I reviewed the Tannhäuser production currently onstage at the Met:
Could there be something like a Tannhäuser ‘curse’? Wagner fretted until the end of his life about how to improve his first opera inspired by medieval German sources. Like a beckoning Venus, the work tempted him at various points in his life to return and tinker away at what he perceived as its imperfections. Wagner’s most significant revision, fashioned for his operatic debut in Paris in 1861, spurred the most humiliating fiasco of his mature career – not because of the ‘content’ but because of protests in part related to Napoleon III’s policies involving the Austrian Empire….
Ludovic Morlot conducts the SSO and soprano Alexandra LoBianco in excerpts from Götterdämmerung; photo (c)Brandon Patoc
My Bachtrack review of opening night at Seattle Symphony, which paired pieces played on the orchestra’s first-ever concert in 1903 and at their concert inaugurating Benaroya Hall 25 years ago. The fact that about two-thirds of the seats remained empty didn’t dampen the musicians’s spirits, but what a pity that so many missed out on a substantial, gloriously played program — not the lineup of frothy showpieces that orchestras so often put together for their season curtain raiser.
Review:
Though it ended with the downfall of a whole civilization, the Seattle Symphony’s opening-night concert radiated the excitement of a brand new season just getting under way, with all its attendant fresh hopes.
Richard Wagner once described his trailblazing brand of opera as “deeds of music made visible.” The new production of “Das Rheingold” that opened Seattle Opera’s 60th season Saturday adds a literal twist to that concept by having the orchestra share the stage with the singers.
Greer Grimsley as Wotan in “Das Rheingold” at Minnesota Opera. Grimsley performs the role in the Seattle Opera run as well. (Cory Weaver)
Opening Seattle Opera’s 60th season this Saturday is a new production of Das Rheingold — staged here for the first time since 2013. It’s not the start of a new complete Ring but a stand-alone production. My Seattle Timespreview:
At McCaw Hall, the gods are preparing once again to enter Valhalla.
Stagings of Richard Wagner’s cycle of four interlinked operas, together known as “The Ring of the Nibelung,” are what put Seattle Opera on the international map almost half a century ago. But a full decade has elapsed since the “Ring” was last produced here. So to open the milestone 60th anniversary season, General Director Christina Scheppelmann decided to pay homage to a central part of the company’s legacy with “Das Rheingold,” the first installment of the “Ring” operas, in a stand-alone new production directed by Brian Staufenbiel. It runs Aug. 12-20.
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been channeling her passion for Richard Wagner into a podcast discussion on SWR2 in a three-episode series as part of Sprechen wir über Mord!? Merkel’s podcasts explore criminal contexts and motives in the Ring cycle. The podcasts are in German.
Angela Merkel: “The ring is so universally applicable to humanity that from family life to political life, you can always find things that just keep happening to us humans.”
Angela Merkel: “To claim that anyone is completely free of vanity, well, I wouldn’t say that for me either. Vanity is something that is quite inherent in people, but it also has to be restrained.”
Teatro Argentino de la Plata’s production of Tristan and Isolde. (Courtesy of Guillermo Genitti / Teatro Argentino de la Plata)
My Seattle Times story on the Tristan und Isolde production by Argentine director Marcelo Lombardero and colleagues, which opens Saturday at Seattle Opera:
Christina Scheppelmann, Seattle Opera’s general director, fervently believes that cross-cultural exchange is vital for the health of the art form. So she invited the prominent Argentinian stage director Marcelo Lombardero and his creative team to bring their vision to Seattle in a production of Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde” opening Oct. 15.
–The American Symphony Orchestra in collaboration with Marcus Roberts and the Modern Jazz Generation in United We Play, a short film presenting three world premieres of works for strings, jazz instrumentals, and piano composed by Roberts and commissioned by the ASO: America Has the Blues, Seeking Peace, and United We Play. It streams here for free through 21 February 2021.
United We Play was “inspired by the current turbulent times, and the belief that strength comes through adversity—where there is divide, there is also community. The project [presents] a musical, visual, and narrative digital experience that speaks to the future in a positive and hopeful way.”
As musicians, we have learned to depend on and trust one another in order to create something greater than any one of us could create alone. I believe that every time we listen to someone else’s voice we become stronger and better people. Given the current state of the world, I hope that the great musical collaboration we built with the ASO for United We Play will be used as a vehicle to encourage and demonstrate that strength.—Marcus Roberts
—Benjamin Britten’s other Henry James-inspired opera, Owen Wingrave, is part of Grange Park Opera’s interim season and is now being streamed here.
Filmed over five September days, director Stephen Medcalf explains: “A minimal crew maintained distancing in intimate domestic interiors and COVID restrictions required the cast to costume themselves. I’ve given full rein to the satirical, often blackly comic aspects of the opera. Alongside that there are three serious themes: the pressure from society to conform; the courage it takes to stand up for who we really are; the destructive love of family.”
In the words of Henry James: “A piece of ingenuity pure and simple, of cold artistic calculation, an amusette to catch those not easily caught.”
The opera is presented with the kind collaboration of Faber Music and The Britten Estate.
Britten did not own a TV when the work was broadcast on BBC2 on 16 May 1971. However, Decca presented him with a set two years later.
The work is an expression of Britten’s own pacifism, and was partly a response to the Vietnam War.
—Oregon Bach Festival available here: world premiere of An American Mosaic, composed by Richard Danielpour. The commission commemorates segments of the American population that have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Simone Dinnerstein performs the 15 piano miniatures and an array of accompanying Bach works.
–An all-Rihm concert from the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, streaming here. Stanley Dodds conducts this program:
Wolfgang Rihm Sphäre nach Studie für 6 Instrumentalisten (1993/2002)
Wolfgang Rihm Stabat Mater für Bariton und Viola
Wolfgang Rihm Male über Male 2 für Klarinette und 9 Instrumentalisten (2000/2008)
— 11 December Alexandre Bloch conducting the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker in Stravinsky/”Dumbarton Oaks”; Wagner/Siegfried Idyll; Poulenc/Sinfonietta, available here.
Musik Hans Werner Henze Text Hans-Ulrich Treichel nach Yukio Mishima Musikalische Leitung Simone Young Inszenierung Jossi Wieler & Sergio Morabito Bühne und Kostüme Anna Viebrock Licht Phoenix Mit Boecker, Skovhus, Lovell, Van Heyningen, Kim, Astakhov, Häßler
I had meant to post a link to my program essay (starts on Ins2) for the Met’s recent Wagner Week, which culminated in François Girard’s darkly visionary production from 2013, starring Jonas Kaufmann, Katarina Dalayman, Peter Matei, René Pape, and Evgeny Nikitin, with Daniele Gatti conducting.
The fall edition of Early Music America’s magazine carries my new article on encounters between historically informed performance and Romanticism:
Revolutions have a way of coming full circle. As the HIP movement began spreading more than half a century ago, its bracing challenge to conventional interpretations echoed the rebellious spirit of the 1960s…
On its YouTube channel, Oper Frankfurt is now streaming archival performances of its Ring cycle directed by Vera Nemirova — “the first production of Wagner’s Ring staged by a woman to achieve commercial distribution.” This Ring has been part of the company’s repertoire since the production was first completely introduced in 2012. Frankfurt’s general music director Sebastian Weigle conducts. The streams will be available until 31 May, along with a “Making-of” presentation on 26 May and a talk (in German) on the Ring on 28 May.
If that’s not sufficient for you Wagner fix, Opera North is also streaming its Ring — a concert presentation using video projections and conducted by Richard Farnes. Opera North offers this “Ring in a nutshell” guide.
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 