Jay Hunter Morris Saves the Day as the Almost-Perfect New Siegfried at the Met

The old theatrical adage ‘the show must go on’ is synonymous with New York’s Broadway and not far away at the Metropolitan Opera it was the turn of the understudy to save the show once more and perhaps in a true ‘rags to riches’ way (as the host for this broadcast, Renée Fleming described it) become a star. The role was that of Siegfried – a daunting challenge because the singer is onstage and singing for most of the opera’s five hours – but it is not as impossible as some, including Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, would have the international viewing audience believe. The part had already defeated two previously announced tenors: Ben Heppner dropped out some time ago and his replacement Gary Lehman, pulled out because of a long-standing strength- sapping illness shortly before the dress rehearsal. The Met’s saviour was Jay Hunter Morris, who coincidentally appeared on Broadway in 1995 in Master Class.

Morris seems to have paid his dues and deserves his piece of good fortune. He seems a refreshingly down-to-earth Texan whose speaking voice (that – for those of a certain age – is like Dennis Weaver’s Chester from TV’s Gunsmoke) belies his bright sounding, flexible and lyrical singing voice. It seemed impeccably schooled in well-nuanced German, the meaning of every word registering on his expressive bearded face. The character of Siegfried evolves from a carefree young man to a cold-blooded killer and then he braves the fire at the top of a mountain to wake with a kiss Brünnhilde to whom he is instantly attracted. Morris took us on this journey with rare dramatic truth.

In a broadcast it is impossible to completely review Morris’s voice ; I would need to hear it in the theatre to do that. I wonder how much heft he had at his disposal. He clearly must learn to husband his resources better in order to survive the marathon, because his voice failed him in the climaxes of each of the three acts. Of course he is not young but he is impressively tall, slim and broad-shouldered, so with an extravagant blond wig he looked more like Wagner’s ideal of a dragon-slaying hero than any previous singer of the role. If Leonardo da Vinci were alive he would use him as a model. He and Deborah Voigt’s voluptuous Brünnhilde made a visually handsome pair.

Carl Fillion’s 24-plank set cranked and creaked a little but set up some amazing stage pictures on which Robert Lepage has his singers walk around, in front of, behind and even climb across (or a body double does). In Act I there is the impression of a waterfall flowing into a pool of water that can show a reflection or be stirred up. When characters moved through the Act II, forest leaves seemed to scatter under the performer’s feet, and in Act III the flames flickered impressively around Brünnhilde’s rock. Sometimes even on the huge IMAX screen it was difficult to discern every bit of Pedro Pires’s video imagery but it seemed suitably atmospheric for each scene of Siegfried.

In Act II after Siegfried accidentally tastes the dragon’s blood and understands what a bird is saying to him, a yellow animated ‘Tweety Bird’ points him towards the Tarnhelm and the ring, and shows him the way to his future bride. We see the bird in the trees mouthing the words we hear from Mocja Erdmann’s agile soprano voice and it flies through the ‘trees’ and is also seen sitting on Siegfried’s lap at one point. As amazing as it is in HD at the cinema, it must have been even more wonderful at the Met. However, I am not sure what was going on with Fafner’s dragon; it seemed to be a puppet-like snake (or even a huge worm?) that Siegfried could have defeated with a toothpick – he really had no need for the sword he had recently, fairly-realistically, forged.

Bryn Terfel was Wotan, travelling incognito as the Wanderer; his still smooth bass-baritone and huge stage presence brought a visceral tragic grandeur to his scenes with Patricia Bardon’s persuasively potent Erda. His follow-up encounter with Siegfried was the best work he has done in this Ring so far, despite it being only the third time he has sung this role. The line-up of Siegfried’s antagonists were completed by Eric Owens’, dark-hued, powerful, bass-baritone as the wily Alberich, and Gerhard Siegel as his equally-conniving brother, Mime, and if his very non-PC hunchback is overlooked, he looked a lot like James Levine who was originally to have conducted these performances. Siegel is now a veteran of over 100 Mimes and had a heart-attack at the Met in 2009 and in his interview credited people there for saving his life. He had a voice that still sounded capable of Siegfried himself, a role he sang at the start of his career … and Eric Owens sounded even more like Wotan than Bryn Terfel.

Deborah Voigt’s Brünnhilde made the transformation from confused virgin goddess to passionate woman subtly and her soprano voice – though seemingly hardening and thinning out at the top – sounded suitably multi-layered and expressive during her 30 minute ‘love duet’ with her tiring Siegfried.

The long evening never dragged as it sometimes can thanks to Fabio Luisi, the Met’s new principal conductor. Eschewing James Levine’s more reverent heavy-handed approach to Wagner (or ‘German pathos’ as Luisi named it) it was a very bright, briskly flowing, transparent account of Wagner’s colourful score. It was a little like an old master painting renewed by being stripped of dirt, grime and varnish. As much as can be gauged from this HD broadcast his orchestra seemed to respond to him with some superb playing, and for once Siegfried really did sound like the scherzo of the Ring Cycle.

Finally, if anyone from the Met reads this it would be a good idea to avoid scheduling a broadcast to the UK on 5 November when the sky is awash with fireworks causing atmospheric disturbance and causing the picture to break up intermittently at IMAX; it spoilt things a little but not too much.

Jim Pritchard | 5.11.11

In some ways Siegfried is the most challenging of the Ring operas – for artists and audiences alike. The titular hero is the archetypal “natural” man, liberated from the rule of law, but he often comes across as an amoral bully. Musically, it is generally considered to be less attractive than Die Walküre, although Adorno drew attention to its “incomparably greater architecture”. The vocal demands of the title role are truly formidable, with only a few Heldentenors capable of transcending the difficulties. The Met Opera’s 2011 production rose more successfully to some of these challenges than to others, but on the whole this was an entertaining and unusually likable rendition. In contrast to the cinematic release, one is kept entirely “before the curtain” throughout the opera, with the interval cast interviews and a mini-documentary about the production moved to the very end of the film.

Overall, Robert Lepage did not offer any new conceptual “reading” of the Ring, for which he has been both heavily criticised and hotly defended. The innovations instead lay in the technical realm. The monstrous rotating platforms were noisy and occasionally mutinous in the theatre, but this was less of an issue for the video viewer. From the very beginning of Siegfried, the varied positions which the “machine” could adopt were ingeniously exploited. During the orchestral introduction, the backstory was acted out in dumb show: the first set-up showed Mime taking the newborn Siegfried from his dying mother, followed by a later snapshot of the boy slashing his way through the woods. Video projections of scenery added to the realism, something which was especially effective in the forest scenes in Act II. However, attempts to integrate digital projections with the live action occasionally flopped, as in the risible attempts to make it seem as if the digital wood-bird had nestled on Siegfried’s breast.

The querulous Mime who opens the opera was a hunchback dressed in Steampunk style. Gerhard Siegel immersed himself in the role, acting as the comic butt of Wagner’s untrustworthy sense of humour. Jay Hunter Morris, decked out with a rockstar blond wig, looked every inch the part of Siegfried, but where others have come across as aggressive (e.g. Manfred Jung in the Boulez/Chereau version), he exuded an open-eyed naivety which retained our sympathy (his interview, where one hears his Texan drawl, is a delight). Vocally he is no Lauritz Melchior, and at certain upper parts of his register he sounds a little harsh, but he was effective throughout, despite tiring audibly towards the end of the monster sing.

In terms of vocal quality, the evening belonged to Bryn Terfel as the Wanderer (decorated with a louche-looking black eye). His was not as dramatic a rendition as John Tomlinson’s, or as sympathetic as Donald McIntyre’s, but it was a pleasure to hear, although his voice may possibly be a little light for some tastes. Even during the most forceful moments of the confrontation with Siegfried, he always sounded like he had something in reserve. Deborah Voigt is not (yet) a Brünnhilde for the ages (this is her first Ring), but the love scene felt more believable than sometimes. Eric Owens as Alberich conveyed less menace than others have in the role, but his more tightly wound delivery provided a perfect vocal foil to Wotan in their Act II colloquy. The rest of the cast – Hans-Peter König’s Fafner, Patricia Bardon’s Erda, Mojca Erdmann’s (off-stage) Woodbird – provided solid support. The orchestra under Fabio Luisi’s direction was as tight and accurate as one has grown accustomed to expect, accompanying sympathetically or unleashing fury as needed.

David Larkin | 01 Dezember 2013

Siegfried, the third instalment in Robert Lepage’s big, blurry and hyper-costly Ring, made it to the Met on Thursday. It was, to put it gently, a troubled premiere.

With James Levine ailing, the podium was occupied by Fabio Luisi, heir quasi-apparent to the title of music director. After Lepage’s previous Wagnerian efforts – most notable for a cumbersome scenic device and laisser-faire inaction – one could not be terribly optimistic about a dramatic concept. Although the super-demanding title role was intended for Ben Heppner, he withdrew months ago in favour of his “cover”, Gary Lehman. But Lehman was replaced eight days ago by his understudy, Jay Hunter Morris. The climactic duties of Brünnhilde were assigned for the first time to Deborah Voigt, a much admired soprano recently suffering vocal inequities.

In many ways the worries proved justified. Luisi conducted efficiently, rather impersonally, briskly. The final cadence actually popped 20 minutes ahead of schedule. Lepage once again toyed annoyingly with his basic constructive prop, a set of 24 huge boards that rise, fall and twist in picturesque combinations and permutations.

Abetted by designer Carl Fillion and video artist Pedro Pires, the producer concocted some attractive incidental projections involving insects, snakes and birds, also some distracting not-so-incidental projections involving fire and water. The proceedings frequently contradicted both logic and text. Siegfried stabbed the dragon Fafner – here a silly oversize puppethead – not in the heart but in the neck. The cave was just a flat slat. The protagonist forgot to follow the little birdie en route to Brünnhilde’s rock at the end of Act Two. The Valkyrie maiden, upon wakening, hailed the sun in gloomy moonlight.

Lepage’s most notable, most irrelevant inventions included having Wotan fuss with his empty boots (the godly feet must have been sore from all that wandering) and making the earth-mother, Erda, a glamour-puss wrapped in blinding spangles. In place of character and plot definition, Lepage settled for clumsy clambering on the precarious planks or unmotivated bumbling on the forestage. Focus? What focus?

Morris, who began his career on Broadway 16 years ago in Terrence McNally’s Master Class, may not be an echt heldentenor. Never mind. He looked terrific and, nasal twang notwithstanding, sang with remarkable stamina, expressive force and dynamic sensitivity. Credit him with saving the show. Rising rapturously on the platform that masqueraded as Brünnhilde’s rock, Voigt vacillated between vocal thrust and vocal screech.

Bryn Terfel droned superbly as Wotan. Gerhard Siegel, the canny Mime, replaced traditional cackling and whining with fervour worthy of a Siegfried (a challenge he has undertaken elsewhere). Similarly, Eric Owens bathed the nasty snarls of Alberich in heldenbaritonal opulence that heralded a Wotan. The tones were great, the role contrasts odd. Patricia Bardon sounded wan as not-so-old Erda, Hans-Peter König grumbled darkly as Fafner, and Mojca Erdmann chirped prettily, via microphone, as the voice of the Woodbird.

Götterdämmerung follows in January. Hope may not spring internal.

Martin Bernheimer | OCTOBER 31 2011

Siegfried may be the most difficult of Wagner’s ‘Ring’ operas to bring off – the title role is stupendously difficult to sing (and hence to cast) and there is not much real action to stage. On this occasion, however, the necessary elements were in place for a solidly successful performance, highlighted by the sensitive conducting of the Met’s new Principal Conductor, Fabio Luisi, who took over this assignment from the still-recuperating James Levine, and also the winning Siegfried of American tenor Jay Hunter Morris, who was to have understudied the part, but was thrust into the title role just days before the production’s October 27 premiere. Morris has now been engaged for the entire Met runs of both Siegfried and Götterdämmerung this season.

The balance of the excellent cast were (with one exception) returning to their roles from previous installments of this ‘Ring’. Bryn Terfel as the Wanderer, the aging Wotan’s alter ego, brought marvelous vocal and dramatic power to the role, which he is singing for the first time in this production. The portrayals of the two feuding Nibelung brothers – Gerhard Siegel as the scheming Mime and Eric Owens as the vindictive Alberich – were powerfully gripping, Deborah Voigt brought terrific dramatic presence to the newly-mortal Brünnhilde, Hans-Peter König was a suitably stentorian Fafner, and Patricia Bardon again excelled as Erda. A newcomer to the cast was Mojca Erdmann as the Wood-Bird, who sang beautifully as her character was represented visually by an animated figure projected onto the set.

In this third installment of Robert Lepage’s ‘Ring’ at the Metropolitan Opera, the massive ‘machine’, designed by Carl Fillion, that serves as the set for the entire cycle provides many striking images and effects, aided by Pedro Pires’s video images and other electronic wizardry and high-tech stagecraft.

Each Act begins with a series of transformations of the twenty-four huge planks that comprise the ‘machine’, in order to set the mood and define the setting of the action that will follow. Act One begins with an animated projection depicting snakes or worms slithering underground among tree roots, after which the planks rotate to become the trees of the forest, through which Siegfried, as a child, is chased by Mime. A further transformation creates Mime’s hut, alongside which water cascades into a stream in which Siegfried later observes his reflection – a brilliant computer-generated effect. Other special effects in this act were less successful: the bear was gone after just a few seconds and was never fully visible; the burst of steam when Siegfried dips his sword into the stream during the forging scene was unrealistic, and the forge itself unimpressive; and a few sparks at the act’s climactic moment were a meagre substitute for an anvil split in two.

Another transformation from under- to above-ground also sets the scene of Act Two – the lush forest adjoining the cave where the giant Fafner, in the form of a dragon, guards the much-coveted gold. Computer-generated images of the Wood-Bird, electronically synchronised to the text, added an element of realism, but the balloon-like representation of Fafner was much inferior to Alberich’s transformation into a dragon in Das Rheingold and was anything but terrifying. Better was Lepage’s staging (and König’s depiction) of the mortally wounded and bewildered Fafner, who emerges from his cave in his original form as a giant and expires after berating Siegfried and warning him of the perils ahead.

Act Three opens with a projected image of a moonlit lake on which concentric circles ripple outward from the Wanderer’s touch as his two ravens and then the Wood-Bird fly across. The planks transform into a rugged, barren hillside where he wakens the slumbering Erda. In an interesting bit of stagecraft, Wotan’s spear is revealed to consist mainly of a long scroll on which his treaties are inscribed, and when the God unrolls it on the ground, the spear is reduced to a slender reed that is readily broken by Siegfried’s sword. As the young hero ascends to find his bride, the planks glow with the flickering magic fire with which Wotan surrounded the sleeping Brünnhilde at the end of Die Walküre.

Jay Hunter Morris spent four years preparing to sing Siegfried, as he explained in an interview screened for the HD audience, finally getting to perform the role when tenors for whom he was covering withdrew – first Ian Storey this summer at San Francisco Opera and now Gary Lehman at the Met. By this performance, the third and last in the current run (there will be three more in complete ‘Ring’ cycles next spring), he fit into the production as smoothly as if he had been slated for the role all along, portraying the young hero with convincing naïveté and good comedic timing, especially in his interactions with the animated Wood-Bird. I would have wished for a bit more power in the final measures of Act One, but Morris was probably wise to reserve enough energy so that in the opera’s final scene – the extended, ecstatic love duet with Brünnhilde in which many a Siegfried has run out of steam – his stamina held up well enough for him to hold his own opposite Deborah Voigt, who appears only in that climactic scene. Voigt began her performance auspiciously, both dramatically and musically, teaming with Luisi to depict Brünnhilde’s awakening in brilliant fashion. But although she sang well thereafter, her voice lacked a truly thrilling character in the extended duet with Morris’s Siegfried.

Bryn Terfel’s Wanderer was made up to reflect the passage of some seventeen or eighteen years since the events of Die Walküre. His hair is now long, gray and stringy, he has a grizzled growth of greying beard, and he wears a floppy hat to conceal his false left eye. In the first two acts Terfel’s singing was strong as the Wanderer toyed with and taunted Mime and Alberich, but in Act Three his characterisation took on an even deeper dimension as the Wanderer struggled to come to grips with the consequences of his earlier deeds, meeting first with Erda and then encountering Siegfried. This Act, which Wagner composed after a twelve-year hiatus – he wrote Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg! – following the completion of Act Two, contains some of the Ring’s finest and most powerful music, and Terfel did it full justice. Viewers in HD also had the benefit of close-up views of his facial expressions, reflecting the Wanderer’s changing emotions – tenderness and affection toward his grandson, then angry defiance and finally defeated resignation, but with just a trace of a smile to reflect the God’s satisfaction that his plans are working. This was Terfel in top vocal form, bringing insight and intelligence to his portrayal of the Ring’s most complex character.

Gerhard Siegel is firmly entrenched as the Mime of choice at opera companies worldwide, and this brilliant performance demonstrates why. His tenor voice was always spot-on, and his expressive reflections of Mime’s emotions were terrific, especially close-up in HD. Eric Owens, who stole the show as Alberich in Das Rheingold, again brings his dark, penetrating voice and sinister characterisation to the role. François St-Aubin’s costumes made the two Nibelungs appear deformed and smaller than their portrayers, and were effective in reflecting the ageing of the characters since the events of Das Rheingold.

As was the case with both earlier ‘Ring’ operas, the HD experience brought welcome visual variety to the rather static staging that is all but compelled by the dominant presence of the ‘machine’. Multiple camera angles, close-up images and subtitles help viewers appreciate the drama, and the enveloping digital sound is the next best thing to the immediacy of the Opera House’s acoustics. Indeed, some details may have come through even more clearly in the cinema setting; for example the violin pizzicatos that punctuate the rapid duple figures on the flutes as the Wood-Bird flies off at the end of Act Two.

It will be interesting to see what visual effects lie ahead when Luisi conducts the premiere run of Götterdämmerung in January and February, and whether James Levine’s health will permit him to return to the pit for the three ‘Ring’ cycles scheduled for April and May. It seems safe to conclude, however, that the ‘Ring’ will be musically secure in Luisi‘s capable hands even if Levine is unable to resume his conducting duties this season.

David M. Rice | November 5, 2011