Boris Goldovsky used to give the most fascinating intermission features on the old Met broadcasts. Wish they’d rerun them. One of my favorites was his musical analysis of the Valkyrie scenes from Act III of Die Walküre, how Wagner paired and tripled and quadrupled the counterpoint to keep it interesting, both on their initial entrance and their entreaties to Brünnhilde (not to disobey Daddy) and to Wotan (not to punish big sister). It’s not just mush in those scenes, though it may feel like it while you’re in the theater waiting for the big duet finale.
This came back to me Friday night at the Sheen Center where, as it chanced, there was a staged performance of the whole act (it was repeated Saturday). Rossini, they say, was bitter when informed that Act II of his Guillaume Tell was being given at L’Opéra—“What! The whole act!” he cried—and we can imagine Wagner’s reaction to such a dismemberment. But Act I is often thus severed, which only requires three singers—Act III calls for eleven.
The Sheen Center is easy to find—it’s on Bleecker Street, around the corner from the site of two great performing venues, the Amato Opera House and CBGB’s, neither of which survives. I heard my first Oberto and my second Alzira at the Amato!
The producing organization of the Walküre was the Anthony Laciura Foundation’s performing wing, New York Dramatic Voices, a new one to me. My initial exposure has been a happy occasion, and I’ll certainly get on their mailing list for more. Imagine! Wagner, fully (if minimally) staged, performed by an expert reduction of 19 instruments (string light, understandably) and eleven young, loud singers, and not a wobble to be heard in the entire bunch. And the small-ish venue (twice the size of the Amato, actually) was packed, nary an empty seat—eat your heart out, Peter Gelb.
The conductor and, I assume, arranger was Matthew Lobaugh, and if there was a dull moment I missed it. There were many places where this cut-down orchestra might have been challenged or uncertain in putting Wagner’s sensitive effects through, but they were impressively expert—I thought they all deserved to be singled out for applause.
The stage director was Laura Alley and the lighting by David Aab. I really didn’t need the lights to flash—especially the ones right over the audience—every time Wotan tossed a cherry bomb—the key note should have been subtlety. I wanted to tell them: listen to the guy on the timpani. The drum rolls are there, but understated. We hear the earth shaking, but we don’t run for the door.
Among the singers—all of them fine, only the Sieglinde a bit underpowered—but hitting her with those three phrases in Act III without two previous acts to warm up is cruel and unusual—I was especially impressed, of course, by Joanna Parisi’s Brünnhilde and Virdell Williams’s Wotan—because they were the two with a whole lot to sing. Neither repeated their roles on Saturday, but I’m sure their replacements were also starry.
For the sake of openness, I should mention that I heard about this performance from Ms. Parisi, whose Lucrezia Borgia in Bushwick years ago impressed me greatly. Obviously the roles don’t have much in common, aside from whiffs of incest in both plots. But you know? Wagner wrote for singers trained in bel canto; his favorite Italian opera was Norma which, I believe, greatly influenced Götterdämerung. And Ms. Parisi’s voice is beautiful when she’s angry—Lucrezia is often irate—but quite capable of soaring through Brünnhilde’s desperate, pleading arguments with Wotan with a clean attack and useful metal. Some of her gentler moments could be more sensual, but she has the power for the role (she has sung the entire thing in Florida and Elsa in Utah).
Mr. Williams sings baritone roles like Scarpia and Rigoletto. He has the low notes for Wotan at least in this abbreviation of the part, but naturally one is more accustomed to the full basso depths on the more introspective phrases where Wotan begins to understand that his plotting and conniving have led him to his most tragic day and the loss of his two dearest children. Over a full orchestra, Mr. Williams might have had his work cut out for him; with 20 instruments to beat, he provided a very satisfying godly flavor.
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