’s Die Walküre at the BBC Proms. Photograph: BBC/Chris ChristodoulouNo-one of central characters – Wotan, Siegmund, Brünnhilde and Sieglinde – dominated or cast a shadow over the opera above and beyond the others, although each certainly made a mark. Simon O’Neill was in heroic form as Siegmund, throwing himself about with abandon, and letting rip with his high-flying tenor to thrill and inspire himself and Sieglinde into frenzied passion. He brooded expressively on his inner turmoil during the monologues of Act One, clear of the destination that his thoughts were taking him: ecstasy with his twin sister Sieglinde, and Anja Kampe certainly aided-and-abetted. Her opening was tentative, wary and uncertain, which, like a pair of weighing scales stacking these sentiments, over the span of the Act, shifted gradually in favour of certainty, to an ecstatic conclusion. Her subsequent earnest departure from Brünnhilde had profound musicality. Eric Halfvarson’s Hunding was much more than the one-dimensionally ruthless husband that the libretto might otherwise suggest. Within his phenomenally powerful bass was manifested an honour and loyalty to his kin, and his menace was all the more chilling because of its nonchalant dispatch.

Eric Halfvarson as Hunding in a performance of Wagner’s Die Walküre at the BBC Proms. Photograph: BBC/Chris ChristodoulouThe introduction of husband-and-wife Wotan and Fricka made for an initially comic couple, Brünnhilde warning her father that the trouble-and-strife is on her way, and that she is not happy. Ekaterina Gubanova brought all the resilience and confidence to the part that she did the previous night, and demolished Wotan’s defence of Siegmund and Sieglinde’s incestuous relationship with insouciance rather than hectoring. Bryn Terfel’s Wotan has matured a lot over the years: he now brings so much emotional clout to the part. His father-crossed persona was done with regret rather than just anger: Terfel got from Wotan the father who does not want to be in the position that he is. True, his spitting-blood personae made one feel deeply concerned for Brünnhilde, but their final meeting of minds was as honest as it could ever be.

Nina Stemme’s Brünnhilde kindled the Valkyrie’s bravery and confidence, whilst in her long exchanges with Terfel at the close, the desolation and vulnerability, as well as abject fear, was to the fore. There was a heart-stopping moment when she forgot her lines that Terfel prompted her by singing it, and, a little while later, she had to look at Barenboim’s score (closed for Act One, but open for the remainder) for the next prompt. As if to make amends she powered-out thrilling top notes. There followed a heart-wrenching demise for Brünnhilde, Stemme’s soprano encased with velvet layers. The remainder of the cast was made up by the eight Valkyries, here heard from behind the orchestra over the turbulent Prelude (‘Ride’) to Act Three, or in more conversational mode later at the front of the stage.

There was much that was simply amazing during this performance, and the inexorable drive to the end compelled the audience to a stunned silence, the stage bathed in red light representing Loge encircling and protecting the sleeping Brünnhilde, awaiting the hero who will awake her…

Kevin Rogers | 23 July, 2013

Anja Kampe is electrifying in a top line-up for Wagner’s second Ring opera

Things may be falling apart, a storm now rages but new broods of humans and demigoddesses have been fathered by chief god Wotan, who has undergone a Doctor Who like transformation from Iain Paterson into Bryn Terfel. Four new top singers appear on the scene after Monday night’s Rheingold superhumans, but Daniel Barenboim is still very much in control to colour and shape another deluxe semi-staged narrative in his Ring epic, this time about the steely warrior-maiden Valkyrie who came to know love.

You’d expect Nina Stemme, many people’s favourite Wagnerian soprano, to dominate the picture as Brünnhilde along with Terfel’s riven father Wotan. But the elongated tragedy of Die Walküre, the most perfectly self-contained of the four Ring operas, only brings the tetralogy’s redemptive heroine into focus after setting up a lesson in love that’s doomed to fail. So for what is perhaps Wagner’s only Ring act that can be performed successfully by itself, we need two sibling lovers of colossal soul, voice and stamina. Simon O’Neill has the latter two qualities as luckless Siegmund; the Sieglinde of Anja Kampe (pictured below), living all three aspects as if her life depended upon it, is the real star of the evening.

O’Neill certainly surprises: what sounds at first like an underweighted, bright tenor voice, more a Loge than a hero, has stops to pull out – first in the thrilling, string-tremolo backed invocation of father Wälse (none other than Wotan), later in rejecting Brünnhilde’s annunciation that he must die at the hands of Hunding, his sister-lover’s betrayed husband, and leave Sieglinde behind on reception into Valhalla. He’s infallibly secure, but his acting is gestural (O’Neill pictured below), while Kampe lights up the stage from Sieglinde’s first anxious appearance. Her narratives are anchored by wonderful colours in the mid range, while the top – which once faltered in another still-great performance alongside Terfel, in the Zurich Opera Flying Dutchman back in December – holds firm for the biggest adrenalin burst of the evening, her apostrophe to Brünnhilde as woman-hero, saviour of the child she’s carrying within her.

Comparisons between Wagnerian divas may be invidious, but here are two types: the one (Kampe) who can’t help giving her all and may sacrifice her career sooner rather than later, and the other (Stemme), rock-solid in both the depths and the heights of the range, who wisely marshals her resources. Stemme’s is a narrower sound with a faster vibrato and marginally less distinct words, but she can do everything: the terrifying “Hojotohos” of Brünnhilde’s Angela Brazil girl entrance, the solemnity of the Death-Annunciation to Siegmund, the tenderness of the daughter daring all for love. Her first scene with Terfel is dominated, of course, by Wotan’s mighty narrative, where the great bass-baritone starts by following Barenboim’s way of drawing the whole Albert Hall in to catch a whisper but still lacks the last degree of titanic world-weariness – truth to tell, he always has – as the compromised god longs only for the end.

And the end of Walküre is, of course, the great scene between father and daughter, which for me was less moving than usual. Whose stamina was most taxed by the heat: brow-mopping Terfel’s, Stemme’s – she can hardly be blamed for forgetting a couple of lines – Barenboim’s or mine? At any rate the turning-points in the rhetoric did not quite have the customary earthshattering impact, even if as assisted by Justin Way’s discreet direction the personenregie, the interaction of two people on stage was as fine as I’ve ever seen it in the Ring. The LED screen came in useful again for the flames surrounding the rock on which the sleeping Brünnhilde is laid.

Perhaps the failure of the last act to elicit the tears which poured out of me at the end of the previous “curtains” was also due to the bumps that one started to notice in Barenboim’s detail-studded reading. He has never been the most natural master of late-romantic rubato, though as in Rheingold his strings swelled like no others in all the love phrases, woodwind projected aching pathos for both Sieglinde and Brünnhilde and the brass – bass trumpet especially – were as amazing at ringing out into the vasts of the South Ken colosseum as they had been the night before. What a gorgeous vision they all made as scenery behind the singers on the Albert Hall platform, six harps included (DJs could surely have been removed in the heat, though). And the turbo-charged climaxes all made their mark, with clarity and space in the Ride of the Valkyries backed by a slightly uneven line up of Wagnerian ladies (pictured above).

We were delighted to welcome back from the previous evening the stylish-human Fricka of glamorous Ekaterina Gubanova and riveting bass Eric Halfvarson, now transformed from giant into another ferocious upholder of loveless family values. Next stop, the trickiest assignment of all – finding a Siegfried worthy of the name. I shall be swapping Wagner for Britten in Norfolk, but there’s always the ever- and anytime-accessible Radio 3 for consolation.

David Nice | 24 July 2013