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OperaNotes Review
Metropolitan Opera House
April 12, 2004
By Charlene Frank
Die
Walküre
Music:
Richard Wagner
Conductor:
James
Levine
Production: Otto Schenk
Set & Projection Designer: Gunther
Schneider-Siemssen
Costume Designer:
Rolf Langenfass
Stage Director: Peter McClintock
Cast:
Sigmund: Placido Domingo
Sieglinde: Debra Voigt
Hunding: Matti Salminen
Wotan: James Morris
Brünnhilde: Jane Eaglen
Ficka:
Yvonne Naef
Walküries: Rebecca Copley, Claudia Waite, Victoria Livengood, Ellen
Rabiner
Janet Hopkins, Jane Brunnell, Mary Ann McCormick, Jill Grove
Richard
Wagner is not a composer I would have liked to meet.
Nor do I believe he would have liked to meet me.
But for many years people have been saying I should try to go beyond the
fact that as a person he was despicable, because the music is totally separate
from the man. That’s a hard one to
swallow because this particular man embodied everything I see as unforgivable. I
have however seen a few Wagnerian operas, Die Walküre
when I was 18, which was a few years ago and it was way too long for me so I
left after the second act, and Tristan and Isolde at Teatro Real in
Madrid a few years ago. I was not
thrilled. But tonight it was
different. Tonight Die Walküre,
the second in the cycle of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, led by the
masterful James Levine was everything opera is supposed to be. The story is high drama:
Gods and goddesses, murder, war, love, betrayal and let’s not forget the
ever-popular incest. The music made
me want to put on a helmet with horns, jump onto a horse bareback and race with
the wind. HoHoToHo!
Everything was
perfect. I have seen Placido Domingo in a multitude of roles
throughout the years, but I can’t imagine a role better suited for him now.
I love to see him perform simply because I love to see him perform, but
as Siegmund, at 63 (or 53 or 43 for that matter) years old, he is the perfect
dramatic tenor.
Debra Voigt
should tell the folks at the Royal Opera to keep their little black cocktail
dress, she can sing! Which is more important?
If I’m paying for a seat at the opera, and I’m going to sit there for 5
hours, I’ll take listening to Debra Voigt sing over someone slinkier in a little
black cocktail dress any day.
Debbie, you’re beautiful! Please
keep singing Sieglinde for us.
They were demi-gods,
Siegmund and Sieglinde, twin bother and sister separated by violence at a very
young age. He called himself Sorrow
because his life was full only of pain and woe since he lost his family.
She was the unhappy bride of Hunding (Matti Salminen), kidnapped as a child and
forced into an unbearable life.
Then Siegmund, war weary and injured, stumbled into her home, and they fell in
love.
And we were happy for them, we wanted them to be happy in and love and to
escape Hunding. Oh yes, there was
that one little thing that made it a little out of the ordinary.
They were brother and sister!
Well, nobody ever said Wagner did not march to his own very strange drum.
So, let’s just concentrate on the music.
The spectacular music and the spectacular artists.
Matti
Salminen was a big, dark and scary bass.
No, his voice wasn’t scary, his voice was big and dark, it was his character
that was scary. He didn’t have a lot of time on stage, but he was not to be
forgotten.
Bass James
Morris won his fame for the role of the god Wotan, and it was easy to see why
last night. His voice is deep and powerful but it also was small and
broken when he felt forced to disown the daughter he adored. In this role with together with soprano Jane Eaglen as his
daughter Brünnhilde they were perfect.
You could feel and see their familial ties and the pain it caused when they were
broken. Ms. Eaglen, returning to
the Met stage after performing in Tristan and Isolde earlier this season,
was a splendid Brünnhilde, with a voice that stood up to the role beautifully.
Mezzo-soprano
Yvonne Naef made her debut at the Met last month in Das Rheingold, which
this reviewer will not see until next week (yes, it’s out of order, but
availability is what it is). I look
forward to seeing her again in that role.
She performed the role of Fricka with a vengeance and I imagine we’ll be seeing
her often.
This was a
perfectly cast Die Walküre and although I will never wish that I had met
Richard Wagner, and I will never want to go to visit his birthplace the way I
like to visit Puccini’s home when I am in Lucca or to visit Rossini (et. al.) in
the church of Santa Croce when I am in Florence, his music is magnificent.
I agree with his great-grandson Gottfried Wagner, his grandfather’s
ugliness should not be swept under the rug, but the world should not miss the
beauty of the music. We need beauty
in our world and should never let anger or ugliness make us miss that which is
so beautiful.