Re the Thielmann Ring on CD
Mike Scott Rohan
Arte, along the same lines as my BBC review but much longer; trust
it'll be of some interest. Bear in mind, please, that it was written
for a more general and less specialized readership than this group;
but feel free, as ever, to disagree! One thing I didn't mention; the
set is nicely produced and boxed, in a spartan sort of way -- full
libretto (Stewart Spencer tr.), minimal pictures (mostly on covers),
not one mention of Tankred Dorst in the notes, Thielmann lauded to the
skies. So:
In the (literally) thunderous, hothouse atmosphere of Bayreuth every
new staging becomes a focus for controversy, the Ring especially;
many seem principally concerned with courting it, and increasingly
those that don’t are dismissed as unworthy. This latest, by playwright
Tankred Dorst (replacing filmmaker Werner Herzog) was at least an
honest attempt, but it attracted limited enthusiasm for its hodgepodge
of period and modern imagery The musical side, however, was another
matter – one reason this reaches us on CD (with the conductor’s vocal
approval!) rather than Opus Arte’s usual DVDs. For many, Christian
Thielmann is the youthful heir to the grandiloquent old German
tradition exemplified by Knappertsbusch and Klemperer, and he goes
some way to justifying that here.
This is a big performance, often expansively paced. Great set-pieces
like the Walküre love duet and the Rhine Journey have a fine soaring
grandeur, even if some – the desperate Siegfried Act III prelude, the
Funeral March – seem oddly detached and unemotional. The scale is
there, the pace fine, the playing superb, so why this should be is a
mystery; but for a significant moment the dramatic intensity seems to
flag, like a less than involved concert fragment. Occasionally, too,
Thielmann seems to try and underline the awesome scale by resorting to
sudden tempo gearshifts; his massive galumphing rallentando suggests a
couple of the Valkyries are riding Clydesdales, and the Forging Song’s
bellows suddenly relax. He maintains dramatic tension in crucial areas
like Walküre Act II, but seems to slacken off in mid-Götterdämmerung.
Nevertheless, as a complete performance Thielmann held me at least as
well as my benchmark for modern Bayreuth, Barenboim – and with his
sweeping energy and translucent textures, sometimes better.
His singers, too, stood up surprisingly well. Linda Watson is a warm
Brünnhilde, less bright and intense but more powerful and secure than
Barenboim’s Anne Evans, despite a prevalent “beat”. In Siegfried
Stephen Gould is less striking and characterful than Siegfried
Jerusalem, caught fresh in the role, but he sounds more convincingly
young, and delivers ringing tone powerfully enough to make
strangulated top notes forgiveable, and even the occasional line that
vanishes when he runs out of puff; in Götterdämmerung he sounds
rougher and not so likeable, though he rises to a decent death scene.
As Wotan, Albert Dohmen’s splendidly heroic delivery, commanding but
tender, enhances his middleweight voice, happiest in Walküre’s higher
tessitura. He has a warmer tone than Barenboim’s John Tomlinson,
smoother and more accurate, but doesn’t have Tomlinson’s buccaneering,
blustering energy. His doomladen narrative is compelling but its
concluding fury unimpressive, the Farewell moving but often strained.
And, like so many Wotans today, such as Bryn Terfel, he lacks the bass
resonances for the Wanderer, so much so one wishes another singer
could have been found. Alberich is our superb character baritone
Andrew Shore, unusually light in his tone – caramel rather than bitter
chocolate -- but fiercely incisive and nuanced, and far livelier and
more energetic than the elderly bellowers who so often get cast today,
Barenboim’s not excepted. He generates the proper tragic grandeur,
lending evil a certain dignity.
It’s lent the appropriate opposite by Gerhard Siegel’s mercifully un-
cute Mime, more robust than usual and less whining, sounding acidulous
and nasty without undue vocal exaggeration. Arnold Bezuyen’s Loge,
likewise, is unusually but rightly lyrical, even to masking his
nastiness somewhat; he’s a touch underpowered, though. Hans-Peter
König is a big, black-voiced Hagen, vastly superior to Barenboim’s and
very much in the classic mould, with an excellent freedom throughout
his demanding range, but he could use more of a sinister edge – a
Ridderbusch rather than a Frick. He also makes an impressive Fafner –
certainly more so than Kwangchul Youn’s resonant but stolid Fasolt and
Hunding, the only low-voltage point in an otherwise fine Walküre Act
1. Endrik Wottrich’s keen if medium-weight Siegmund and Eva-Maria
Westbroek, a bright slightly tremulous Sieglinde, thoroughly eclipse
Barenboim’s Volsung twins.
Michelle Breedt’s Fricka is excellent, richer-voiced but somewhat less
malevolent than Linda Finnie – honours equal. Thielmann’s Donner and
Froh, on the other hand, outclass Barenboim’s lesser gods. Christa
Mayer is a decent Erda, but a rather impressive Waltraute, better
suited to her range. There’s a lot of multiple casting in this cycle;
the Rhinemaidens, Norns and Valkyries are a generally fresh-voiced,
young-sounding bunch, hardly surprising with so many singers in
common. Edith Haller scoops the pool as Freia, Gutrune, Norn and
Valkyrie – all fresh-voiced and appealing, if not desperately
individual.
One major flaw, though, may be symptom or partial cause of the
Gotterdammerung malaise, or both. This, almost unheard of for
Bayreuth, was the chorus. At first I thought the recording must be to
blame, as they still sound like the usual big, robust body of voices,
but a touch recessed. However, it goes deeper than that; big, yes, but
they just don’t generate the kind of excitement they’re supposed to.
The sensation is so close to Thielmann’s slack moments that one
suspects he’s to blame.
The recording, certainly, is generally a success, although it doesn’t
sound as homogenized as many attempts to capture the Bayreuth
acoustic. There’s much more orchestral detail, and the voices have
more immediacy. If the result is slightly less characterful, it still
sounds good and involving.
That, in part, is why this doesn’t really compare with Testament’s
Keilberth recording. It’s a generally superior reading with finer
singers, if sometimes less fresh and youthful, but the sound, good as
it is, is much more “historic” by comparison. Thielmann’s real rival
is indeed Barenboim, and their respective strengths and weaknesses
more or less even out, leaving them sharing the laurels for a modern
Bayreuth Ring – and Boulez dead in the Rhine. Newcomers may prefer the
airier grandeur of Thielmann’s; I did myself a lot of the time, but I
couldn’t help thinking that he should be able to do better one day.
Derrick Everett
...
Many thanks for the review. Now it's time to write that note to Santa ...
--
Derrick Everett
====== Writing from 59°54'N 10°37'E =======
http://www.monsalvat.no/index.htm
http://www.monsalvat.no/wagnerfaq.htm
Ion
On following two points I don't agree:
1. Andrew Shore's Alberich I find worst ever heard. Strangely he
reminds me of Graham Clark's appalling Mime in Barenboim's Siegfried.
2. Endrik Wottrich's Siegmund might eclipse Poul Elming in Barenboim's
Walkure, but I must mention he is not good enough for this role.
Sadly, as I listen to Keilberth's Ring, my enthusiasm for it ebbs,
mostly because of conducting. Once it was the flagship of my Rings,
now only the superb singing remains to my ears.....
Thanks again,
Ion
Mike Scott Rohan
Well, views are personal and disagreements inevitable, but calling
Shore's Alberich "the worst ever" seems more than a little extreme to
me. It's not an opinion shared by other professional critics I know
of, certainly, and it isn't in keeping with his distinguished track
record in other roles, live and recorded. Being *that* bad would be
unlikely. He is lighter than many, but by no means all -- he very much
resembles Benno Kusche on the Kempe Rheingold excerpts disc, who is
generally accepted as a very fine, even classic performance, except
that Shore has the larger voice. Another comparison would be to Derek
Hammond-Stroud on the Goodall Ring; his voice was smaller than
Shore's, but, like Shore, he used it with exceptional incisiveness and
character, to classic effect. The comparison to Graham Clark is again
mystifying, both because Shore's clean-cut delivery doesn't in the
least resemble Clark's deliberately harsh style, and because Clark,
though not to every taste, is not generally considered appalling. What
Shore doesn't do is bark, as so many Alberichs do these days, the role
being too often left to dried-up oldies like the superannuated Gunther
v. Kannen. That may be what you're missing; but in that case I suggest
you abandon your preconceptions and listen again.
And there's another reason to differ -- I have just been subjected to
a hundred times more justified claimant for the worst Alberich ever,
at least since acoustic recording days. This is Tomas Mowes on the
Weimar DVD Ring, a miracle of pitchless, toneless dry barking, with
little audible concern for the words. And he sings, if you'll forgive
the expression, the Wanderer as well.
I'm also surprised you find Wottrich that bad -- I did describe him as
medium-weight, but I've heard much worse, even at Bayreuth.
In general it's a bit hard to know what standards you're applying. If
you're measuring these singers against the very best of all time, then
certainly Wottrich isn't Melchior or Vickers, and Shore isn't
Neidlinger; but then nor do they have to be, and nobody was claiming
they were. There is, after all, no recording with Melchior,
Neidlinger, and so on, and there's no guarantee it would sound much
good if there were.
As to Keilberth, his Ring has perhaps been over-praised; he was
originally considered somewhat slack and long-winded. Something of the
praise undoubtedly came from finding how well he compared to today's
bloodless bunch, nevertheless. But I still feel that his rich,
sweeping flow makes his reading one of the best -- topped, as you say,
by those (mostly) splendid voices.
Mike Scott Rohan
> Den Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:17:48 -0800, skrev Mike Scott Rohan:
>
> ...
>
> Many thanks for the review. Now it's time to write that note to Santa ...
>
would be even more desirable.
Cheers,
Mike
Dogbert Dilbert
<mike.sco...@asgardpublishing.co.uk> said:
> As promised, there follows a look at the new Thielmann Ring on Opus
> Arte, along the same lines as my BBC review but much longer; trust
> it'll be of some interest. Bear in mind, please, that it was written
> for a more general and less specialized readership than this group;
> but feel free, as ever, to disagree! One thing I didn't mention; the
> set is nicely produced and boxed, in a spartan sort of way -- full
> libretto (Stewart Spencer tr.), minimal pictures (mostly on covers),
> not one mention of Tankred Dorst in the notes, Thielmann lauded to the
> skies. So:
>
> <big snip>
>
> That, in part, is why this doesn’t really compare with Testament’s
> Keilberth recording. It’s a generally superior reading with finer
> singers, if sometimes less fresh and youthful, but the sound, good as
> it is, is much more “historic” by comparison. Thielmann’s real rival
> is indeed Barenboim, and their respective strengths and weaknesses
> more or less even out, leaving them sharing the laurels for a modern
> Bayreuth Ring – and Boulez dead in the Rhine. Newcomers may prefer the
> airier grandeur of Thielmann’s; I did myself a lot of the time, but I
> couldn’t help thinking that he should be able to do better one day.
Thanks very much Mike: very interesting as always. Curious though that
this Ring was issued on CD and not filmed for release on DVD, which
almost seems to be the default format for Rings these days.
Dogbertd
bo...@boston.quik.com
> this Ring was issued on CD and not filmed for release on DVD, which
> almost seems to be the default format for Rings these days.
>
> Dogbertd
I would assume that it was largely a combination of scheduling, money,
and timing.
Even such a thing as the change of management could have had an
effect. Anyway, the important goal was to preserve Thielemann's
interpretation - and with a worthy orchestra. That they've done.
Mike Scott Rohan
> On 2009-12-03 13:17:48 +0000, Mike Scott Rohan
I strongly suspect it was because the production was so universally
trashed, and not just by the critics. From what I've seen of it
myself, not that much, I'd say 'mostly harmless' but not very
inspiring, and with one or two off-putting elements -- the bloated
female costumes, for example.
Hans Lick
That doesn't always stop them from putting it on DVD.
If the last Bayreuth Gotterdamerung is anything to go by.
Hans Lick