Livestream - Bayreuth Tannhäuser

Livestream  tommorrow - Bayreuth Tannhäuser on BR Klassik 4 pm German time (3pm UK time)

Conductor :Valery Gergiev - Stephen Gould, Lise Davidsen, Markus Eiche, Elena Zhidkova usw.

Comic book shallow Lohengrin, Bayreuth

photo : Bayreuther Festspiele : E Narwath

 When Piotr Beczała jumped in for Lohengrin at Bayreuth, I breathed a sigh of relief. If Roberto Alagna couldn't be bothered to learn the part for the highest profile Wagner mecca in the world, he should stick to other things. Though there were a few moments when his voice sounded pushed - hardly surprising since he jumped in at short notice - Beczała is a natural Lohengrin, with the right purity and ping.  He's at least thought about who Lohengrin might be, which ought to be the starting point of any production.  Why is Lohengrin so touchy about revealing his identity ? If he believes in love, should't he at least acknowledge Elsa's need to know who she might be sleeping with  "If" might be the operative word. Lohengrin carries cosmic baggage.  Beczała created a "human" Lohengrin, ethereal and sublime, but also a man with conflicts.  Wagner poses questions : it's up to us to figure out possible answers.  Alas, this production, directed by Yuval Sharon, goes out of its way to avoid depth of thought or understanding.

Is Wagner without ideas Wagner at all  ?  Sharon gives us comic book shallowness, cutesy visuals that resolutely defy anything more than surface engagement.  Lohengrin isn't a fairy tale. Though parts of the plot are fantasy, the drama unfolds against a background of tension and metaphysical disintegration. King Heinrich comes to Brabant to mobilize Christendom against the barbarians of the East, and Ortrud represents a tradition even older than Christianity.  Replace that with faux-medieval costumes, origami collars and cartoon psychology and reduce the opera to picture book emptiness.   Blue light does not in itself tell the story, even if it fulfils the modern diktat that opera should above all be pretty to look at in isolated stills. How can  Lohengrin be merely "beautiful" when horrific cosmic forces  are being unleashed all round  ? 

Christian Thielemann's conducting is divine, but even with a good cast,  he's not a magician. We now live in times so bombarded by TV-realism and audio-only listening that we may have lost the art of visual literacy.  Visual literacy is like poetry.  Just as music is more than the markings on page, you have to engage with the oblique and ambiguous, one way or another. there's never any single answer.  Refusing to think in the first place is no answer at all.   As in poetry, meaning reveals itself slowly, and evolves.  Modern audiences, used to judging things from single images, like photos, are conditioned to think like Beckmesser, marking their slates as fast as they can, without really paying attention.  Sachs was different.

So we see Elsa (Anja Harteros) with moth wings on her back ?   Of course she's vulnerable, but she's a lot more than anonymous cipher.  What's that coil behind her ? If Sharon is suggesting Elsa's a bug drawn to bright light, it's an image that doesn't go very far and isn't developed.  So we see swords embedded in the ground. Vaguely phallic, but there's more to Lohengrin than sex.  On the 3Sat broadcast, we could see Telramund (Tomacz Konieczny) and Ortrud (Waltraud Meier), lit up against the darkness, which might either have been a comment on their situatiion or a chance to get away from the cutesy staging.  Ortrud is an unsympathetic part, especially in contrast to Elsa. But there;s a lot more to it, which Meier in her prime might have made more of.  Here, she's fine to listen to, but she doesn't inhabit the part as she she would have done in the past, and isn't helped by the non-directing. Harteros is a fine Elsa, but why the grey wig. Images should hint at something, not merely exist as decoration. Why is a guy painting in oils before the entry of the Herald ?   Another possible image that goes nowhere.  Even more telling, Georg Zeppenfeld's King Heinrich, so well characterized in the recent Royal Opera House Lohengrin (please read more here), seemed sidelined in Bayreuth.  Butterfly wings appear on Ortrud and also on Lohengrin, for no apparent purpose.  the insect imagery seemed a direct steal from the Neuenfel's rats Lohengrin, which was much better thought through. (Please read more here)

Wonderful orchestra and chorus for the wedding scene, but I couldn't understand the brightly coloured pillars.  You don't need to get everything at once, and good stagings can take a while to digest, but this baffled me.  The coils again   The rope might signify the ties that bind, but as we know, this isn't a marriage that will last, and the violence against women in this opera doesn't come just from Lohengrin, but more so from the people of Brabant.  Thank goodness again for Beczała singing sublimely, clear, ringing tones warmed with sincerity and tenderness. Magnificent orchestral, playing for the scenee of the banks of the Scheldt, but comic book staging again, complete with cardboard cut-outs.  Later Lohengrin's sword becomes a thunderbolt and Lohengrin shows Elsa a box with a light, by way of explainging who he is.  The feeble electric coil/moth imagery again !  It's cute, but delimiting. Then little brother Gottfried wanders in, a green Lego figure against Elsa's orange and the blue all round.  This Lohengrin should be popular with audiences who prize fairy tale prettiness but arguably that isn't what Lohengrin, or Wagner, for that matter, might be about. Thank goodness, all the more,  for Piotr Beczała, Thielemann and the rest of the cast for saving the show.

Durch Mitleid wissend - Bayreuth Parsifal 2016

Wagner Parsifal at Bayreuth: always a place of pilgrimage. But would Wagner himself have prefered po-faced reverence or thought-provoking engagement?   Wagner didn't do "pretty pictures". Of all his oeuvre, Parsifal is the epitome of an ideas-opera, where abstract concepts are central to the action. It is a medieval mystery play, writ large.  But what abstract concepts?  Religiosity or true religion? Formula or genuine faith?  Parsifal has acquired a veneer of  religiosity because audiences assume that an opera with Good Friday music and semi-religious symbols must somehow be "Christian". Yet the theology of Parsifal is thoroughly unorthodox. The Grail concept pre-dates Christianity and lives on in legends with marginal connection to what we know of the Early Church. The Knights Templar did exist but were ruthlessly suppressed. And that's even before we get to Klingsor and Kundry.  Take Parsifal at face value, and miss its true challenge. 

Controversy! Parsifal with Muslims! Uwe Erik Laufenberg's new production for 2016 confronts received wisdom, so at first it shocks. But as with many new ideas, deeper consideration yields insight. The Knights Templar were a military order, created to drive Muslims out of the Holy Land.  So much for "Love thy neighbour as thyself".  Jesus wouldn't have been a part of this community. Connecting Parsifal to Islam is not nearly as scandalous as it might seem. In these times of hate, ignorance and intolerance, we need to rethink fundamentals and second-hand assumptions. Again and again, Wagner writes "Durch Mitglied wissend...."  ("Through Compassion, knowledge".) Images of water and purity, not bloodshed.  The Grail Community inhabit a desert, in every sense, bereft of replenishment.  Under this lovely marble dome, amidst rubble, they lie on stretchers, dying of thirst.  A light shines and a young boy appears, as does a realistic swan.  Kundry (Elena Pankratova) quietly cradles the living child, Gurnemanz (Georg Zeppenfeld) cradles the dead bird, raging at Parsifal (Klaus Florian Vogt).  A small detail, but one which speaks volumes.

Amfortas (Ryan McKinny), fortified, appears as Christ Crucified, with a crown of thorns, arms outstretched. Amfortas is the son of Titurel (Karl-Heinz Lehner) , a semi-supernatural figure, but mortal.  Titurel's disembodied voice booms from above the stage. But what do his words mean "Muss ich sterben, vom Retter ungeleitet?" If Parsifal the saviour, who is he who is his father?  Parsifal is fascinated by who his mother might have been, but isn't much bothered by his father.  Who is Klingsor, one wonders? Whether one believes that Jesus was God made man to save the world, that is the fundamental precept of Christianity.

It's not Muslims who could be discomforted by this approach to the opera, and understandably so, too. But Laufenberg's interpretation comes from the opera itself.  How does  Parsifal (first seen with a quiff) become entranced by the faith that the Grail Community believe in, even in their own flawed way?  I don't know how this is shown on stage, but in the film of the production, the long orchestral transit is illustrated by a depiction of the universe, with stars and planets: Extremely beautiful, very profound. Although the Parsifal bells are overwhelming, they fit wonderfully with this cosmic panorama.  The Bayreuth Festival Orchestra was conducted by Hartmut Haenchen. Amfortas enters a glowing, light-filled bath.  The Knights, dressed as monks,  partake of the chalice (a Grail), in which wine has been transubstatiated into the blood of Christ.  Yet there's something very spiritual about this scne, lit in silvers and pastels. The monks embrace in fellowship. Parsifal, sitting among them, absorbs the mystery. No wonder he spends the rest of his life trying to come back.


In Act Two, the "church" is transformed into an Islamic palace, the walls decorated with blue and white tiles, a pool in the background, a symbol of the Islamic concept of Paradise as a place with cooling water.  A figure dressed in white, his mouth gagged, sits while Klingsor (Gerd Grochowski) rages.  It's Amfortas, forced  into watching his past re-enacted. Klingsor, like so many demagogues, is obsessed by what he claims to hate. Against a background of crucifixes, he holds a crucifix and rants. Psychologically telling - Klingsor wanted to be like God, but is a loser.  His realm is delusion. The Flower Maidens are seductive, but they're not real.  Burkas (symbols of oppression) transform to semi nudity.  Just as the Grail Knights hate women, so does Klingsor, which makes Kundry's role in this opera so critical. Parsifal enters, as a commando: another provocative image these days when we see armed intruders of all types on the news.  As Kundry attempts to seduce Parsifal, Amfortas and Klingsor watch from the shadows. Realizing how Amfortas received his wound shakes Parsifal to his senses.

The overture to Act Three is illustrated by a film of a pool, with palm fronds in a misty haze, a subtle but deliberate reference to Palm Sunday and what happens thereafter.  Is Kundry in hijab, or is her headcloth the kind many women the world over wear? Is Gurnemanz in monastic robes, or does his waistcoat resemble that of a man in the Middle East?  A gunman in black breaks in, but Gurnemanz welcomes him as a guest, for it is a Holy Day. The gunman plants a cross into the ground. It's the long-sought spear that caused Amfortas's wound.  Wonderful acting from Georg Zeppenfeld, who portrays Gurnemanz as a mellowed old man who cries at the thought of Titurel's death.  I was rather less convinced when the set opened out to a vista of forests and waterfalls, with dancing nymphs - the Flower Maidens made pure? - but in a production with many other good ideas  a misfire like this is forgivable.  In any case, Wagner;'s stage directions refer to to a Quelle, grasses and Blume auf den Auen.  Mitglied !

This tender, almost domestic interlude serves to highlight the power of the Mittag music. Through rising clouds we spot the visage of Richard Wagner with a wry smile, and then see a marvellously clear shot of a church bell, while the Parsifal bells ring out.  Then we're back with the monks. Amfortas opens Titurel's coffin, but all that's left is dust. "Mein Vater". "Ein Mensch, wie alle" as Gurnemanz had earlier described him. Parsifal brings forth the spear, diguised as a cross.  Vogt's voice rings forcefully, but clear and luminous,  haloed by the orchestra.   Vogt is wonderful, the Parsifal of our times. "Oh! Welchen Wunders höchstes Glück!", his voice rings up as he holds the spear, which he then places in the coffin.  Amfortas removes his cricifix and throws it into the coffin. You can see why many would be discomforted by this, even they could cope otherwise. The monks and other men join in - possibly Muslims, wearing tunics and caps - placing precious objects beside the spear. Literally "burying the hatchet". This, not baptism. or any specific Christian rite, is the Höchsten Heiles Wunder! Erlösung dem Erlöser! 

This new Bayreuth Parsifal might take some time to get used to, but it's well worth the effort since it's true to the libretto and to the deeper meaning of the opera.  It's not Christian. Mitglied is universal.  It also marks a new departure for Bayreuth, burying at least some of the bigotry of the past. 

Thielemann's Tristan und Isolde, Bayreuth

Christian Thielemann's Tristan und Isolde is powerfully demonic. When I heard it broadcast audio-only, the orchestral playing mesmerized: so stunningly deep and expressive that  visuals were hardly relevant. Thankfully, the production supports Thielemann's interpretive insight. Read Philip Henscher's article The old-fashioned greatness of Christian Thielemann, a review of the conductor's book, My Life with Wagner. Not many conductors are good writers - it's not their job - but Thielemann's commitment seems to come through. Good stagings illuminate music and meaning, not external incidentals. Was this a production led by the conductor, not the director, Katharina Wagner?  It's not for nothing that Thielemann has been named the first non-family Music Director at Bayreuth. 

The Prelude to Act One unfolds with a pulse as strong as the tides.  The camera pans over abstract shapes, darkness interspersed by light. The Young Sailor's voice calls out from the darkness "Westwärts schweift der Blick".  Shrouded in mystery,we have to find our bearings. Listen to the orchestra, and hear the ocean heave and surge.  This gives  tension to the contrast with the mechanical, maze-like structure on stage, which may represent the inner workings of the human mind. Isolde (Evelyn Herlitzius) bristles with rage at her predicament: a powerful, healing queen reduced to a trophy of war. Tristan (Stephen Gould) appears in the network of metallic bridges and stairs. His presence reminds of the circumstances in which Tristan and Isolde met, explaining the intensity of Isolde's agony. If Herlitzius's timbre is squally in this Act, this fits the situation. At the end, her Liebestod is a triumph of steely resolve, tempered by anguish.  Christa Mayer's Brangäne is a softer more conventional figure, but again, this is a valid characterization. Isolde wants death and murder, but Brangäne represents a gentler ethos. I thought of wise old Hans Sachs, and "Wahn! Wahn! Überall Wahn!"

The orchestral playing is, again, a key to the interpretation of the Second Act. We don't see the ocean, but we hear it swirling invisibly, all the more malevolent for that. The tides are controlled by the moon, an impersonal, sinister force, but one which gives Tristan and Isolde the cover of nightfall in which to proclaim their feelings. Gould and Herlitizius sit under a tent (a bit like a canopy over a bed) and play with star shapes sparkling with electrical light. We know that Tristan never felt free as a child, and quite possibly neither did Isolde. So if they marvel at fragile tricks of light with the innocence of children, who are we to sneer? For me, this enhanced the overall tragedy.  There aren't all that many good Tristans around, so we should cherish Stephen Gould, who sang the part last year in London, and has Tannhäuser, Siegfried and Erik in his repertoire, plus an extremely sympathetic Paul in Die tote Stadt. He's a big man with the heft in his voice to create these roles, yet also the ability to express the vulnerability integral to their true portrayal. Tristan is a hero to everyone around him, but not to himself.  Like so many ultra-macho action men, he hides self-destructive urges. Perhaps Death by Melot isn't an accident. The orchestra hovers over the love scenes like a demonic presence, haunting  the lyrical raptures. Gould and Herlitzius can play with stars but the stars will control their fate. 

In Kareol, almost absolute darkness reigns. The Shepherd's Flute sings its mournful yet oddly seductive song. Wagner defines the different stages of Tristan's delirium. Gould and Thielemann mark the changes sensitively. Gould's voice glows heroically. This is Tristan's greatest battle, and Gould's singing is well up to the challenge. Very impressive. Yet we know he's dying, for he "sees" a vision of Isolde before him as he sings. At the end, blood pours from the mannequin, but by then Tristan is too far gone to notice. Iain Paterson's Kurnewal is firmly sung and characterized, emphasizing by contrast the Wahn that overtakes Tristan. The rapport between Gould and Paterson is musically crucial, for Tristan quietly begins to expire as Kurnewal's voice strengthens. Tristan rallies as he hears the ship in the orchestra, which Thielemann conducts with such fervour that we can almost see it too. When the surge subsides, Gould sings that last "Isolde!" and dies, wreathed in the gentle sounds of the harp. 

This tenderness is important. In this staging, Kurnewal covers Tristan's body with a cross and lilies, a beautiful moment, throwing Isolde's heart-rending grief into even higher profile. Yet again, the contrast between two spheres of reality is painfully poignant. King Marke (Georg Zeppenfeld) and his knights arrive, in glowing shades of gold.  Tristan's dead, Kurnewal is dying and Isolde's overwhelmed.  "Tod denn, alles. Alles tod" Zeppenfeld sings. "Wahn, Wahn, uberall Wahn!" all over again, and so sad. As the Liebestod begins, Herlitzius moves towards Gould's inert body, and tries to raise him, literally, from the dead.  In the music, we hear transfiguration, for in Isolde's mind she is again one with Tristan, on a different plane of existence, no longer "of this world".  "Mild and Liese", the happiness of release and transformation.  In an act of kindness, Marke takes the "living" Isolde by the hand, much as one comforts the grieving at a time of trauma, and leads her away. Will she ever return to the "real" world? Will she live on or die? Maybe she'll whip up other potions, but one thing's for sure. She's not baking cupcakes in domestic bliss. Brangäne stands over Tristan's body, thinking "Why?" As so should we. This ending made me think of the ending in Parsifal, with its message of compassion. "Gesegnet sei dein Leiden, das Mitleids höchste Kraft und reinsten Wissens Macht dem zagen Toren gab"

In the film, Thielemann is seen wearing a red polo shirt. At first I thought, it's been mighty hot in Europe this year, but now I wonder if the choice of colour might not have been deliberate. Although the set is dark, the singers are clothed in luminous jewel-like colours, blue, green and gold. (He switches to a black shirt for his bows.) Perhaps Thielemann's red shirt brings him into the picture, so to speak, for this is very much "his" production. He has always been a brilliant Wagner conductor but this Tristan und Isolde is extraordinarily strong musically, and accesses the infernal, demonic depths of the drama. If Thielemann's politics aren't acceptable, it's also not acceptable to destroy a person because you don't like what he thinks. Heed the music.

Bayreuth Festival FULL Broadcast schedule

HERE is the schedule for BR Klassik's 2015 Bayreuth Festival broadcasts

Highest recommendation Christian Thielemann's devastating Tristan und Isolde, which gets deeper with each rehearing. That is what good performance should do, challenge and stretch the soul.  . Read my first impressions here.  NB the 7th August broadcast will be VIDEO

The other broadcasts are revivals , some with different conductors eg Lohengrin with Alain Altinoglu instead of Andris Nelsons who was brilliant when it was new. Altinoglu's good, anyway, but Nelsons is just so strikingly brilliant that his absence is a loss to art, and to the world. Luckily, he's so good that his career will survive. Please read my review of the original Hans Neuenfels production, Klaus Florian Vogt, again, superb.

The notorious  Castorf Ring is revived again. Please see what I wrote when it was new : Rheingold Die Walküre   Siegfried and Gotterdammerung


 

LISTENING LINK Thielemann's devastating Tristan und Isolde Bayreuth

The 2015 Bayreuth Festival opened Saturday with Tristan und Isolde, devastating well conducted by Christian Thielemann.  It was broadcast live on many European stations, but now can be heard again on repeat HERE.    Orchestrally, it reaches very deep into the inner spirit of the opera. It's as if the ocean is singing along, its tides controlled by malevolent cosmic forces. This connects to the sense of curse that haunts Tristan, doomed before he was even born. Tristan und Isolde isn't about colourful tapestries and fake medievalism. It's not a romance. Tristan and Isolde didn't date. Their passion, triggered by a potion, is so intense that it transcends everything rationl. This is a cosmic drama of the human soul. This is a performance to remember. Absolutely recommended ! Please read my initial review HERE - the more I listen, the more I'm getting from listening.

Paradise and Penance Tannhäuser Prom & Bayreuth

WagnerTannhäuser Prom 29 and at Bayreuth. Worlds apart. If there were a contest between the two, Bayreuth would win on every single count. Daniel Barenboim's erratic but exciting, passionate Ring with the Staatskapelle Berlin (reviews here, here and here) raised expectations but lightning doesn't strike in the same place twice. Donald Runnicles has a reputation for Wagner because he conducted on the West Coast of the US, the most computer-savvy place in the world. But hearing this Prom  together with Bayreuth is a telling exercise that reminds us that internet opinion is dominated by a relatively small circle and primarily reflects the perspective of the English-speaking world.  Antonio Pappano's Tannhäuser wasn't idiomatic, but at least it had character and was engaged, so it worked. Runnicles' Wagner appeals because it fits what some assume Wagner should be, and Wagner never disappoints. But if Tannhäuser tells us anything, it's that the safe bet isn't the right choice. Listen to  Bayreuth  HERE and hear how challenging this opera can really be. 

If Bayreuth makes odd choices with directors, its choice of conductors is pretty close to flawless. Andris Nelsons, for example, one of the most exciting conductors of his generation. Axel Kober was new to me, but he has a good pedigree from Leipzig Opera. His Tannhäuser is a revelation. In the long ballet introduction, Kober emphasizes the conflict between the main themes: trumpets surging confidently forwards, undercut by a more mystical theme later associated with the pilgrimage. As the music surges forwards, it's lit by "flames" from the strings, suggesting perhaps the flames of hellfire and damnation. Tannhäuser isn't a jolly medieval pageant but a struggle that cannot be reconciled. Kober brings out the fundamental tension that lies behind the grandeur. In the lighter, more magical moments and scurrying "winds", he even makes us feel why Tannhäuser enjoyed Venusberg, and why he longs to return to its freedom, however corrupt.

We don't need to see medieval trumpeters to feel the emotional soul of this opera.  Truly wonderful, folk-like woodwinds suggest the simplicity of medieval music, its purity a foil for the excesses of Venusberg. The Young Shepherd (Katja Stuber) sounds part shepherd, part angel, calling down from the heights. As usual, Wagner's theology is dodgy. The battle here is between Venus, the Virgin Mary and the Virgin Elisabeth; Jesus doesn't get much of a look in, so the Shepherd is more significant than we might think.

Kober's textures are clean and bright, so details shine. Before the footmen announce Wolfram von Eschenbach, (Michael Nagy), we hear their sprightly footsteps in the music. The harps adorn his singing with luminous grace, so we remember how fragile Tannhäuser's "lute" sounded in comparison.  Duelling stringed instruments! Wolfram and Tannhäuser have different weapons, but the apparently more primitive weapon triumphs in the end.  Kober, Pappano and Barenboim also had the advantage of working with orchestras who have the natural dramatic sheen that comes from playing opera all the time.

The Bayreuth singers, too, were among the best in the business.  No-one who heard Johan Botha's Tannhäuser will ever forget how he made the role glisten with almost supernatural colour, but Bayreuth had him sing Siegmund this year. Torsten Kerl is extremely good. His timbre is naturally bright and he shades it well to create the ravages that Tannhäuser's experiences have wrought on his soul. At the Prom, Robert Dean Smith sang the role. As Tristan last week, he was barely audible live, but OK on the broadcast. We owe a lot to BBC sound engineering.  If Dean Smith's voice sounds old and tired, arguably so was Tannhäuser. But in the critical third act, Kerl's mastery of range and emotion was more impressive, by far. Such ringing, penetrating notes !

Camilla Nylund's Elisabeth in Bayreuth was glorious. Her top is spectacularly lucid. Elisabeth applies her voice like a spear, hurling it to the heavens, so it draws down the mercy of the Virgin Mary herself. Nylund's singing make you believe such things are possible. I've loved her work for years, but this was her finest performance ever. Michelle Breedt's Venus is almost her equal, glowing with sultry power. Heidi Melton and Daniela Sindham for Runnicles  are good enough, but just aren't in that class.

Christian Gerhaher's career as opera singer was made by his stunning Wolfram "O du meine holder Abendstern" at Covent Garden. At Bayreuth, Michael Nagy sang a more rounded Wolfram. He wasn't quite so stunning in the Big Number, but he didn't save himself for it, either. As all-round characterisation, Nagy's Wolfram had personality and a certain depth the role doesn't often get. I quite liked Christoph Pohl at the Prom, but Nagy just has more finesse. Similarly, Günther Groissböck's Landgrave would be hard to equal, though Ain Anger has potential.  The Prom was pretty much saved by the Concert Association of the Chorus of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, proving yet again that opera choruses are a different species from ordinary choruses,

In live performance, we often get carried away because of the sense of communal occasion.  That's not quite the same as hearing things in purely musical terms, but artistic quality is what really counts in the end.

Bayreuth 2013 links that WORK

THIS is a link to five of the Bayreuth 2013 performances. What's more it actually works,: no need to subscribe or be in Germany or whatever. Plus if you can follow the commentary, it's better than average. The downside is that it's audio only, though they give still photos. But from what we've heard that might be an advantage. Besides, it's good to listen without visual aids, to keep your aural ears sharp. There is a link to  Lohengrin, but it's not a new production, but a reprise of the one currently in rep, with the same conductor (Andris Nelsons) and principals, who are superb. The director is Hans Neuenfels. It's brilliant ! I wrote about in HERE in 2012.
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Bayreuth Götterdämmerung 2013

 Götterdämmerung at Bayreuth, 2013: Wagner's Holy Grail. Kyrill Petrenko conducted with authority. In Siegfried, his dense textures and firm tempi evoked vast rock formations and impenetrable forests. In Götterdämmerung, the atmosphere changes. Now Petrenko's tempi became sharper. The orchestra zipped urgently forward, creating the tension and anxiety we should feel as the Ring draws to its conclusion. When Siegfried greets the Rhinemaidens, the music flows lyrically. But the undertow in the orchestra reminds us that all will soon end. The Rhinemaidens sound sweet and innocent, but the whole saga might not have happened if they hadn't been more attentive to the Ring in the first place. 

And so, we, too, should be more attentive with what we have. These days, opera audiences are bear-baiting bullies, who go for the pleasure of being abusing. There is no such thing as non-interpretation. Even when we read a score, we are "interpreting" the relationship between the marks on paper and what we hear in our minds. Love or loathe a production, it's someone's point of view. In normal life, people can disagree rationally. But shouting others down on principle is the mindset of the mob. Opera houses used to restrict photos before a performance so people wouldn't make up their minds  beforehand, based on minimal knowledge. Screaming abuse is easy when you don't care about what people say.  So I've listened audio-only, avoiding the pictures, in order to focus on the music. The Ring suggests that we should go back to true values. And in Wagner, true values pivot on ideas. 

Siegfried in Götterdämmerung is very different from Siegfried in Siegfried. The tessitura's less of a stretch, but characterization is more of a challenge. Once, Siegfried was a blank, now he's tasted the ways of the world and is sucked into its material values. Lance Ryan's deliberate, clear diction served him well. No need for decorative frills. This Siegfried could be a better master of the Hall of the Gibichungs because he's firm and decisive. No wonder Gunther and Gutrune are entranced.  Siegfried's just easily fooled but, as Ryan shows, he's direct and without guile. In his scene at the rock with Brünnhilde, Ryan';s voice takes on a metallic edge which is perceptive, for Siegfried is controlled, robot-like, by someone else. When he sings the word "Brünnhilde" before he dies, Ryan breathes into the word, so it expands with real emotion. The "spell" is broken, but too late.

In this performance, the relationship between Siegfried, Gunther and Hagen was less evenlty balanced than in Barenboim's Proms Götterdämmerung (more here) because Ryan was clearly the dominant force. Attila Jun's Hagen gives him a challenge, though. When the trombones, horns and tubas wailed in the dream sequence, Jun's voice hardened, suggesting suppressed rebellion and rage. Jun's an interesting singer, who can convey feelings which aren't strictly obvious in the text, but which colour character. For example, when Gunther casually dismisses Hagen when he and Siegfried go to kidnap Brünnhilde, Jun's voice almost imperceptibly flinches. He obeys but he's not happy. I didn't see him grab the ring from Siegfried's body  but I could sure hear the violence when Jun sang "Her den Ring!"
Alejandro Marco-Buhrmester's Gunther is more reserved, closer vocally to Koch and Ulrich in Siegfried (more here) The rest of the cast was nicely done, but the chorus was particularly good. They really sounded like a mob of thugs perpared to do whatever their leaders tell them, even when they cry "Was tatest du!"in horror.

In Götterdämmerung, Brünnhilde's part is infinitely more demanding than in Siegfried. At last we got to hear what Catherine Foster is capable of. While she's not the most complex or heroic Brünnhilde one could imagine. her voice feels sturdy and forceful. Since she's spent her career in German-speaking countries, her voice was new to me, but she's interesting. Certainly she has stamina. This Immolation was grand, and Petrenko's orchestra excelled itself, describing the soaring, redemptive flames, complete with flying embers.

Bayreuth Siegfried - Lance Ryan redeemed

Siegfried at Bayreuth, 29/7/13, (broadcast live by BR Klassik) showed why Lance Ryan is the Siegfried of choice on the Wagner circuit. At Bayreuth, where it really counts, Ryan was very good indeed. In London, his mind may have been focused on Bayreuth, so his Proms performance was a shock.  Ryan's strengths lie in his diction and projection. He is so clear that any problems are magnified. Robert Dean Smith, on the other hand, can get away with anything because he can't be heard. Ryan doesn't have the most floridly beautiful  voice, but he uses it wisely. This Siegfried had authority. We could glimpse the genuine hero Siegfried might have become had he had the chance.

Kirill Petrenko conducted. Where Barenboim relished muscular energy, Petrenko went for clean lines and clarity, the energy purposefully contained. How wonderful it was to hear two very different interpretations only two days apart. Both valid, both authoritative. Wagner conducted with committment always gives us something to think about. Petrenko was specially good at defining the rumbling undercurrents that flow through this opera. The orchestra doesn't have as many "star turns", as in, say Götterdämmerung but it conveys atmosphere. Petrenko's textures suggested the density of rocky outcrops rising above a dense forest. Fafner feels overwhelmingly present, even though he doesn't actually appear until the second Act. He's breathing, ominously, while everyone else is busy singing, scrapping and posing riddles. A bit like Erda. Perhaps this sounds silly, but my dog, who hears opera all the time and usually ignores it, jumped up and paid attention when Fafner growled out of my PC. Staffies don't know what operas are "about" but they sure can recognize sounds!

Burkhard Ulrich's Mime wasn't quite as manically kinetic as the score might suggest, but he negotiated the twists and slithers in the part effectively. Trolls are dangerous when they don't look like trolls. Real life Mimes hide their treachery by sounding smooth.  Wolfgang Koch's Wanderer sang with slow-moving gravity. It can't have been more than 20 years since Wotan fought with Brünnhilde over Siegmund, but he's aged dramatically. Koch's Wanderer is fast becoming an Erda, too. Nadine Weissmann's Erda, by contrast, sounded refreshingly sprightly. Her sleep must be doing her good, and she doesn't want to be disturbed. Martin Winkler's Alberich was lively, taunting and tantalizing.

But the show revolved around Lance Ryan. Significantly, Wagner doesn't write the part in this opera for effusive emotion. That comes in Götterdämmerung when Siegfried has, more or less, grown up.   But while he's in the forest, he's still in fragments, like the sword. Mime splutters and splatters. Siegfried sings in brief bursts: a surly teenager ! Mime spars with the Wanderer and with Alberich  on equal grounds. Until Siegfried has forged the sword, he's no match for anyone. In this performance I was hugely impressed by the way Ryan transformed. With the wonky, out of tune horn warbles, Siegfried is taking his first baby steps so to speak. The Bayreuth horn player sounded surprisngly bluesy, intensifying the humour. Gradually Ryan's voice rises and fills out. Rich vibrato isn't his thing, but his sound rings clear and pure. No forcing or stutter this time. Ryan's Siegfried is  pristine, like the child of Nature he's portraying. Mirella Hagen's Waldvogel is a little shrill, but that only serves to highlight Siegfried's growing confidence. By the time Ryan confronts Fafner. he's fully formed, and Fafner's smart enough to notice. This time, when Siegfried meets Brünnhilde, he's most certainly the kind of man a Brünhilde might fancy, even if she's still half awake.  Now, both Siegfried and Brünnhilde are dazzled by the dawn and the glorious new prospects that await them. Catherine Foster sang a sweet, girlish Brünnhilde. She's the first English soprano to sing the part in Bayreuth (Susan Bullock has done it just about everywhere else). But Lance Ryan's Siegfried steals the show.

Rats raid Bayreuth - Lohengrin Review

Many will run, shrieking like rats from a sinking ship when they see this production of Wagner 's Lohengrin from Bayreuth, the famous Neuenfels Rats production. But steel your nerves and watch in online on demand from Siemens AG (link HERE) until 30th August. View more than once, there's a lot to take in. It's an experience that makes you appreciate just how radically original Wagner can be. Shocking as it is, this production is created with insight. Those who prefer kitsch to Wagner can leave the ship for those who care about Wagner as a thinker on an audacious scale.

Take Wagner literally and you're the fool. The real King Heinrich defeated the hordes from the East in 933 CE.  By which time Brabant had been firmly Christian for 500 years. Ortrud would not have been a strategic match for Telramund. She'd have been burnt at the stake. Then Lohengrin appears, conjured up by Elsa's dream. Ortrud's right: Elsa should know who she's marrying. Lohengrin reveals he's the son of Parsifal and comes from a strange cult at Monsalvat, where they talk Christ but practise blasphemy. Lohengrin's name is the least of the questions she should be asking.

And who are these Brabanters whom everyone wants to protect? Usually they're depicted as irrelevant ormnamental background. Here they're rats, in ingenious costumes. They hold their bodies like rats, and twitch. They move in massed groups like rats do. Yet they have individual personalities, like humans. They're even cute! Suddenly, the focus is on the Brabanters themselves, rather than  those who decide what they should do. Because the Brabanters now have identities, the whole scope of the opera opens out. One is reminded of Wagner's proto-socialist beliefs and his disdain for mindless authority.

When the rats are manipulated by Telramund they can turn vicious, which is why Elsa appears, borne down with arrows stuck in her back. It's a horrifying image, but Elsa's been shafted from all sides. That Annette Dasch is a tall, strong woman makes it even more poignant. Yet the rats are fundamentally creatures of nature who do what they think they need to survive. When they're not threatened they're quite delightful.  They have hideous claws and feet, but caress each other with great tenderness, as rats do. In their nobler moments, they remove their hoods and reveal their human faces. There's a lot of humour in Neuenfels's production. The Brabanters could be prototype Nuremburgers. But rats don't think and easily descend into mobs. Note how the rats in uniform resemble the SS. Petra Lang's Ortrud is got up vaguely like a camp guard. When she flashes her teeth, they shine sharp and white, lika a rat. When she kisses Telramund, it looks like she's savaging him.

Why rats? The idea is not nearly as far fetched as Lohengrin's connection with a swan. The Christian image is a dove, a symbol of peace. Swans look serene, but are aggressive, clumsy and attack in mobs. So why does Monsalvat revere swans? Bigger isn't necessarily better. When Elsa appears as a bride, she's dressed like a swan, hiding her face behind a feather fan, but look at her hair. It's hidden behind a helmet-like cowl, with a point like a widow's peak. Both sides of a swan's nature. Ortrud appears as a black swan, but can't get it right, like jealous people who try to imitate those more talented than themselves. Poor Petra Lang, painted like a mad doll, with 7cm false eyelashes.

When Lohengrin and Elsa are at last alone for the first time, they appear in simple garments that don't inhibit movement. It's actually in the libretto. Now they're neither swan nor rat, but fully human. The action here is as eloquent as the singing. Klaus Florian Vogt, who's sung more Lohengrins than most, reveals the hero as profoundly a sensitive and vulnerable. His singing is divine, (thrill to it) but watch his face, which projects genuine love and concern. Lohengrin is an almost supernatural hero, but he can't control things in his own bridal chamber. This is a very  moving interpretation, which gives Lohengrin much greater depth of personality. When he and Dasch grapple, the physical charge is palpable. And they're barefoot, like rats, only more beautiful to us, as humans.

There are many references in Neuenfels's production to other Wagner ideas. King Heinrich refuses to wear a sword til the truth is established. He plunges it into a potted tree in the middle of the stage - Wotan plunging his sword into the World Ash Tree. An ordinary king could decide Elsa's fate on the spot. Perhaps Heinrich realizes that this is cosmic, not a civil dispute. Georg Zeppenfeld doesn't do Heinrich as despot, but as thoughtful, unarmed human being. The female wedding guests appear in luminous colours and floral hats - the Flower Maidens from Parsifal, a warning that the hero must resist temptation?

Then the full horror of what Lohengrin reveals. Read the libretto carefully, for it's a discussion about a year's gestation and the freeing of the swan from its thrall to the Grail, and the return of dead Gottfried. So maybe it's not so far fetched after all that the swan boat turns into an egg, from which a foetus emerges, fully-formed, decisively tearing up its umbilical cord. It's Gottfried, reborn, his glänzendem Silbergewande not an artificial armour but natural, silvery vernix, which protects newborns from infection. Bizarre as this sight may be, it's implicit in the text and no crazier than the whole Parsifal myth. Indeed, it takes the myth to its conclusion, as Monsalvat is now refreshed through Virgin Birth and Resurrection.

The art of filming opera is also in its infancy. Since most operas now come in film form, Bildregie is becoming more important than ever and shouldn't be left to the point-and-shoot brigade. Bildregie as musically sensitive as in this broadcast should be studied carefully as it's a lot more than what happens on stage. The overtures begin in the Festspielhaus itself. Act One starts with Vogt's Lohengrin trying to unlock a door, which opens when he ceases to search. We descend into the world of Ortrud and Telramund through the bowels of backstage, and underground machinery. From high up in the ceiling, we see the nobles of Brabant gathering in colourful formation. Then when they go into battle, we see them girding up in their armour (rat suits).  Gloriously wonderful music, admirably conducted by Andris Nelsons, warmed by the blending of drama and reality.

Many will howl that there's no place for humour in Wagner, but that might not be true. Neuenfels uses rats to infuse this production with genuine humanity, which favours non-violent understanding, not brutal totalitariansim.  Wagner is myth on a grand scale. Literal representation distorts the real imagination in his work. So the humour here reaches parts the others don't go near.Yet again, proof that in wit there is wisdom.

Lots more on this site on Wagner, Lohengrin, stagecraft and the art of filming opera.

Bayreuth Lohengrin live online, Sunday

Sunday 14th 1600 German time - direct from the Festspielhaus Bayreuth, Richard Wagner's (who else) Lohengrin. HERE IS THE LINK ! Live, online, international, and very high quality, courtesy of Siemens AG. State of the art. If you can wire your PC onto bigscreen TV, you can have a party at home, no airport and hotel, no carbon emissions, no security hassle. Register and pay 14,90 euro in advance, but that's still a quarter of the price of Met HD. On demand screening will be available for 2 weeks until 30th August.

Klaus Florian Vogt - one of the best Lohengrins about! Annette Dasch, Petra Lang, Tomas Tomasson, Georg Zeppenfeld, Samuel Youn, Andris Nelsons conducts - sure to be good. It's the fabled Hans Neuenfels production from last year, the one with the giant mice. In 2009 Siemens brought us the controversial Christoph Marthaler Tristan und Isolde, which I liked (see review HERE)  I still don't get the hospital bed Liebestod, but the first two acts were good. Love or hate Marthaler or Neuenfels, anything would be better than Tankred Dorst's brain-free Die Walküre reviewed HERE.

Two who have already seen Neuenfel's Lohengrin are Opera Cake and Boulezian. Please clip on the links for more.Enjoy reading, enjoy watching!

Hoiotoho! Die Walküre Bayreuth goes global

Hoiotoho!  Wagner goes global, Die Walküre from Bayreuth available online, internationally thanks to Siemens AG. "The whole world is a festival theater" goes the publicity, and it's true.

It really is a grand gesture because the whole opera world can come together, to enjoy the finer parts of Wagner's vision.  Kinder, macht Neues! in every sense. The petty cliques of closed cult Bayreuth are breaking down.  In this increasingly cynical, selfish world, such gestures are generous. Of course there's something in it for Siemens, since they're demonstrating the potential of telecommunications technology. But their faith in Bildung deserves respect. Bildung simply means that human beings can strive for improvement, and for ideals.

Pity, then that they had to screen Tankred Dorst's brain-free Die Walküre. It's been around since 2006, so Siemens should have been warned. Or maybe someone in marketing realized that what sells these days isn't what is good, but what appeals to the lowest common denominator.  Big money was thrown into this production, but it's so pointless it would disgrace a student venture.

Wagner without ideas? Wagner without emotional engagement? Wagner railed at Meyerbeer (unfairly) for producing brain-dead pap.  Now Meyerbeer has the last laugh. This set's so generic it could have been lifted from a cheap video game. Except they haven't made video games that dull since 1981.  The designs didn't have a chance, though, as the direction was so cardboard that they might as well have put the singers on castors and rolled them on and off. "It's Freudian", Dorst tells an interviewer. He noticed? Pity he didn't tell anyone. This isn't a "modern" production by any means. Breastplates, funny hats. Basically, a tacky remake of some notional antique Ring, learned from photographs, not from the music.

This is what happens when there isn't any direction at all, not even an attempt at coming to terms with what's in the opera.Whatever Wagner may be, he's not superficial or shallow. This is a production by and for those who don't actually like Wagner.

Fortunately, this is a very strong cast, all experienced enough to know what Wagner's about. So, park and bark, without the bark. Johan Botha's a finely nuanced Siegmund, good enough that he'd probably convince as Siegfried.  Kwangchul Youn's Hunding is complex and dark, much more than stock villain. Edith Haller's gorgeously vivacious when her Sieglinde breaks out of Hunding's spell. Mihoko Fujimura sings well, but really shouldn't have been costumed as fake-Japanese. It's racist because she's a good performer whatever her nationality. Albert Dohmen looks ridiculously young next to Linda Watson's magnificent Brünnhilde. She saves the show because she gets on with her vision of the role, in the vacuum of this vacuous production. Maybe she was bored witless too, but being a true Valkyrie, she got on with the job.

Christian Thielemann conducted spiritedly. Often, a conductor gets praise when the rest of a production's bad, but in this case the praise is deserved.  So what a disappointment - good singing (if no acting), good orchestra, absolutely wonderful sound reproduction and intelligent filming and lighting. And definitely major respect due to Siemens AG, the TV crew backstage, the simultaneous translator, and the whole team that made this broadcast possible.  They are extremely professional. But Gesammstkunstwerk with the drama missing, that's not Wagner. Hopefully, next year Siemens will have the courage of artistic conviction and let the lowest common denominator rise up towards it. Maybe that's just the kick Katharina needs. If Siemens can get this Wagner to raise her standards, they'd be doing  Richard Wagner a huge favour indeed.

Schläfst du, Hagen, mein Sohn?

Who is Hagen? my friends and I are discussing. Is he evil by choice or by nature? are we all Hagens to some extent? Understanding Hagen helps elucidate the moral dilemmas in the Ring.

Hagen is Gunther's kid brother via Grimhilde who for some reason was seduced by Alberich. But it's not all that clear how the relationship came about. In any case Grimhilde told Hagen to respect Gunther. So despite his envy, he does what his mum tells him. Gunther's pretty laidback about having an illegitmate half-dwarf for a brother and admires him for his brains. Very interesting family dynamic - if only we knew more.

When did Grimhilde die and what was she like? These do pertain to the relationships and to Hagen's character. What we do know is that Hagen knows about the gold and about Siegfried and the dragon.

But Gutrune, who knows Siegfried must have a past, has no qualms about accepting a potion that will ensnare the hero. She's not evil, but potions don't play fair. So she's compromised morally. She does this because she thinks she can't win any other way. But low self-esteem doesn't justify cheating. When she finally acknowledges Brünnhilde it's too late, the damage is done. In Gunther's case the moral perjury is even greater. The Gibichungs are no different from the gods who grabbed Valhalla without paying the builders. only pettier and more venal.

Whatever Hagen may be, he's not a mediocrity aiming above his station. That is why he's interesting, he has moral potential. He's dutiful, in his own way, guarding Gibichung interests, whatever they may mean to him - Gibich wasn't his dad. So he's an unhappy, tortured soul: on some level he can't surpress his traumas. So Alberich comes into his subconscious : Schläfst du, Hagen, mein Sohn? Notice, Hagen is asleep, but he's not at rest.

Thus Alberich weaves the plot, carefully playing on Hagen's insecurities. The poor guy resists der schlimmer Albe, even dissing his mother, perhaps the only person who loved him, because she gave him courage. (Mut in this case meaning I think more than ordinary valour but a strong personality). Alberich cuts straight to Hagen's weak spot, his insecurity and envy. Hassen die Frohen! Hate those who are happy and have what you have not. Alberich has no values other than to destroy. Just as he mistreated the Nibelungs, he manipulates his son's unhappiness. Alberich is a troll in the modern sense of the word, which is why he can't understand what Siegfried stands for. Fool as he is, Siegfried wants to seek adventures, so much so that he dumps Brünnhilde to seek the unknown. Hagen has never had that freedom of choice, he's trapped in the hall of the Gibichungs because of his past (which is why it's interesting to ponder).

Hagen has no beef with Wotan. He's manipulated into acting out Alberich's revenge. There's little emphasis on what Hagen will gain from grabbing power, but plenty on why Hagen must take sides with Alberich's vendetta. You belong to me, Alberich implies, we're both of the night. Die wir bekämpfen mit nächtigem Krieg, schon gibt ihnen Not unser Neid. and in doing so, liebst du (mich), wie du sollst! Talk about toxic parents!

So is Hagen evil? He does evil things and eventually stabs Siegfried. Hagen and Gunther only fall out when Hagen claims the Ring, which according to Alberich is "his" inheritance. And look what happens when Brünnhilde does her thing and asserts her moral authority by throwing the Ring back to its rightful owners and sacrifices herself to the flames. Hagen cries Zurück vom Ring! Keep away from the Ring and all it implies. He loses his cool and jumps into the river, presumably to die. Has he found some kind of redemption in a sub-Brünnhilde purification? Hagen has more personality depth than Gunther or Gutrune so it's he who can make the connection with what the Ring stands for, and why he can't go on.

So Hagen isn't a bad guy per se, but a kind of Everyman. Most people feel insecure and jealous of others and are easily swayed by what others think. Perhaps it's human nature to knock tbose who have what the rest of us don't have. We all get dragged along by leaders with persuasive powers. It's the story of Bayreuth, post-Wagner. It leads to things like Kristallnacht. Some never wake up and realize. But Hagen has his moment of illumination (lit up by the fires around Brünnhilde), so perhaps he redeems his conflicted soul.

Tristan und Isolde webcast from Bayreuth

What was all the fuss about? When this Tristan und Isolde first came to Bayreuth it was slammed. You'd think the heavens had fallen. Now Siemens AG and Bayreuther Festspiele are streaming a webcast online straight from the Bayreuth Festival, we can all see the notorious Marthaler production and wonder why it seemed so shocking.

This T&I isn't abstract or minimalist. Indeed, it's more realistic than most around these days. So the sets and costumes are vaguely 20th century? The story is about ideas, not about tapestries or fake chainmail. Indeed, the setting says quite a lot about some of the deeper themes in the opera that aren't often addressed.

So we don't see ships and sails as Isolde and Brangäne travel to Cornwall. But Isolde's a VIP, a queen to be. She doesn't travel cattle class. So Act One is set in a cavernous ballroom, with brocade banquettes, just as you'd expect on a liner. Perhaps the Titanic. Because she is doomed. The finery is shabby, you can almost smell the dust. Again, that's part of the plot: Isolde has been traded off, her power diminished. Once she would have been surrounded by retainers. Now the chairs are empty and all she has is Brangäne, the two of them huddled alone amid the faded splendour.

When Tristan comes in, she confronts him. While the long interlude plays, she overturns the empty chairs, one by one, slowly and deliberately. She overturns the order of things, this Isolde.

Act Two is even more pointed. Isolde and Brangäne are in a vast chamber, where the walls are lined with gold velvet. They're dressed in shiny silk: Isolde's dress is boxy pastel,like something the Queen, her mother and sisters used to wear: a kind of royal uniform, expensive but bland, its formality giving nothing away about the woman inside. Her arms are sheathed in white gloves. The hairdos are like armour, bouffants melded by so much hairspray they could be helmets. Those coy curls and flips aren't as soft and girlie as they seem. Royalty is about power images.

Yet Isolde isn't powerful any more. She's become a possession, a political pawn for King Marke to display. So the Barbie doll unreality underlines her status as royal Stepford Wife. Beyond the glass doors, guards stand at attention, to keep her in as well as keep others out.

When Tristan comes, they loll about on a couch. This is erotic, but in a quiet understated way. When Isolde pulls her glove off, it's as explosive as striptease, as she's revealing what's been hidden. She's also throwing down the gauntlet. Does Tristan dare respond in kind? Tristan and Isolde do compete to see who can outdo the other in terms of emotional extravagance. In this production Isolde wins hands down, partly because her Tristan isn't particularly butch. But it's also in the text. "Lausch' mir sterben" is an odd way to be horny. T&I get off on death as much as on love. Thus when Marke comes in, he doesn't rage but quietly buttons Isolde's jacket, hiding her vulnerable, soft undergarment. Propriety restored, for a while.

In the Third Act, Tristan is in a hospital bed. Why not, as he's dying. The set also references the walls of his castle, so when he sings of his childhood it's poignant. The sea, the shepherd and Isolde are real enough in his mind. Isolde arrives, wearing rough clothes, her hair shorn short. Why not? Power and glory mean nothing to her now. She's no longer playing politics but acting through selfless love. No more need for show. When she sings the Liebestod, she'll be transfigured anyway by the music. Inner beauty, all the more compelling in the grim surroundings.

Most striking in this production was Iréne Theorin's acting. This Isolde is a fully rounded personality, who fools about and stretches with the abandon of a teenager, so Brangane has to keep pushing her down. The detail of Christoph Markthaler's directing would probably have been lost in the auditorium. For example, there's a single chord of brightness in one long passage: for a moment, Isolde bursts into a robust smile, forgetting where she is. Once, she was wild and free, a powerful healer and a force for life. The spark is still there, as she moves and bends wilfully. This Isolde is a true sister of Brünnhilde, who doesn't do patriarchy. Yet now she's trapped, curtailed, like Brünnhilde made mortal. No wonder she paces the walls, searching for what lies beyond.

Theorin's singing, too, was convincing. She may not be the greatest Isolde ever, but she has little competition from Robert Dean Smith. It's not his fault that he doesn't look like a hero, but then neither did Ludwig Schnorr. The makeup that did wonders for the women didn't help him either. He looks younger and prettier than Isolde. (What primer is the makeup person using? It works) Nor does he sing like a tough knight who's had an eventful past. He's fairly solid in passages hovering at the lower end of his scale, but once the lines push upwards, he has more difficulty. At few wobbly moments, especially in his death scene. On the other hand, he's dying so maybe we should be kind. Marthaler's attention to detail should have extended to Dean Smith's acting, so Tristan wouldn't have looked so self-absorbed. He's supposed to be enthralled.

Robert Holl's King Marke was very impressive. He sang with real authority, yet laced with tenderness and maturity. This was a good characterization, well rounded. When he finds Isolde in delicto he doesn't lose his cool, but puts his arm round her in tacit support : a Melot would stab her. Though maybe not Ralf Liukas's Melot who seems a fairly unevil guy.

Good singing from Michelle Breedt as Brangäne. Her characterization is particularly interesting. Too often the part is bland, as if the role is a cipher. Here thoygh, the dynamic between the two women really is a relationship between women, not cardboard cutouts. Breedt's Brangäne has personality, wit, even sensuality as hinted in the deep rosered of her cardigan and lipstick. Her eyes sparkle, sometimes with joy becaause she loves Isolde, somethimes with terror as she rushes to get her out of jams, like when they're about to disembark. Brangäne is underrated as a character, but she's important. So it's good to study Breedt's acting and find greater depths.

Jukka Rasilainen's Kurnewal was interesting. The vaguely highland costume with kilt presumably references the character's Celtic background, but also works because it sets him apart from the others. Kurnewal, compared with Melot, is untamed, and still has the uncivilized wildness that we see in Theormin's Isolde. He paces the walls, too, and jumps up on chairs. Interesting that Tristan goes for this type. One day maybe we'll see a Tristan that expands the part and deals with his past. Tristan is not a blank, like Siegfried. Would he have been happy as King one day ? maybe it's just as well he sought out death. Apart from a few vocal quirks, (FrauWen !") Rasilainen might have a good future.

The orchestra was good, again apart from odd infelicities (the shepherd's tune slightly off kilter at first) but live performance isn't about perfection. Nor does everything in a production have to be the best or worst ever. I loved the final image, where Theorin draws the sheet that Tristan slept under over her own head, as she lies in his bed. It's erotic and yet also a gesture of the complete self denial that such intense love represents. Isolde is united with Tristan and nothing else matters any more, no more royalty, no more power games, no more pain. Once she covered herself in clothes and wigs. Now when she pulls the white sheet over her face, all the grubbiness of the world is irrelevant. She's disappeared somewhere more pure, more perfect, where self no longer exists, only the sublime. Like Brünnhilde's renunciation of the Ring and final immolation.

Get the download from the Siemens site linked above until 24 August. It's 14.90 Euro which allows repeat viewing. Much cheaper than Bayreuth and you don't have to do power games or be rich to get there, either. Now THAT is something Richard Wagner, proto socialist, would have appreciated.

Jonathan Carr The Wagner Clan

Finally I’ve got round to reading Jonathan Carr’s The Wagner Clan. Carr was a top journalist with the Economist and the Financial Times. The Wagner Clan distils a lifetime of knowledge into 350 succinct pages. Carr’s direct, fluent style makes the book an easy, pleasant read but it springs from understanding the social and political background which created the phenomenon that is the Bayreuth Festspiele.

Much of the material isn’t new, but it’s put together with wisdom. Carr demonstrates how much of what we assume to be Wagner's views were in fact created by Cosima and others. Like The Master himself, Cosima was rootless, in denial of her own past, “more Catholic than the Pope”. Significantly the Wagner Idea attracted others similarly alienated – Houston Chamberlain and his curious assumed persona, Hitler the outsider with a monumental chip on his shoulder. Poor orphaned Winifred was doomed from birth, one feels, given that she too was rootless, raised by fanatics, as if genetically engineered to serve the "Wagnerian" image. Wagner’s image takes on projections that aren’t necessarily in his music, which is perhaps why it's so dangerously potent.

Carr is perceptive about Siegfried, reading between the lines of his ostensibly casual memoirs. Siegfried was heroic in his own lowkey way because he tried to extend his heritage. His descendants have each in their own way had to do the same.

Carr does not shy from confronting the Hitler connection. He sorts out myth from reality with cool analysis. Hitler for all his big talk had other things to deal with, alas. No one emerges clean, not even Friedelinde, for such were the times. Just before the book was completed, new material from British archives on her transatlantic ventures were released. They’re interesting reading. Friedelinde tries but the odds are against her.

Given Carr’s special expertise in postwar Germany, he’s particularly good on the complex politics through which the family retained control over the Festival. It’s a lesson in itself how such an institution can continue to be run on autocratic lines, without complete state direction. Carr passed away soon after the book was published, but the issue of succession haunts this account throughout.

Carr’s distinctive, warm hearted style and intelligence earn this book a special place even among the many volumes already written about the Wagners and Bayreuth (many by the protagonists themselves). I make no apologies for saying I loved reading it because it reminded me of the author, who was kind to me in bad times. So when you read this, remember that the man himself is reflected in the senstivity and fair mindedness with which the book is written.

Bayreuth and Glyndebourne

No, I'm not comparing the uncomparable. Just pointing to interesting things ! Mark has been to Bayreuth. Hated Meistersinger and LOVED Parsifal. Note carefully, different director and one of them is not a Wagner ! Read his reviews on boulezian on the bloglist at right. . This is a guy who really knows his Wagner. Google "treacherous bonds" and see why!

Simon has been to Glyndebourne for Peter Eötvös's new opera Love and Other Demons. Despite my fondness for new music, I've never yet "got" him, either as composer or conductor, so I was particularly keen to read someone who doesn't have an axe to grind. It's wondeful that Glyndeboune should do such things. Their core audience is pretty savvy, and helped raise the money for the venture. Some rich bankers have brains, you don't get that rich by being dumb. Though many Sun readers are wealthier than I'll ever be. So there's also a link below to a piece in the Financial Times which gives the background. This is an article that's made me think a lot.You might need to register to read the FT article but it's free and worth the effort.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4b791a60-64dc-11dd-af61-0000779fd18c.html

http://www.musicomh.com/opera/love-demons_0808.htm