Richard WAGNER (1813–1883)
Die Walküre (1854-6) [243:00]
Siegmund – Peter Seiffert (tenor)
Sieglinde – Petra Maria Schnitzer (soprano)
Hunding – Matti Salminen (bass)
Wotan – Juha Uusitalo (bass-baritone)
Fricka - Anna Larsson (mezzo)
Gerhilde – Bernadette Flaitz (soprano)
Ortlinde – Helen Huse Ralston (soprano)
Waltraute – Pilar Vazquez (soprano)
Schwerteleite – Christa Mayer (soprano)
Helmwige – Eugenia Bethencourt (soprano)
Siegrune – Heike Grötzinger (soprano)
Grimgerde – Manuela Bress (soprano)
Rossweisse – Hanna Esther Minutillo (soprano)
Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana/Zubin Mehta
rec. live, Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia, April/May 2007
Staged by La Fura dels Baus/Carlus Padrissa. Stage Director: Carlus Padrissa.
Video Creator: Franc Aleu. Staging and Acting Coordinator: Valentina Carrasco.
Stage Design: Roland Olbeter. Lighting: Peter van Praet. Costumes: Chu Uroz.
Video Director: Tiziano Mancini
Region Code: Universal. Sound Formats. PCM Stereo. DD 5.1, Bonus Track DD
2.0. Subtitles: German, French, English, Spanish: Booklet, English, French
and German.
Bonus Film - The Making of Walküre [27:00]
UNITEL CLASSICA 700708 [270:00]
The Valencia Ring continues apace with this splendid Walküre,
confirming earlier promise and raising high hopes for the rest of the cycle.
While the sheer excitement of La Fura dels Baus’ conception of Rheingold
may have gone down a notch or two it still packs a mighty punch and the musical
values of this production are superb.
It is wonderful to hear Peter Seiffert singing Siegmund. This set is worth
experiencing for his interpretation alone. He has long been the most mellifluous
of the current generation of Heldentenors as his Tannhäuser and Lohengrin
attest. He brings a honeyed smoothness to the role of Siegmund which comes
like balm to the ears. The truly incredible thing, though, is that he manages
to remain grizzled and heroic at the same time. This is no mere lover-boy
that we see appearing from the storm: he is indeed the son of a god and a
hero to boot. His Act 1 narration plumbs the depths of his misery and his
cries of Wälse! seem to go on for ever, making the hairs on the back
of your neck stand on end. However his Winterstürme is smoothly seductive
and his wooing of Sieglinde genuinely moving. He is perhaps at his finest
during the Todesverkundigung of Act 2 as this scene combines these two elements
most powerfully. He is matched here by the outstanding Brünnhilde of Jennifer
Wilson. Based on the strength of this performance alone Wilson deserves consideration
as one of the leading dramatic sopranos of our day. She is thoroughly inside
the role, from the fireworks of the opening Hojotohos to the lower tessitura
of Act 2. Every note is clear and assured and her vocal acting stands comparison
with any. Her voice is huge and steely in the Nilsson vein, but carries the
warmth and humanity of Dernesch or Behrens so that her transition from goddess
to mortal is heartbreaking but still utterly convincing. If she looks after
her voice then she should develop into a leading artist of our day.
Juha Uusitalo’s Wotan continues to astonish. It is difficult to imagine this
most titanic of roles being sung better today. His voice carries depth and
grandeur, reminiscent of the young Hotter, but he carries it with agility
and, where necessary, injects a lightness that points up key aspects of the
god’s character. The sheer scale of his and Wilson’s singing at the start
of Act 2 stands in marked contrast to that of the mortals in Act 1, underlining
that we are now in the presence of gods. His vocal acting is intense during
the dialogue with Fricka so that we can sense his resistance crumbling as
she wears him down. His control and pacing of the monologue is outstanding,
building to two shattering climaxes which never feel stressed. He tames the
Valkyries with extraordinary vocal power on his entry in Act 3, but the farewell
is infinitely tender without losing strength. This is an assumption to cherish.
Matti Salminen’s black-voiced Hunding is sinister but thoughtful and calculating
too, confirming that Salminen is still one of the very great Wagner basses.
Larsson’s Fricka remains shrill and insistent, but that suits her interpretation
of the character, and there is a highly characterful and hugely exciting band
of Valkyries. The only vocal disappointment comes from Petra Maria Schnitzer’s
Sieglinde who sounds unsteady and uncomfortable when the rest of her colleagues
shine with assurance. She still conveys passion and ardour at every turn but
musically she lacks that final degree of confidence and her O Herrstes
Wunder is disappointingly underplayed. That said, her vulnerability in
Act 1 is very convincing, as is the suggestion of how her marriage to Hunding
has damaged her.
One of the finest things about the Valencia Rheingold was the truly
excellent playing of the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana. If anything
they are even finer here, with surging strings, passionate winds and ultra-confident
brass. It is wonderful that such a top-class Wagner sound can come from so
young an orchestra. Mehta’s conducting remains masterful and assured. He lets
the tempo slacken at key moments where the adrenaline should flow, such as
the climax of the Act 1 love music or the fight scene of Act 2, but he makes
up for it with passages of brilliance such as an electrifying Act 2 Prelude
and wonderfully judged transitions in the long span of Act 3.
La Fura dels Baus’ production style remains very engaging here, though there
is less call for the jaw-dropping physicality that made Rheingold so
distinctive. The performers themselves – it seems reductive to call them dancers
– are used most actively on only three occasions. They carry the platform
on which Brünnhilde is put to sleep and their hand-held torches create her
ring of fire. At the end of Act 2 they are used to create a slightly puzzling
vertical image to accompany the fight scene - a classically inspired sculpture
of death, perhaps? - and in a visual coup de théâtre they form a human
demolition ball of fallen heroes to accompany The Ride of the Valkyries.
Elsewhere the main work is done by the astonishing video graphics that accompany
the action. It’s worth repeating just how visually spectacular most of these
animations are, real artworks in themselves. Often they simply illustrate
the action: for example, we burst through the forest with the exhausted Siegmund
during the Act 1 Prelude and we soar up into the stratosphere to accompany
the gods for the Act 2 Prelude. Hunding’s Ash Tree exists only on the screen
but it pulsates and glows like a living character. At other times the vast
screens provide a comment on the action: Wotan’s fury is accompanied by a
vast, blazing sun which is eclipsed during his cries of Das Ende! The
Ash Tree flowers with the Wälsungs’ names once they are revealed at the end
of Act 1, and a world spinning out of control accompanies most of the latter
part of Act 3. True, they don’t provide as much insight or excitement as they
did in Rheingold, but as in Rheingold they point up the all-important
mythical aspect of this Ring and I suspect that this would please the
composer a lot.
The only major criticism of the set, and it is a serious one, comes with the
camera-work. The editor who put this set together is excessively fond of cutting
and fading. He seems to be afraid to let the camera settle for too long on
any one view: instead we chop and change rapidly to a very unsettling degree
so that no sooner has the eye got used to one particular viewpoint than we
are swapped to another which is not necessarily better. It is deeply distracting,
and all the more infuriating because it tends to be worst at the most contemplative
moments, such as Wotan’s monologue and farewell and the opening of the Todesverkundigung
scene. The angles and cuttings are so badly chosen that during the battle
sequence of Act 2 it is all but impossible to follow exactly what is going
on. Perhaps I’ll learn to live with this on repeated viewings, but the viewer
really shouldn’t have to. It wasn’t a problem in Rheingold and let’s
hope that it isn’t for the upcoming Siegfried and Götterdämmerung.
Elsewhere on the technical front the picture quality is top notch and the
audio production is outstanding, achieving a fantastic effect with DD 5.1,
even if there is no DTS.
So with these reservations I can’t recommend this quite as heartily as Rheingold,
but it’s still well worth picking up for the spectacular staging and the outstanding
musical values. I have high hopes for the next instalments.
Simon Thompson