There are, to date, twenty-three complete performances
of Wagner’s Ring tetralogy conducted by Moralt, Gebhardt, Furtwängler,
Stiedry, Karajan, Krauss, Knappertsbusch, Solti, Kempe, Böhm, Swarowsky,
Goodall, Boulez, Janowski, Haitink, Levine, Sawallisch, Barenboim and
now by Günter Neuhold conducting the Badische Staatskapelle.
It should be made clear from the outset, but with no
hint of appearing to be patronising, that there is no Birgit Nilsson,
Wolfgang Windgassen, George London or Gottlob Frick among the cast,
nor a Polanski or Tomlinson. Karlsruhe is a provincial German opera
house. There is no getting away from the fact that it is not in the
premier league occupied by the likes of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne
or Frankfurt. Having said that, one can still experience the customary
thrills and emotional highs during the course of these fourteen wallet-packed
CDs. No frills, there is a complete synopsis and German libretto, but
no translation and absolutely no information about any of the cast.
But then Brilliant Classics have to keep their costs down (and after
all their complete Bach set runs to 160 discs) so that they can sell
cheaply.
The sound is good, orchestral balance kept, Bayreuth-like,
in the background unless they are unleashed in the preludes to each
act, the journeys to and from Nibelheim, or later on Siegfried’s trek
along the Rhine (an eventful journey it would appear, for he was Wolfgang
Neumann when he set off but Edward Cook when we next hear him in Götterdämmerung,
rather like Miss Elly in Dallas), the Ride of the Valkyries and
Siegfried’s Funeral March. Rheingold flags at times, but
the first act of Walküre gets off to a thrilling dash through
the forest before the exhausted Siegmund slumps down before Hunding’s
fireside. This act, the finest of all in The Ring in this reviewer’s
opinion, contains passion and eroticism as well as threats of death
and gloomy foreboding overshadowed by the sin of incest, and from ‘Winterstürme’
to the end of the act, including the extraction of the sword Nothung
from the ash tree, this set begins to catch fire. Therein lies its problem.
There are those whose singing is prone to dullness (such as Wegner’s
disappointingly effortless Wotan which, apart from his angry entry searching
for his errant daughter Brünnhilde in Act Three of Walküre,
never makes much impact) and, as noted above, one wonders why two tenors
are used for Siegfried.
As Sieglinde, Gabriela Maria Ronge is impassioned,
dramatically fiery and clearly dying for her Siegmund (Edward Cook,
who, in vocal terms, only just makes it to the end of the act) to come
along to rescue her from the wife-beater Hunding, threateningly sung
by Frode Olsen. Bryjak’s Alberich is also invested with a rich, dark
bass, full of evil menace. The three Rhine maidens, the cause of the
whole problem (why on earth do they tell Alberich that all he has to
do is to renounce love and then the world is virtually his?), cavort
and blend well in both the first and fourth evenings, Mime indulges
in the usual semi-bleating characterisations as he tries to insinuate
himself into Siegfried’s trust, while the eight daughters of Wotan "Hojotoho"
their way through the sky to grand effect, each of them making the most
of their brief solos and joining together with a wonderful combined
sound of decibels. The Woodbird (her name is Tiny Peters so we are evidently
talking wrens here) might have been one of them for she is rather too
full-throated and tight-toned in the upper register, while Ortrun Wenkel’s
Erda, never a purveyor of good news, is Mother Earth to the core. Fricka
is the one character who, under threat from being overshadowed, often
tends to come from behind when the Ring’s sopranos are judged (such
as Helga Dernesch, Gabriele Schnaut and above all Waltraud Meier) and
Zlatomira Nikolova is no exception on this set. Her encounter with Wotan
in the first scene of the second act of Walküre leaves no
holds barred in both dramatic and vocal terms, and even inspires Wegner
to get off his vocal backside to a limited degree.
As Siegfried (Mark 1) Wolfgang Neumann’s is a voice
you need to get used to, for he has two bad habits; his vibrato tends
to cost the pitch its focal core, when he sings softly it becomes almost
parlando (spoken) especially when he muses on the mother (Sieglinde)
he never knew; either that or he has a habit of shouting when singing
loudly. On the other hand Cook’s voice is not quite large enough but
is at least free of his Doppelgänger’s habit of shouting. As Brünnhilde
Carla Pohl’s bright soprano is at its best after twenty years rest asleep
atop her mountain, in the final act of Siegfried, her weakness
being one of forcing her sound and going sharp in the process.
In short this is not a set for Wagner devotees in search
of top class singing (the orchestra is however consistently very good),
but for those collectors who must have all of the complete sets available,
or for those who are as yet uninitiated into this miraculous music,
it is an inexpensive introduction without having to make do with just
excerpts, and for that alone one should be grateful.
Christopher Fifield
Siegfried - Wolfgang
Neumann/Edward Cook (tenor)