Thu, Dec 10, 2015 page11

• Classical CD review

  • By Bradley Winterton / Contributing reporter
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  WAGNER, Das Rheingold, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and Soloists, NAXOS 8660374-75 [2 CDs]

  Those horns! Those harps! Those tubas! Those underwater Rhinemaidens, and Wotan, the supreme god with the difficult wife! I’ve always had more than a soft spot for Das Rheingold, even though Wagner himself tended to down-play it by calling it a mere prelude to the three gargantuan Ring operas that were to follow. It seems to me to have, among other things, all the nostalgia for a lost world that so memorably characterizes Lohengrin.

  These days there’s no shortage of complete Ring recordings, but few can have expected one from the relatively little-known Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. It’s true that when David Atherton was their resident conductor he coached them in a set of recordings of all Stravinsky’s orchestral music. Today, however, serious music-lovers in Hong Kong are more likely to complain of programs solely of music from the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings films.

  

  Wagner, Das Rheingold by Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and Soloists

  But a set of concert performances of Wagner’s Ring operas, starting with Das Rheingold earlier this year, and all to be issued on the budget, Hong Kong-based Naxos label, was news indeed. And on the evidence of this recently-released Rheingold recording it’s a project that has considerable virtues.

  To begin with, the orchestral playing under Jaap van Zweden is outstanding. Generally on the slow side, it never loses hold of the score’s innumerable melodies, and is always faithful to its intercutting rhythms. It’s very clearly recorded (by no means always the case elsewhere) and, most importantly, there is none of the crashing and deliberate rowdiness that mars even some very famous Ring recordings, Solti’s not excluded. It’s strong where it has to be strong, and fresh and incisive almost everywhere. On the orchestral side, in other words, a transparent lucidity is this recording’s greatest virtue.

  The conductor, the Hong Kong Philharmonic’s music director van Zweden, has a strong history when it comes to Wagner. The recording of his 2010 Parsifal with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, issued on Challenge Classics [CC 72519], was given five stars by the Guardian’s music critic, and it followed on similarly acclaimed performances of Lohengrin and Die Meistersinger.

  As for the soloists, there’s no doubt whatever that Matthias Goerne tops the bill. His rendering of Wotan is remarkable — always resonant, always full-throated, always lyrically persuasive. One can hardly wait for the two next operas, where Wotan (disguised as ‘The Wanderer’ in Siegfried) is the dominant presence. Famously, he doesn’t appear at all in the final opera, Gotterdammerung, with the implication that man has out-grown the gods, and must now make his decisions on his own.

  It’s become a cliche, incidentally, to say that Wotan is a complex character, riven with doubts and conflict. But this, while true, doesn’t really display itself until the second opera, Die Walkure. His wife Fricke, too, only comes into her own in that opera, where she dominates the second act in what some writers have described as the heart of the entire Ring drama. Michelle De Young nonetheless gives us in Das Rheingold a level and even foretaste of what’s to come.

  Following close behind Goerne’s Wotan comes Peter Sidhom as Alberich. His too is a magnificent characterization, capable of being snarling and resonant in quick succession. His oath rejecting love in the first scene is, not surprisingly, particularly notable.

  The production was lucky to get the services of Stephen Milling as Fafner, one of the giants (the other is Kwangchul Youn). Milling is always excellent, and was a particularly enthralling Hunding in the Copenhagen Ring [reviewed in Taipei Times May 2, 2010].

  For the rest, Kim Begley gives his all as Loge, generally singing his role rather than intoning it as briefly became the fashion. And David Cangelos’s Mime is more sympathetic than is sometimes the case.

  Das Rheingold lasts some two hours without an interval. As such it established a genre, it could be argued, leading to works such as Strauss’s Salome and Elektra, too long to be part of a two-opera evening, yet performed without intermission with ever-rising tension.

  As it happens, there’s another new Das Rheingold, from Deutsche Grammophon and featuring Simon Rattle and the Symphonie-orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, with Michael Volle as Wotan. Both this recording and the Naxos one made it into Presto Classical’s Top 100 recordings of this year, though neither in the event made it into the winning top 10.

  Wagner, of course, has his critics. The opera composer Rossini quipped that his music was characterized by a wonderful five minutes, followed by boring quarters of an hour. And someone in John Banville’s superb novel about Anthony Blunt, The Untouchable, says the entire Ring already appears to be ragged at the edges, presumably reflecting Banville’s own view. But performances, even concert ones, appear to sell out quickly, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic’s performances of Die Walkure in January are already almost fully-booked.

  This Das Rheingold has all the evidence of being the start of a formidable Ring cycle, and Naxos has made a smart move in obtaining the copyright in advance (as they were in obtaining the rights to the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic’s Shostakovich symphony cycle). The libretto, in German and English, is available while you listen, and the most famous Ring recordings — from Walter, Karajan, Levine, Boulez and many more — are always still there should you feel you need them.
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