James Rutherford is the latest in a distinguished series of British and
Anglophone Wagnerian bass-baritones to follow in the footsteps of artists
such as Norman Bailey, Donald McIntyre, James Morris, Sir John Tomlinson and
Bryn Terfel. This recital presents him in a generally chronologically
arranged series of items concluding with the Farewell and Magic Fire Music
from
Die Walküre. Unfortunately the recording does not extend to
the employment of any additional singers, which means that we are deprived
of Amfortas’s first solo from the First Act of
Parsifal which might
have been preferable to the inclusion of the two purely orchestral items in
the shape of the
Flying Dutchman Overture and the Prelude to Act
Three of
Die Meistersinger. Not that there is anything wrong with
the way in which these pieces are presented, but it might have been better
to focus on the vocal merits of James Rutherford rather than Andrew Litton’s
orchestral Wagner, efficient and exciting by turns but not a real rival to
the multitude of other recordings of these items in the catalogue.
In fact Rutherford’s delivery of Amfortas’s lament over his dead father is
one of the real highlights of this disc, inwardly felt although cruelly
truncated just before the entry of the chorus. Indeed one or two of these
excerpts are cut off rather abruptly – Wolfram’s address to the Evening Star
is shorn of its long orchestral postlude, although the
Fliedermonolog gains a brief coda. Hans Sachs is another role with
which Rutherford feels real sympathy, and his shading of the texts during
the
Wahnmonolog is a model of geniality. Telramund’s brief outburst
is delivered with vehemence, but sheer power is not Rutherford’s main asset
and in the Farewell his opening address to Brünnhilde lacks the sheer heroic
weight of his predecessors; but then his delivery
Der Augen leuchtendes
Paar is beautifully lyrical and inwardly felt, with superlatively
delicate shading during the final bars. A controlled
vibrato on
sustained notes never shows any signs of degenerating into a wobble, and
Rutherford thankfully never resorts to any suspicion of a ‘Bayreuth bark’
even in the most strenuous passages.
There are one of two ‘production’ touches – the notated strikes of Wotan’s
spear on the rock before the
Magic Fire Music – but generally these
are ‘concert performances’ rather than dramatic ones. The Bergen
Philharmonic are not an orchestra one would normally associate with Wagner,
although their playing is sonorous if somewhat backward in the balance,
definitely placed
behind the singer. Andrew Litton’s conducting
throughout however is proficient rather than histrionically involved, aiming
for a smoothness of approach which underplays the drama during such passages
as
Wer meines Speeres Spitze fürchtet. One would have preferred to
encounter Rutherford in more extended scenes, if not complete roles; but
this disc nevertheless acts as an admirable ‘sampler’ of the work of a
singer whose assumption of the Wagnerian mantle is assured and highly
idiomatic.
BIS commendably supply full texts complete with English translation, and
the notes come in English, German and French.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
