Def Man Glance
I cut my teeth on the Chéreau Ring when it was televised when I was high school, loved the last Met production because it is was über-traditional and saw Achim Freyer’s staging here in Los Angeles with everyone wearing clown makeup and reduced to Brechtian archetypes. I thought it was genius, baby
I knew I would love this new Met Ring too; after all, Cirque du Soleil put up their first tent here in my hometown of Santa Monica. I think their psychedelic mash-up of music and design and circus performers is as close as the general public will ever get to performance art. I followed the development of the “Machine” on the Met website. I couldn’t wait to see the whole thing but ended up actually having to finally see it on Blu-ray
Apparently, quite a lot.
Now, Lepage isn’t the first person to take a look at Richard Wagner’s opus profundis and decide to throw a big machine at it. Josef Svoboda had his magic car garage lift at Covent Garden in the 70’s. Peter Hall put a huge layer of the globe on hydraulic pivots at Bayreuth in the 80’s to fairly amazing effect.
But the Machine presents its own set of problems because it’s never utilized in a uniform fashion. It has some magical moments, don’t get me wrong. The very first image in Rheingold with the undulating horizon representing the river, the descent into Nibelheim, the way it morphs into a thicket of trees in Walkure, even the Act I set up in Siegfried.
But, for all of those, there’s the Walkure rock/glacier which really isn’t as iconic as it endeavors to be. By the end of Siegfried, with its overlay of 3D technology, I was thinking that it would have been better just to light it up in solid colors and abstracts shapes. Then we get Götterdämmerung and the Norns and the Hall of the Gibichungs and we’re literally spiralling out of control. The other problem is that anytime someone has a spotlight trained on them the nearby background is just a dull gray reflective surface, for hours and hours and hours..
All of this computer animation wedded to the video game programs that track movement just result in the pebbles on the floor of the Rhine sliding, clouds stirring in the wake of striding Gods and leaves on the forest floor in Siegfreid leaping about like they’re enchanted when stepped on.
Then, to top it off, everything is lighting up like a pair of kids’ sneakers. The gold lights up. When Friea is captured the Gods start lighting up like Hasbro action figures to show their energy draining. There’s a prop Nothung for the finale of the forging scene that’s illuminated on one side. The ring is a cheap cereal box toy. Supers walked on with torches in Götterdämmerung and it was surprising to see real fire.
Duracell is making a fortune on this show. I hope they had the good sense to merchandise all this stuff in the Met Gift Shop next to a kiosk of AA batteries. “Mama, I want lighting up Fricka and Wotan, Pleeeeease!”
M. Lepage’s biggest problem is that in order to install the Machine he’s bisected the Met stage and left himself a blocking area equivalent to a large runway during fashion week. The singers love it, however, because the Machine serves as a vocal sounding board like no other.
Then, with all this mountainous technology at his disposal we get the most flaccid representation of Fafner the dragon ever. I’ve seen inflatable Halloween store displays that were scarier. They should have called in the Jim Henson people. Total and complete fail. And don’t even get me started on the Woodbird.
Conversely, for all its failures on a scenic level, this might be one of the best sung Rings we’ve heard in a very long time. Unhappily, all that lovely vocalism emerges from the vicinity of costumes by Francois St-Aubin that are so heinously derivative they nearly scupper the entire project. Take Eric Owens as Alberich, I can’t recall ever having heard someone with a truly beautiful voice sing this part. If only he weren’t wearing a Hefty Bag with a zipper. Stephanie Blythe is formidable even if she is enthroned for all of Walküre like a Disney Villainess. What are the Rheinmaidens made up as, I ask? What’s with all the fishnet? Wait, I think I just answered my own question.
Jonas Kaufmann gives an amazing performance as Siegmund. He’s a tower of strength throughout Act I up to his very last line which defeats almost every tenor I’ve heard. He never puts a foot wrong for the whole performance. But, St-Aubin has this low-riding sash around his waist that makes it appear as if he has a potbelly. You have to work to make Kaufmann look bad. As his sister Eva-Maria Westbroek certainly isn’t going to erase the plush memories I have of some other Sieglindes but she’s well matched and brings the big line when it’s called for. By the way, they’re related by a wig. Like, they’re both wearing the same style in the same color. With some Walsungs it can be hard to tell but not this pair.
Despite a magnificent voice, the husky Hans Peter König as Fafner/Hunding/Hagen looks too much like Snuggles the Fabric Softener Bear to inspire any real dread. Which leads me to yet another question: what is it with all the bad guys in this production having dreadlocks? Are we racial profiling in Valhalla now?
Gerhard Siegel is a magnificent Mime and he gets a creepy staged prologue in Siegfried that I thought was one of the great original ideas in this production.
I actually felt sorry for Waltraud Meier (Waltraute) having to walk out on the Met stage in her Walküre get up like the Folies Bergère is doing a Wagner number. She doesn’t deserve that and she’s wasted on a production this slight..
Iain Patterson, who’s definitely brewing a Wotan, plays Gunther like Paul Henreid’s evil twin and makes it work while poor Wendy Bryn Harmer does triple duty as Freia/Ortlinde/ Gutrune and, in spite of a lovely voice, gets the absolute worst costume of the entire cycle in Gotterdammerung. This getup, which looks like a losing entry in the Zsa Zsa Gabor Queen of Outer Space evening gown competition, proves once and for all that, 1980s music videos notwithstanding, you can’t accessorize a lace bodysuit with a steel breastplate.
Jay Hunter Morris could be our great white hope (literally) as Siegfried. His tenor has a good cutting edge and he has the stamina. He’s certainly sincere even if he comes off a tad shallow but, that works in his favor considering the character he’s playing. I’d love to see him, and all of these singers, in a production with some strong direction. The fact that he’s garbed like a refugee from a Def Leppard concert circa 1982 doesn’t help matters.
Bryn Terfel’s Wotan in the Rheingold and Walküre are known entities but his Wanderer in Siegfried was his first and I find it his strongest performance of the three. It’s a great pleasure to hear his voice in this role even if he is dressed up like Merlin in a bus and truck Camelot. Certainly more baritone than basso, his essentially lyric instrument is still beautifully produced more than twenty years into his career, a major upgrade from the Bayreuth bark we get from the average Wotan.
I can’t say his characterization leaves an indelible impression on the role, but he manages a fatherly mien, plays mystical in Siegfried and avoids overt imperiousness. He also manages some absolutely stunning piano singing. If only someone could get him to stop projecting out of one side of his mouth.
Which brings us to our Brünnhilde, Deborah Voigt. Strangely, Gotterdammerung finds her in the best shape vocally and she delivers her surest performance there. I don’t know if it’s experience in the role or she was having a good night, or maybe the tessitura just sits better for her. The Immolation is credibly well sung. The voice was never really plangent on the bottom and that hasn’t changed.
Walküre is the weakest because her support just doesn’t seem constant and the lunges above the staff are more obvious. Her German sounds a little too precious to my ear and dramatically she doesn’t come close to developing the nobility that I wanted. Especially during the last act of Walküre where, if you turn off the subtitles, she looks like Dad is denying her prom tickets. Points though for singing the final moments from Grane’s back. Our Debbie is game.
Conducting duties are split evenly between James Levine and Fabio Luisi and although such baton-passing is less than ideal, they do compliment each other. Levine seems to have mellowed his forged from granite emphatic style for a slightly more transparent reading in the first two operas and Luisi follows suit. All the big set pieces are given their due although I find Luisi less compelling at times, especially in the longueurs of Siegfried. The Met Orchestra certainly knows what it’s doing.
Picture and sound on the Blu-ray are sharp. The sound is especially vivid and all the voices are extremely well balanced with the orchestra. I turned off the monitor a few times and it almost sounded like a studio recording. Gary Halvorson is the video director and there are a number of times where he really should have pulled all the way back and let the wide shot speak with the music.
At some of the big climaxes he’s stuck in a two shot or closer and it inhibits the theatrical effect. The beginning of “Winterstürme” and “Siegfried’s Funeral March” are two egregious examples of this. Also, there are moments when he zooms in for a closeup that reveals projections are bleeding onto the singers faces and it just make you think something’s seriously wrong with your television.
Each opera is fitted onto a single disc with no perceptible layer change which might be the greatest technical achievement mentioned here. You also get the documentary Wagner’s Dream as a bonus when you buy the whole set so you’ll be clear about who to blame when you’re through with the cycle.
We all know there are far more psychologically compelling versions out there but far fewer that attempt a traditional perspective on this work. It’s up to personal taste as far as the staging goes but musically these performances are very, very strong.
Photo: Ken Howard
Carisssssimo Patrick I have nothing but admiration and respect for you, especially since you wrote a wonderful review of the Met Elektra video of 1994, in which you give her due to the magnificent Elektra! But I cannot but recoil in horror at a review of a sacred piece, such as Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Niebelung is, and say that it is “musically” strong. This in a performance in which the inadequate Brunnhilde not only demonstrates again and again her unsuitability to sing this greatest of operatic roles, but actually falls completely apart in the most climactic moment of the last opera in the tetralogy, resulting in an embarrassing sequence in which none of the notes written by Wagner are actually sung. I am referring of course to the great Heilige Götter Himmlische Lenker sequence, in the middle of the second act of Gotterdammerung! It is of course one of the most difficult(if not THE most difficult!) passages in all of opera, encompassing more than two octaves of range, and forcing the singer to rise to astonishing, volcanic, high notes of rage and immediately descend to the depths of despair, and back again, over syncopated rhythms, and over a Wagnerian orchestra at full cry. It is a miracle of music writing, dramatically extraordinary, and of an uncanny beauty when sung by a singer with the requisite technical control to accomplish the extraordinary feat that Wagner requires!
The Brunnhilde in this set is simply unable to sing the written notes, and instead lunges and grasps and pulls and gropes, and devastatingly the notes simply do not come out. The musical line disappears, and she ends up mostly not singing, and what she does sing is nowhere what Wagner wrote!. It is totally embarrassing!!!!!!. Even more so, it is incredibly embarrassing and disrespectful to Wagner that the producers and engineers left such a wide blemish, offending the music for posterity, and giving new comers the impression that that is how it should go. They could and should have had patch-up sessions in which this outrage was corrected! That you do not mention this, and still call this a “musically” strong performance is puzzling. It is true that the other singers/artists should not be blamed for an embarrassing Brunnhilde, but still, Brunnhilde is the centerpiece and anchor of the entire tetralogy, and the Gotterdammerung Brunnhilde is the fulfillment of all the greatest attributes a singer could/should have musically! We know how this music should sound, from the very stage on which this outrage occurred, some 22 years earlier:
Heil’ge Götter, himmlische Lenker!
Rauntet ihr dies in eurem Rat?
Lehrt ihr mich Leiden, wie keiner sie litt?
Schuft ihr mir Schmach, wie nie sie geschmerzt?
Ratet nun Rache, wie nie sie gerast!
Zündet mir Zorn, wie noch nie er gezähmt!
Heißet Brünnhild’ ihr Herz zu zerbrechen,
den zu zertrümmern, der sie betrog!
Not all Brunnhildes could or need to be as great as Behrens was. Since the greatest Behrens, I have seen Linda Watson and Irene Theorin give a very creditable account of this fiendishly difficult passage, and even the substandard performance of this year’s Katarina Dalayman could be criticized for many things, but not for singing the wrong music! She also sang the correct notes, not gloriously, but sang the notes. You cannot claim to sing Brunnhilde and not be able to execute this passage correctly. It is too important to the musical and dramatic flow of the entire cycle!
Ah yes, back in the positively old-fashioned world where production values presumed the human imagination was far more potent and fecund than a Disney cartoon. If opera thinks it can draw younger audiences by emulating movies and carnival rides, it should seriously consider a few more car chases and a lot less singing. When opera takes it cues from Hollywood it becomes derivative and cluttered, strangely stilted and impotent. Love him or hate him Wagner is the pre-eminent rock star, first cause, and prime mover. With or without pyrotechnics he is seminal, no plagiarist he. I might be inclined to blame opera’s declension on it’s narcissistic and pecuniary fascination with filming itself. But take a look at earlier filmed versions, captured on stage, to see truly intoxicating atmospherics and magical performance. Done simply and cheaply, of course.
If opera thinks it can draw younger audiences by emulating movies and carnival rides…
No, “opera” doesn’t “think” so; it’s Peter Gelb and Lepage that think so. They offer their approach as a supposedly better alternative to “Eurotrash” regie, which they consider too political. Lepage said so quite clearly in his interview (which was mentioned on Parterre but I can no longer find).
But yes, I agree with you that when opera takes it cues from Hollywood it becomes derivative and cluttered, strangely stilted and impotent.
Thanks for the correction oedipe. I agree.
MarshieMarkII--You and I are birds of a feather when it comes to Wagner in general, and Gotterdammerung in particular. And I agree, it would have been nice to have a patch-up session to replace a piece or two during the second Act. But since you know my feelings about Debbie, and that I too worship at Hildegard’s altar, I’ll just say it was a good first outing in the role, and I know she’ll get better.
Oh, I can’t wait for Debbie to “get better.” Hmm. lol
And--if the costumes had been designed by someone like Yohji Yamamoto instead of the trashy designs they now wear, I think it would have made quite a difference. But, in a way, the lousy costume designs do fit the production.
Ya can’t win.
Carisssssimo Shelly, you have no idea how much I agonized thinking how to write what I wrote would affect YOU, someone I care for deeply. But my anger is with the producers that seem to so flippantly think that inferior product can be hoisted on unsuspecting victims just like that, without even bothering to fix problems, because after all, who cares, it’s all the same. Publicity will trump everything. It is an insult to Wagner and it is disgusting.
Poor Debbie must have been under enormous stress, and this particularly difficult passage just overcame her, but was it always like this? did she always have these issues or was it a function of HD/TV taping nerves? If the latter it is even more unforgivable that they didn’t bother to repair, and it is also an insult to Debbie. When Coca Cola flubbed ferociously the B in Recondita Armonia in the LIVE telecast of the Zeffirelli Tosca (because he had irresponsibly flown to the Academy Awards the night before!), they promptly scheduled a repair session and lo and behold the VHS tape sold for Home Theater was miraculously fixed. Why not this??????? This is the Second Act of Gotterdammerung or God’s sake, the pinnacle of Western Art!
MarshieMarkII--The second Act is truly the most perfect Act, and you and I will always treasure it. And Hildegard did it as only she could. God! I get shivers when I thing of how she sang that Act! And Electra. And the Kaiserin. And I get the same shivers when I think of how I heard Debbie sing the Liebestot in Chicago and Barcelona, or the Vier Letzte Lieder in Paris. As long as she is striving, I will continue to attend her performances, and you know why. So we will agree, always.
Here come the “you cannot claims”, the “it’s not possible to think thats” etc.
Oh gee whiz. I saw the Ring in the house, and I guess I can’t claim, or possibly say that I thought it was musically thrilling, second rate Voigt as Brunhilde notwithstanding. And Behrens may have been more striking as a performer, but she was an erratic singer, at her best. Hooty, oddly muffled tone, often too straight. I didn’t care for her singing any more than Voigt’s. No debating that low-quality Brunhildes are a let-down, but there’s a whole lot of the Ring where Brunhilde isn’t singing anyway.
BTW, with the picture that accompanies this article, is anyone else vaguely reminded of Dorothy and friends on their way to see the Wizard?
I saw Behrens’ Brünnhilde (s) and she was wonderful. How can anyone compare Voigt and Behrens in the Ring? OY!
I’ll give Behrens credit that she pleased many people who love opera just as much as I do. But I never understood her appeal as a singer. With Voigt it’s a little different. In certain rep I really enjoyed her. The Empress in Frau, for instance, or her Cassandre in Les Troyens back in 2004. But she has really fallen apart vocally in recent years.
So in a legalistic sense, I can say there’s no comparison between Behrens, whose singing I simply never liked, and Voigt, whose singing I used to like, but who is having serious difficulties and probably shouldn’t have signed on for Brunhilde. But I can’t say that I enjoyed Behrens’ singing more than Voigt’s.
Marshie: I agree that Voigt is the weak link in this Ring (though I haven’t watched GD yet) but the rest of the performances are all on a very high level — both the cast and the two conductors. So, I think Patrick’s comment regarding the musical values overall is still apt.
Unlike others here I can’t comment on this “Ring” having never seen it and missed the video though the general thrust seems to be that it missed the boat theatrically and musically. However one thing does puzzle me -- the constant references to Cirque du Soleil that I have seen in the comments since this production first saw light dawning over the “machine”. What exactly is the connection? I know that Cirque du Soleil originated in Quebec and first set up their tents there (not California) and that Robert Lapage is from Quebec. But that is a rather tenuous link. I know he staged one show for them in Las Vegas and another one of their touring shows but I think he may just have done a few other things for The Royal National Theatre of Great Britain, The Royal Swedish Dramatic Theatre, La Scala, Teatro Real, Royal Opera House, COC, SFO, various other companies plus 18 independent touring productions in various venues and as an actor, writer and director in various films. Please someone explain to me what it is about this production that is so “Cirque du Soleilish” as compared to the other things he has done?
Like Willym, I too missed the video, but this much I can say on the basis of YT clips: I would NOT like to attend a ring cycle that has a Bruenhilde in such poor vocal state, or a Wotan who chews scenery like there’s no tomorrow. As for poor Stephanie Blythe, I have seldom seen a Fricka who looked so uncomfortable and ridiculous (admittedly, not her fault): mean, authoritative, jealous, matronly, nagging, confused, power-hungry, bigoted, the whole darn range has been used by Frickas of the past, but not this “Cruella DeVil playing Fricka” seems to be peculiar to this Ring cycle. There are good ring cycle, and bad ring cycles, but this one seems have successfully combined an absolute stinker of a bad one with maximum fanfare and publicity.
ok, bad typing….
1. Mean, authoritative…
2. NOT this = this
3. good ring cycleS
4. seems TO have
Nice review, though I find it a bit too kind. I haven’t seen the videos of it but in the theater i found the first two installments (saw each three times two seasons ago) to be totally without insight or interest, dramatically and visually. Never have I ever been totally unmoved by the final 20 minutes of Die Walkure. It all felt so sterile and without significance or mood. Musically, it was absolutely top-level (except for the prima) and in one of the performances of walkure (the third of the run), Debbie actually upped her level and sang relatively OK, though she just doesn’t have it in her to do justice to the iconic moments. Jonas and Eva also gave a electrifying account of the first act that night. The rheingold was a joy to experience live just for the wonderful playing of the Met orchestra and luxurious casting, but after seeing what was effectively a concert staging of the second scene, I knew I’d be in for a long evening.
I can’t imagine ever sitting through this ring on video when almost any of the other ones available is preferable (valencia, copenhagen, kupfer, chereau, schenk, audi)
Agree totally with Scifisci. Ever since I sat through the Lepage abomination, I’ve been watching the Kupfer Ring. That production had a concept,and it’s a glorious.
Really fascinating to read people debating the merits of Behrens and Voigt, as though either one of them could sing this role at a level that would have been considered plausible a generation or two earlier. It’s rough on these singers that recordings exist from the time when the top contenders were Flagstad or Leider, and when the others whose names never got quite so famous could nevertheless sing Brünnhilde from start to finish with what now seems to be unattainable power, beauty and ease -- but they do exist, and they prove that it’s humanly possible to do this, and that the music sounds….well, let’s just say it realizes the score in a different way.
FWIW I would vote unhesitatingly for Behrens in the immediate comparison, though. She was a poor singer -- a sizeable voice with a few beautiful notes in it under the right conditions, but very patchy technique and many, many awkward moments, and “the right conditions” existed for her on far too few pages of the Ring. But I’d say she was a rare example -- maybe the only example, at this level of prominence -- of a singing actress whose acting really was so good that it overcame the vocal deficiencies to make a satisfying statement of an important role. Voigt is nowhere near that level of absorption and involvement -- she’s “game,” yes, and the main thing she communicates is how far “gameness” will or won’t get you in this music. If the same kind of person (i.e. “game,” hardworking, enthusiastic, but not particularly imaginative, not particularly able to channel deep feeling) sings the role with beauty and security, the drama and score will manage to speak. Was Birgit Nilsson really a good actress? I’m not all that sure she was, and I’m pretty sure she was not at Behrens’ level -- but because of the way she could sing, a basic sincerity and confidence were enough to let Wagner do the rest, and her performances were thrilling. I doubt there is anything a stage director can do -- whether straightforward or distortionist -- to unlock the drama the way singers like that can.
well, i am a self-confessed Nilssonite, so i can’t be impartial, but i kinda agree with you. i think nilsson was a *competent* (as opposed to a great) actress, and she was more comfortable in roles that had a touch of mystery (as in, God moves in mysterious ways, if you get my drift) about them (turandot, elektra, isolde, the “walkure” brunnie). she may have under-acted from time to time, but i am yet to see her overacting (well, there *is* that moustache-twirling lady macbeth, but even there the cold malice in her voice is overwhelming).
behrens was a wonderful singing actress, with uneven vocal capacity. however, she wasn’t the only wagnerian soprano who fits that description: i’d put martha moedl right up there with her. deborah voigt’s singing days are over. she is singing on her credit card.
a wonderful example of a fantastic singer (albeit in a different repertoire) who could not act to save her life: ebe stignani.
Interesting … I don’t agree with you completely, but thanks for letting me see some of my thoughts written out -- and in much more cohesive language & syntax than I could ever come up with.
- I liked Nilsson for personal reasons but not that much not on the stage (however, she was an excellent, personable & enthusiastic recital giver) -- still, I did prefer Nilsson to Behrens usually -- although the last decade of her career Nilsson struggled -- slightly (but noticeably) below pitch much of the time. The only perfs I liked with Behrens was the 1st time I heard her in a Rusalka from Dusseldorf and the last time I heard her, as Senta at the Met -- I wish she (and Voigt) had stayed on the lyric road instead of where they went.
- I saw Behrens in a number of roles in her later career. My intuitive reaction was usually: what is this gulping noise she is making? Is she trying to minimize the sqwaking harshness in her tone with some kind of lozenge or libation? But listening to her now -- as I have to put up with the sawing wood Brünnhildes of the past their primes Dalayman & Voigt, Théorin’s outerspace intonation, and worst of all: the totally amateurish, incompetent Bullock -- I think la Behrens would be quite welcome & succesful if she remanifested herself in prime condition these days!
“It’s rough on these singers that recordings exist from the time when the top contenders were Flagstad or Leider, and when the others whose names never got quite so famous could nevertheless sing Brünnhilde from start to finish with what now seems to be unattainable power, beauty and ease”
Indeed it is very rough that those recordings exist because they prove unequivocally that for example Frida Leider could sing the final scene of Siegfried with neither power, nor beauty, nor ease. Case in point the recording of Siegfried from 1928, very recently released on Guild in very good sound (available before on Pearl, and I have both versions) and that I heard again only last week, so I have very fresh in my memory banks. The first C in Ewig war ich is simply embarrassing, the way it is totally flubbed, and would be considered today an utter failure (amazing you don’t seem to notice). The second C at the very end, is only better because it doesn’t go awry, but that is because it lasts all of about 1 or 2 seconds, and it is incredibly thin and wiry. The required volcanic Bbs and Bs that precede it, in the final pages, are flat, thin and short, breaking completely the musical line. Ladies you can check yourselves, the recording does exist indeed. Similarly the ecstatic high C that caps the glorious Awakening Duet in Gotterdammerung, from the film at Bayreuth, is also barely touched and very thin, while Behrens on the same stage and during her very first role-assumption, sings the same C with an astounding ease, security and beauty, lasting for what seems like an endless interval of suspended time……
Now I happen to love Leider’s basic sound (I have every single one of her existing recordings), which is noble and beautiful, and I certainly appreciate her phrasing and overall musicality, in those passages where the voice is most responsive. But I’d be very hard pressed to make an argument that she could sing the role “from start to finish with what now seems to be unattainable power, beauty and ease”. And what Leider did well lasted for a relatively short time, as she came apart fairly young, due to the war and other personal factors. Furthermore, the quality of Leider’s voice was never as rich or opulent as Flagstad, who in her prime did have beauty, ease and security, in spades. However, while the beauty remained pretty much throughout her glorious career, the security and ease abandoned her pretty quickly, and started to drop high notes altogether on stage, or by having other singers doing it for her on recordings, so not perfect “from beginning to end” by a long shot.
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“But I’d say she [Behrens] was a rare example – maybe the only example, at this level of prominence – of a singing actress whose acting really was so good that it overcame the vocal deficiencies to make a satisfying statement of an important role.”
Now you can dislike Behrens’ voice production, technique or simply her timbre, de gustibus I say, and that would be that. But I cannot allow a statement as ridiculous as the one above unchallenged. Are you suggesting that a lover of Wagner’s MUSIC such as myself would be content with a great actress, who couldn’t sing?????? The reason why I like Behrens is above because of her glorious musicality, how she could turn a phrase into a miraculous musical experience, how she deployed her voice to always fill the grand Wagnerian line, whether in War es so schmaehlich, or shortly after in Gewahrte sein Auge, hörte sein Wort, ich vernahm des Helden heilige Not…(the fiendishly difficult weaving in and out of the passagio) the glorious Dies Eine musst du erhören…, every note of Siegfried Act III, but most spectacularly the final pages. The glorious Zu Neuen Taten, the sublime Leuchtet mir Siegfrieds Liebe and the awesome plunge into the chest on Walhalls strahlende Pracht (with Waltraute), the spectacular volcanic As and Bs in the transition to Siegfried/Gunther, and what else more to say about the breathtaking Act II, where she does complete, total, justice to the most difficult and exalted act in all of opera, with its ever escalating demands. After that is almost anticlimactic to talk about the still even more glorious phrase Sein Mannesgemahl bin ich, der ewige Eide er schwur, eh’ Siegfried je dich ersah, and then finally an incandescent Immolation from torch like hurled-out high notes in the Opening to the solemnity and nobility of the middle section, as only she could understand, and on to the melting phrases of the final pages, with the ever higher tessitura. And you think all of that was just “good acting”??????? And do you also think that the greatest conductors of her time chose her as Brunnhilde (Solti, Sawallisch, Levine, von Dohnanyi, Stein, Haitink, and Schneider and Runnicles both of whose careers she propelled forward), Elektra (Levine, Abbado, Sawallisch, Eschenbach, Ozawa, Woelser-Moest, Thielemann and a role for which she was also fought over by von Karajan and Boehm) and Leonore (von Karajan, Boehm, Solti, Goodall, Tennstedt, and Leinsdorf) just because she was a good “actress”? Don’t you think conductors would have wanted someone with whom TO MAKE MUSIC rather than a good actress with no voice???? Res Ipsa Loquitur.
Wow. Now THAT’s what I like to see. Not just a defense of Behrens, but a resounding acclamation!
This is precisely why I said that I concede that Behrens has pleased many people who love opera as much as I. It’s one of those situations where one must concede that that taste and perception are idiosyncratic.
The interesting thing about Behrens, for me, is what I call the “technique fallacy”. Many of us, and I include myself, presume that our ear can detect whether a person is singing in a healthy, sustainable manner. The first time I heard Behrens was in 1983 as Isolde. At that time, though a young and inexperienced man, I was certain that she could never last singing that way.
Well, in fact, she had been singing that way for a while and would go on singing that way for quite a while more. Over the years, I heard her sing Tosca, Leonore (Fidelio), Brunhilde, Elektra, and probably a few other things, all in that way which I thought could never last. I have heard other opera lovers speak with great authority on faulty technique that would bring ruin on the singer. Sometimes they have been wrong. I have been wrong.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t make me turn around and say “Oh gee whiz, I guess all that time I thought I wasn’t enjoying Behrens I really WAS enjoying her and just didn’t know it!” I wasn’t enjoying her. I didn’t like her singing, and I didn’t find it musical. Obviously some others did, including a long list of conductors. It really doesn’t change what I hear. Levine chose a Brunhilde I don’t care for. Parterre is full of complaints about casting. It’s not new.
But to MarshieMark, out of sincere curiosity and with respect for your passionate admiration of Behrens (and god knows I admire my own set of preferred artists very passionately), did you hear her Tosca and did you admire it? When I heard her Tosca I didn’t think she was dreadful, but simply not right for the part, and I think it reveals a lot about the expectations I bring. Not “Italianate”, etc. I am not trying to set you up, I am genuinely curious about someone whose tastes come with such a different set of expections.
I loved Behrens’ Brunnies. I really had no idea she was so “unmusical.” If I had know that, I would not have attended her performances.
Behrens was my first Tosca. Her Met video was one of the first opera videos I bought as a teen. I loved her. Now that I know opera better, I realise that she was not an ideal fit for the role (even then I could hear that her singing in the first act wasn’t as beautiful as it should have been). However, I get a real kick out of her Act II. Aside from her intensity as an actress and her great chemistry with Cornell MacNeil, I love the way her voice rides the big climaxes with such ease.
I’d be a little wary of accepting conductors’ choices of singers as being gold standards for a particular role. Remember Riccarelli’s Turandot? Crespin’s Walkuere Bruenhilde, after which she had sufficient sense to withdraw from the other two operas? Herva Nelli in practically *anything* she sang? A proposed “Aida” with Mirella Freni and Janet Baker (??!!)?
I think some conductors want to use younger, more pliant singers who’d agree with their every absurd wish, and ruin their voices in the process so that they won’t be able to recreate the role. Also, I am not surprised that von Karajan wanted Behrens: he had an almost pathological hatred for Nilsson who had trounced the Maestro in public way too often! I read a story somewhere where he sent her a telegram with several offers, dates, and a lecture on her duty to arts, to which she replied in 2 words: “Busy. Birgit”. THAT is what I call spirit, and that is why she remained the foremost heldensopran till the day she left the stage!
Kid, I hadn’t gotten the chance to address another rather unfortunate comment of yours regarding Crespin’s Brunnhilde. What can you possibly mean putting that in the same context as Ricciarelli’s Turandot and Herva Nelli’s exertions (or was it eruptions
)?
Crespin was an artist of the very highest caliber, and in fact her Walkure Brunnhilde is at the very top, among the most fully realized characterizations of the role ever! Her short top that might have been an issue in the other two operas is an issue not at all in Walkure, and quite the contrary her impeccable musicianship and phrasing are well-nigh ideal! The Todesverkuendigung is probably the very best sung ever, as she combines the tonal opulence of Flagstad with a textual understanding and characterization that Nilsson would never have in her wildest dreams. In the third act the all-important (and difficult) Gewahrte sein Auge, hörte sein Wort, ich vernahm des Helden heilige Not… is phrased as one would imagine Wagner wanted, and what a difference with the pedestrian and uninspired concoction that Nilsson offers for Solti, in the Decca recording. Behrens in Bayreuth 1985 also offers a miraculously phrased version of this same passage, which is where I became convinced that she was one of the greatest Brunnhildes ever (her Siegfried and Gotterdammerung ones had convinced me long before). In sum, I think only a Nilsson fanatic would dismiss the great Crespin with the flippant comment you made. And don’t forget that according to many people who saw both of them live, the Crespin gigantic voice of 1968 totally obliterated the vaunted Nilsson when they sang together in Act III (I am going by hearsay here since I never saw them live together obviously), and Nilsson’s main claim to fame has always been the size of the voice. The Crespin recording is a gift to humanity as it not only keeps her magnificent artistry for posterity, but also the astonishing Siegmund of Jon Vickers and of course the greatest von Karajan! [much as I adore Janowitz, I don’t think she is in the same league of the others in this role, sorry Armer]
That, MMII, is your opinion, and you are certainly welcome to it. Your other post (below) is certainly rich in operatic gossip, about which I know very little, so I will refrain from commenting on either.
My Clitissssima adorata, how can one not love you!!!! It is very irritating to me whenever Behrens is described as “unmusical”, albeit an opinion that is generally a minority opinion, as typically even people who don’t like her voice, at least acknowledge always her artistry, and inherent musicality, of course!. The very reasons why she was admired so much by her fellow artists, as I detailed in another post.
Re: Tosca, like Kashie and many many others, I thought she sang a pretty spectacular Second Act, with those volcanic high notes and amazing Cs in the torture scene, a very beautiful though sui generis Vissi d’arte, and an uberdramatic murder scene. Amazing that after all that growling, which went even beyond a typical chest voice, she would be able to still sing with a pristine, light voice for the Third Act Duet, which is again beautifully sung by any accounts. I agree with the problematic First Act, where the lack of Italianita is very apparent, and with an effect. I grew up with the recordings of first Tebaldi and then the Only Maria (in every single one of the versions from 1950 to 1965!) so of course I am not going to claim it was on that level. I am on record as saying that the more Maria wobbled the more I loved her, and likewise I sat through every single one of the Behrens Toscas in 1985 and 1987 at the Met and loved every single one of them
. I am very loyal to my divas, same with Leonie!. But no, I do not think that Behrens will be remembered for her Toscas. She tried! but she had many things going against her, first the lack of fluidity with the Italian (no if and buts, her French was impeccable but her Italian was not), and second and most important, as the vicious Zeffirelli queen told her “this is Rooooooma, viiiiiino, sunniness, Anna Magnani, not Hamburg!” In her crude vulgarity, for Hamburg the vicious queen probably meant to say, “this is not an opera for which you need to read Schopenhauer before you go to bed”, as Behrens did before her performances of Isolde. Behrens was an intellectual, and a great humanist to the core, someone who understood metaphysically the difference between right and wrong, she WAS Leonore and Brunnhilde, and would never be able to be the instinctive Tosca that Maria was for example. This must have reflected in her singing one way or the other! Of course the Behrens I adore is the Brunnhilde, the Leonore, and Elektra, Salome, Marie and despite the flawed staccatti Donna Anna!
Kid, that is a rather invidious statement that von Karajan only liked young singers because he hated Nilsson. First, Behrens was adored by many more of the greatest conductors than just von Karajan, who gave her very obviously her first big break, and with whom she also had a very early fall out. Behrens was ADORED by the greatest Dr Karl Boehm, Solti despite some frictions after what happened at Bayreuth, with her HUGE success and his utter failure, also adored her and sought her out after many years for the Farberin, recording with de luxe casting. Leonard Bernstein worshipped her, not only when they made music together, but he was a regular at her performances at the Met, and socialized with her whenever possible, where I personally witnessed his overwhelming love for her. His family asked for Behrens to sing at the BSO Tanglewood Memorials. Levine’s love is well known, and so poignantly expressed in the notes for the Elektra DVD, when we had already lost her, and he was feeling the beginnings of his own serious issues. Maazel adored her, as did von Dohnanyi, same with Abbado and Ozawa, and so on………
Nilsson must have not been loved by more than von Karajan though, because Dr Boehm made the point of NOT wanting her for the film of Elektra. His first choice was of course you guessed it! Behrens! Yes siree, and when Behrens refused the offer, Boehm then turned to Rysanek, causing Nilsson to break a friendship of thirty years, over simple petty jealousy, and unwarranted accusations. Indeed some heldensopran!.