WAGNER’S VISION
Bayreuth
Various artists
Documents 297900 to 297949
In August we reviewed a set of historic recordings featuring Hans Hotter, the so-called Wotan of the Century. Now, at the end of 2013, the bicentenary of the birth of Richard Wagner, it’s appropriate to consider another massive boxed set of historic recordings of his operas.
This time it’s all from Bayreuth, the theater Wagner had built specifically for the performance of his works, and that ever since has been the high temple of all Wagnerites. There are 50 CDs in all, and although many items have been issued before, it makes a hugely attractive bundle nevertheless.
The range is vast, though mostly concentrating on the immediate post-war years. Hence you have stars such as Hotter himself, Wolfgang Windgassen, George London, Josef Greindl, Ramon Vinay, the young Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Martha Modl, Leonie Rysanek, Astrid Varnay and Birgit Nilsson.
There are 11 complete operas here, including the entire Ring cycle. This is made up of Clemens Krauss’ 1953 Das Rheingold (of which more below); Hans Knapertsbusch’s 1958 Die Walkure with Jon Vickers and Rysanek; Joseph Keilberth’s 1953 Siegfried with Windgassen, Hotter and Modl; and Rudolf Kempe’s 1960 Gotterdammerung with Hans Hopf and Birgit Nilsson.
As the entire corpus is available as MP3 downloads, the Ring opera I would recommend to beginners, and indeed to everyone, is Krauss’ fabulous Das Rheingold. It’s not that it’s by far the shortest of the four operas that makes it enticing — I personally wanted it to go on forever.
Firstly, the sound is remarkably good for something recorded from a stage performance 60 years ago. Next, Hotter as Wotan and Erich Witte as Loge (singing for once, rather than half-declaiming the role as later became fashionable) make an incomparable pair. But most importantly, Krauss coaxes from the Bayreuth orchestra the most astonishingly dynamic performance, going for Wagner’s various effects, whether they are semi-comic such as the entry of the giants Fasolt and Fafner, or sublime such as the “rainbow bridge” music at the end, with unparalleled energy and dedication. This really is a Das Rheingold to treasure.
The other opera that moved me almost to tears on this set was Lohengrin. The complete version given is from 1959, under the Croatian conductor Lavro von Matacic, with Sandor Konya as the swan knight and Elisabeth Gummer as Elsa. But what affected me were the extracts offered from two other recordings, those from Eugen Jochum in 1954 and Keilberth in 1953.
In these, the magical music of the vorspiel (introduction), so plangently echoed as the story moves towards its tragic climax, was wholly engrossing and beautiful. To think that this entire boxed set is selling for a mere US$70 (NT$2,074) is to wonder why supplies weren’t sold out on the day of issue.
An ultra-historic feature of the collection is the inclusion of several items recorded at Bayreuth’s Hotel Sonne in 1904. These are brief recital highlights sung by a single soloist to piano accompaniment, such as Emilie Feuge-Gleiss singing the wood-bird’s music from Siegfried. That these come from nearer Wagner’s day than ours takes my breath away.
One of this year’s biggest Wagner events was the new production of his final opera, Parsifal, at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Several things marked it out — Jonas Kaufmann in the title role, Rene Pape as Gurnemanz and Peter Mattei as Amfortas, plus the futuristic, “post-apocalyptic” setting of Francois Girard’s production.
The DVD of this production is yet to be released, but unsurprisingly the entire event has already been uploaded, complete, onto YouTube. A friend of mine refuses to go any more to the cinema transmissions of these Met operas because he considers banal the commentaries and interviews beforehand and in the intermissions. He’s right — their attempt to make difficult music seem cheerfully accessible is facile indeed. (Even conductor Daniele Gatti complains on camera about the short time he’s given to say why he’s devoted to this work). Someone needs to say, instead, that in order to appreciate Wagner’s operas long hours of training and familiarization are recommended. But at least on YouTube you can skip the PR.
So then, what are we to make of it all? Well, musically it’s magnificent. None of the soloists is less than excellent and, though it’s impossible not to miss James Levine on the podium, Gatti conducts the Met forces to admirable effect.
As for the production, the first act doesn’t bode well. The Grail knights become middle-aged men in white shirts and black trousers, while darkly-clad women stand around despite having nothing to sing.
How could such modern-day executives get so worked up about Parsifal shooting a swan? The “staged mass” which caused so much comment in the 19th century here becomes little more than a boardroom squabble.
Klingsor’s castle in Act Two is marked only by its bloody floor, and his flower-maidens by the stave each of them is made to hold. The final act returns to the opening setting, and though some magnificent cloudscapes add a sense of scale to things, the initial shortcomings by and large only reassert themselves.
Wagner’s Parsifal, overly symbolic and frequently taxing though it is, is pervaded by a sense of the loss of the age of faith, albeit with a hope for its possible return. Costumes from a remote era, and visual splendor generally, can only feed the imagination, which white shirts will never do, however many arms are raised to heaven in supposed adoration.
I wouldn’t like to think what Hans Hotter or Birgit Nilsson would have thought of it. For me it had the unfortunate effect of making me wonder if Nietzsche wasn’t right after all in thinking Parsifal represented a falling off from the master’s greatest work, substituting mere theatricality for genuine inspiration.
In every way, the Bayreuth boxed set offers far more of the genuine Wagner experience.
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