| | Thanks, everyone, for your comments. If only I could have taken such a trip in reality. :-)
I do apologise for nearly causing the extinction of Mrs Branden! I would hate to have that marked against me - I might have to take down from its frame on my wall the endorsement she gave of my last effort here at SOLO, and I'd hate to have to do that.. :-)
Cass: I confess, not all the copies were obtained from my local music store - although Marbecks here in Auckland can take a well-deserved bow. Amazon, of course, has a fair selection if you local stores are less than useful.
What do I mean by my gratuitous swipe at Joan Sutherland's singing? Well, one needn't use subtitles when listening to Ms Sutherland since she doesn't try and sing the words in front of her: she sings vowels, not consonants, and even those barely related to those written for her parts. Responding to criticisms along these lines she once shot back that 'if you want drama, you should go see a play.' In my case, I choose (for the most part) to go see instead someone who does understand when they're singing that opera is dramatic. She makes a good Woodbird, though. :-)
Barbara: I too would love to see Domingo as Siegfried, even if he was ninety. Alas, that is unlikely now to happen on stage - and unlikely to be affordable if it were to happen - but it could well happen, and affordably, on DVD.
The 'Walkure' was the 1980 Boulez/Chereau Ring from Bayreuth with Peter Hofmann (who went on to sing Rock Classics!), New Zealander Donald McIntyre and Gwyneth Jones. All were apparently chosen for their acting rather than their singing, as is sometimes evident. The singing is mostly good, if occasionally idiosyncratic; the staging, apart from Act III is dramatic if a bit monochromatic; but unusually the singers actually act their roles, which really works with the close-ups afforded by DVD: Siegmund and Sieglinde actually convey that they're in love by both their singing and their acting, and when the curtain descends on Act I we're left to wonder if that was just acting! :-)
'Gotterdammerung' is the Met version under Levine, which for the most part is traditionally, if not to say, boringly,. staged. Costumes are execrable - Hildegarde Behrens' Brunnhilde appears to be wearing a sack for much of the performance - and staging difficulties are simply eschewed - there are now horse, for example. Siegfried Jerusalem's Siegfried is serviceable; Matti Salmonen's Hagen is electric. (The footnotes in the article are cunningly set up to link to the relevant Amazon pages should you wish for further details.)
Michael: You are dead right, as usual.
Marcus: As usual, you give me some work to do.
Not having yet had the benefit of seeing Richard unmasked by Howard you have the advantage on me there, but I can imagine the usual mud was flung, some of which should stick, but most of which is mostly undeserved. Wagner was in some ways an odious little man, (but so in many of the self-same ways was Shakespeare!) but he can hardly be held responsible as some authors would have it for the evils of Hitler, the Holocaust or the birth of Nazism. Once again, Marcus, I would counsel context when coming to terms with the Wagner legacy.
If you really do wish to understand the 'evil' behind the ideas of Wagner, both philosophical and musical, you might wish to avail yourself of a wonderfully clear book called The Tristan Chord by Brian Magee, which is the most balanced account of Wagner I've yet read. Magee is unique in being both a philosopher and a musician, which gives him, I might suggest, a little more insight than our friend Mr Goodall ( I wonder though if Howard is by any chance related to the ENO Wagnerian Reginald Goodall?) and unlike our friend Mr Wagner, he writes both well and simply.
James: If I bring my CD and DVD collection will you put an airline ticket in the post for me?? :-) If not <cough> I'm afraid I'll have to leave you and Barbara and ten others to enjoy the unique combination of Puccini and peyote you seem to be offering. :-)
Lindsay: Lindsay, Lindsay, Lindsay. As I said to you yesterday, I'm sure the charges of meretricious, meandering muck were really being directed at the melody-free maunderings of Mahler and Richard Strauss and the like. Once again, I would argue that Wagner has been unfairly attacked based largely on the failings of his followers.
:-)
(Edited by Peter Cresswell on 9/04, 8:42pm)
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