Siegfried (1876) [253.00]
Lance Ryan (tenor) - Siegfried; Nina Stemme (soprano) - Brünnhilde; Terje Stensvold (baritone) - Wanderer; Johannes Martin Kränzle (baritone) - Alberich; Peter Bronder (tenor) - Mime; Alexander Tsymbalyuk (bass) - Fafner; Anna Larsson (contralto) - Erda; Rinnat Moriah (soprano) - Woodbird
Orchestra of La Scala/Daniel Barenboim
rec. La Scala, Milan, October 2012
Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1
Picture Format: 16:9
DVD Format: NTSC
Subtitle languages: German (original language), English, French, Spanish, Italian, Korean
ARTHAUS MUSIK DVD 101695 [166.00 + 87.00]
I gave a rather mixed reception
to Barenboim’s La Scala Das Rheingold a few months back.
I was more impressed
with his Walküre which had jettisoned some of the more objectionable
features of the earlier production and was generally very good indeed.
However with this Siegfried a number of production problems with
Rheingold have resurfaced, and in general the performance does
not live up to that of Walküre.
Let’s take the more welcome elements first. The sets by Enrico
Bagnoli, which I welcomed in both Rheingold and Walküre,
get better and better as the cycle continues. The sense of omni-present
nature, so important to Wagner’s symbolism, is retained and indeed
enhanced. Mime’s forge is clearly set in the same forest as Fafner’s
lair. The constantly moving projections at the rear produce some thrilling
effects including a splendid magic fire in Act Three. It’s a vast
improvement on its disappointing realisation at the end of Walküre.
The Brünnhilde of Nina Stemme is every bit as thrilling as she
was in Walküre. The Erda of Anna Larsson, so impressive
in Rheingold, is even better in her scene at the opening of Act
Three with her extraordinary voice ranging freely from the lowest register
up to a ringing top A-flat as she confronts Wotan. Johannes Martin Kränzle
is once again an excellent Alberich, with his subtle and malevolent
approach bringing the part of the dispossessed and vengeful Nibelung
to exciting life. Barenboim’s conducting never draws attention
to itself by an idiosyncratic approach. Even when his tempi are sometimes
relatively unorthodox he nearly always makes them sound convincing.
The playing of the orchestra, who actually remain behind to applaud
Barenboim as he takes his curtain call, is invariably responsive and
heartfelt. That said, one might have welcomed more initial definition
from the timpani thundering out the diminished fifths at the climax
to the Act Two Prelude.
There are however a number of visual elements from Rheingold,
thankfully absent from Walküre, which resurface here in
Guy Cassiers’s staging. The troop of dancers which were often
intrusive in the earlier opera return after Siegfried has killed Fafner.
They remain throughout during his confrontation with Mime constructing
various cabbalistic and occult symbols to surround him. It may be the
producer’s intention to convey that Siegfried’s understanding
of Mime’s underlying meaning has been enhanced by the Tarnhelm
- which the dancers impersonated in Rheingold. Wagner’s
text here is clear that this new comprehension is the result of the
dragon’s blood on his tongue. Presumably this has worn off - or
he has brushed his teeth - by the time he confronts Hagen in Götterdämmerung.
If it is going to be suggested that it is the result of carrying the
Tarnhelm, he should presumably be aware of the Gibichung treachery from
the beginning. Similarly the Ring itself is conspicuous by its absence.
Instead Siegfried wears the same bejewelled gauntlet which we saw in
Rheingold. When this would get in the way he simply pushes it
unceremoniously further up his arm. As before, the back-projections
are used to undertake a number of changes of scene during the course
of the Acts. Mostly these are unobjectionable, but after the Wanderer
has left Mime the forge seems to grow another couple of upper storeys
- where Siegfried retires upstairs to smelt the sword. Suddenly we get
the impression of a nineteenth century factory, with Siegfried’s
hammering producing electric discharges through the metallic framework
and - perhaps not altogether surprisingly - seeming to set the whole
edifice on fire by the end of the Act. We also get the transformation
of Fafner from dragon back into a rather undersized giant after Siegfried
has killed him. This seems to have become a standard practice in modern
productions but - as I have observed on a number of previous occasions
- this gloss flies in the face of Wagner’s specific transformation
of the giant motif with its perfect fifth to the sinister dragon motif
with the fifth diminished, which does not change back even after
Fafner’s death. There is a similar moment of clear misapprehension
of Wagner’s musical symbolism during the prelude to Act Two, where
Wotan is seen lurking in the forest at the exact moment when the theme
of Alberich’s curse is given out by the trombones. Sometimes Cassiers
will anticipate the music, as when Fafner is seen stirring in the background
during Siegfried’s horn-call before his theme enters so
startlingly in the tubas. However such jarring inconsistencies are thankfully
rare, and Cassiers and Stemme really succeed in making the long orchestral
passage during Brünnhilde’s awakening thoroughly convincing.
In Rheingold René Pape had been a generally successful
Wotan, but he was ill during the run of Walküre and his
place was taken by the heroic but less subtle Vitalij Kowaljow. Here
we have a third singer in the role, and it has to be said that Terje
Stensvold is the least successful of the three. His voice generally
lacks heroic stature, and he has to force his tone during the opening
of Act Three. He never succeeds in dominating his confrontations with
Mime, Alberich, Siegfried or (especially) the heroically voiced Erda.
As before, he clearly has two functioning eyes, which makes nonsense
of the remarks of Siegfried when he meets him. During the opening of
his scene with Mime he moves too quickly through the solemn music -
this may be Barenboim’s fault - which simply fails to impart the
sense of gravitas that he should radiate.
In Rheingold the part of Fafner had been taken by the rather
small-voiced Timo Riihonen. Here he is replaced by the more solid-sounding
Alexander Tsymbalyuk whose voice from offstage sounds properly menacing.
It is hardly the singer’s fault that when he is required to turn
back into a giant and sing from onstage he sounds less impressive. Incidentally,
the piping Woodbird of Rinnat Moriah, similarly sung from offstage while
impersonated onstage by a dancer, is a model of clarity. A further substitution
is made in the role of Mime, taken in Rheingold by Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke
but here reassigned to Peter Bronder. This is a very real advantage.
Bronder, a strong singer, has plenty of character but never distorts
the music for the sake of dramatic effect and makes one realise just
how much singing the part really requires. His lowest register
- Wagner writes a lot of his music in this range - could have more body,
but otherwise he is excellent.
Unfortunately he is so good that he rather shows up his foster-son in
the shape of Lance Ryan’s Siegfried. When he first appears, indeed,
Ryan sounds very much like Bronder with much the same sort of pointed
delivery. Although he seems to get stronger as the opera progresses
- no sign of tiredness here - the sound always seems uncomfortably too
much like a bumped-up Mime than a real Heldentenor. Ryan is an
intelligent and musical singer - his hammering is a model of clarity
and accuracy - and he clearly wants to sound more lyrical, but
his voice is simply not made that way. Heroism he can manage perfectly
well, but sympathy for the character is harder to manufacture. While
he makes a conscientious effort to sing quietly in places, sometimes
his mezza voce threatens to topple over into outright falsetto
which distinctly militates against the vision of the young and flamboyant
hero. Nevertheless he has a great many good things going for him. He
is lithe, athletic and totally fearless about heights, at one point
jumping a good six feet from a rock down onto the stage below. He is
often a very subtle actor, even managing at times to suggest a sense
of sympathy for Mime which is rather touching. He knows just when to
let his volume rip, as at the end of the forging scene, without distorting
his tone or diction. Under the circumstances it is unfair to complain
that his wooing of Brünnhilde lacks the ideal sense of honeyed
lyrical sweetness; after all, one can’t have everything.
At the end of the day, and despite my expressed reservations, this La
Scala cycle remains a very satisfying production of the Ring
without too many of the modern excrescences which mar (for example)
Harry Küpfer’s Bayreuth production for Barenboim - although
that production, with its vision of the opera as set in a post-apocalyptic
industrial world, is the best segment of that cycle. For those who want
a more ‘traditional’ production, the old Metropolitan set
under Levine still takes quite a lot of beating. Siegfried Jerusalem
and James Morris as Siegfried and the Wanderer are generally more satisfactory
singers than Ryan and Stensvold are here. Otto Schenk’s stage
direction remains rather static, but the Met manage to provide the only
really convincing dragon in any of the video sets I have seen. Fafner
properly remains as a dragon throughout, with a real frisson
as he cries out Siegfried’s name at the point of his death.
The television production team at La Scala - a huge body of people -
generally manage to get the cameras pointing in the right direction
at the right time. Sometimes however we are given shots of the scenery
when we really should be looking at the singers. The subtitles, although
sometimes over-colloquial, are generally satisfactory.
There is a four-page essay by Michael Steinberg provided in the booklet
which makes out a good case for Cassiers and his production, but no
other extras are provided. Those who have been following Barenboim’s
cycle will have every reason to be satisfied with this DVD.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Masterwork Index: Siegfried
Support
us financially by purchasing this disc from |
|
 |
 |
 |
|