Wagner 200th Anniversary Concert - Bullock/Philharmonia/Davis, 22 May 2013

Royal Festival Hall

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Prelude to Act One

Tristan und Isolde: Prelude to Act One and ‘Liebestod’
Die Walküre: Act Three

Isolde, Brünnhilde – Susan Bullock

Sieglinde – Giselle Allen
Wotan – James Rutherford
Helmwige – Katherine Broderick
Gerhilde – Mariya Krywaniuk
Siegrune – Magdalen Ashman
Grimgerde – Antonia Sotgiu
Ortlinde – Elaine McKrill
Waltraute – Jennifer Johnston
Rossweisse – Maria Jones
Schwertleite – Miriam Sharrad

David Edwards (director)

David Holmes (lighting)

Philharmonia Orchestra

Sir Andrew Davis (director)

 
London’s two principal opera companies have offered a baffling near-silence as their response to Wagner’s two-hundredth anniversary. With ENO, once home to Reginald Goodall, one may delete the ‘near’; the Royal Opera has opted for a single production, in November, of Parsifal, whose casting does not exactly lift the spirits. There is certainly nothing anywhere near the composer’s birthday itself. The BBC Proms have valiantly stepped into the gap, offering concert performances of the Ring (Barenboim), Tristan und Isolde (Bychkov), Parsifal (Elder) and Tannhäuser (Runnicles). Those concerts, however, will not take place until July and August. For 22 May, London’s offering was a Philharmonia concert conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. Doubtless there was stiff competition for Wagner conductors on the day, and Chirstian Thielemann was otherwise occupied in Bayreuth, but it was difficult not to feel that someone with greater Wagerian credentials might at least have been a possibility. Bernard Haitink, for instance? Most of us would readily have swapped the aforementioned Parsifal to hear the Royal Opera’s erstwhile music director once again in Wagner.

 

Was I being unfair? The proof of the aural pudding would, as always, be in the hearing. Sadly, the Prelude to the first act of Die Meistersinger – not its ‘Overture’, as the programme insert had it – received an account, which, if undoubtedly preferable to the straightforward incomprehension Antonio Pappano had shown conducting the entire opera at Covent Garden, proved no more than Kapellmeister-ish. Timings as such tell one nothing, but it felt rushed, often more martial than celebratory. There was certainly no sense of midsummer blaze or indeed embers. The Philharmonia strings, though many in number, sometimes tended towards wiriness. Detail was either skated or fussed over. Though there was more fire towards the close, it was really too late by then. It doubtless had not helped that, earlier in the day, I had listened to Furtwängler conducting the same music in 1931, but even taking that into account, it was an undistinguished performance.

 

Rather to my surprise, the Tristan excerpts worked better. I remain sceptical, to put it mildly, about the wisdom of pairing the first act Prelude and the so-called ‘Liebestod’  (Liszt’s wretched description of Isolde’s Transfiguration). Though I am well aware of the distinguished precedents – even Furtwängler and Boulez have followed the practice – to my ears it jars. That said, both conductor and orchestra were on better form. Not only was their a fuller string sound but Davis now seemed to understand, certainly to communicate, that something was at stake. He struck a good balance between forward impulse and a more analytical approach to the score. Though certainly not plumbing any Furtwänglerian metaphysical depths, it was a satisfying enough musical experience. Susan Bullock, joining for the ‘Liebestod’, held her line well enough. At some times, she shaded sensitively; at others, she proved rather squally. The Philharmonia, however, offered beautifully shimmering and pulsating support. Whoever interposed immediately with a boorish ‘Bravo!’ should be condemned to listen to Verdi for the rest of Wagner’s anniversary year.

 

The second half was devoted to the third act of Die Walküre. It is not the Wagner act I should have chosen in such circumstances; surely the first act of the same drama works better on its own. But we had what we had, and presumably part of the idea was to offer the popular, if generally misunderstood, ‘Ride of the Valkyries’. Davis for the most part proved a competent guide, though there were some arbitrary-sounding slowings, though he offered few if any revelations. Whilst the Philharmonia played well enough, it sounded during the ‘Magic Fire Music’ as if someone had suddenly turned on a light-switch, such was the vividness of colour hitherto lacking. (That is not simply a matter of Wagner’s wondrous scoring at the end.) There is not much to say about David Edwards’s ‘semi-staging’, save that very good use was made of a very limited space, the direction being largely a matter of having singers come on, go off, and engage with each other. That they all did well, with the exception of James Rutherford’s Wotan. An excellent touch at the end was to have Brünnhilde go up behind the stage, to the organ, to be put to sleep. Handing her a very old-fashioned helmet at that point seemed odd: neither an obvious post-modern touch nor in keeping with the neutral dress otherwise on offer. Bullock had her moments, less audibly strained than she had been recently at Covent Garden. She made a good deal of Wagner’s text, though there were moments of relative vocal weakness. One cannot really judge a Sieglinde on the basis of the third act, but Giselle Allen offered an account more hochdramtisch than lyrical; ‘O hehrstes Wunder!’ sounded rushed, but that may have been Davis’s account. At any rate, what should be ecstatic was more matter-of-fact. The Valkyries were a good bunch, a couple of them somewhat weak, but others excellent indeed; Jennifer Johnston’s Waltraute particularly stood out. Rutherford’s Wotan, however, was a disappointment. Apparently glued to the score, and none too certain with it, there was no sign whatsoever of him having internalised the role; his performance was more akin to a first rehearsal for a minor oratorio. Tone production was often rather woolly too.

 

Had one been coming anew to Wagner, doubtless much would have impressed, and there may well have been some in the audience who were. (There were, as one might have expected, some decidedly peculiar people in the audience. A man seated next to me insisted on filming the first half and hour or so of the Walküre act, my glares having no effect, the ushers either not noticing or not caring. When finally he put his camera away, he replaced it with a skull-capped walking-stick.) London’s anniversary contribution remained, however, surprisingly low-key. The rest of the Wagner 200 celebrations promise much more, as do the Proms.

LPO/Elder - Elgar, The Dream of Gerontius, 26 January 2013

Royal Festival Hall

The Dream of Gerontius, op.38

 

Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano)

Paul Groves (tenor)

James Rutherford (bass-baritone)

Choir of Clare College, Cambridge

London Philharmonic Choir

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Sir Mark Elder (conductor)

This performance of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius had a great deal to recommend it. However, rather to my surprise, Mark Elder exhibited something of a tendency, especially later on, to sacrifice drama to beauty. Memories of Britten’s incendiary LSO recording continued to linger. The Prelude, like so much else of this account, clearly took after Parsifal. After a slightly bland opening, it blossomed richly, not least thanks to an excellent LPO viola section. (Violas, always at the very heart of the harmony, are far more crucial to the success of a performance than many realise, not least when it comes to Wagnerian and post-Wagnerian repertoire.) Splendidly implacable brass also gave a foretaste of travails to come.

 

Most of the first part proceeded splendidly thereafter. For instance, he chorus, ‘Be merciful,’ had a well-judged cumulative power, though I felt that there were times during Gerontius’s subsequent solo when Elder drove too hard, ringing the soul closer to Verdi than to Wagner. Amends were certainly made at the end of this part, however, when a slight tendency to linger proved entirely apt to the text. There were many details throughout to admire, not least excellent playing, again redolent of Parsifal, from the LPO woodwind. Elgar’s contrapuntal mastery told in Elder’s direction of the Demons’ Chorus; here drive was not at all out of place. The emergence of the ‘great tune’ was carefully prepared in the best sense.

 

Paul Groves proved a fine Gerontius, more at home than he had been in Das Lied von der Erde a few nights earlier. He offered sincerity, intelligence, and an excellent way with words. Perhaps it was too much to hope for the ringing tones of a classic Heldentenor on top of that; perhaps it was inappropriate even. After all, he had a good few ‘heroic’ moments, individually considered, and a degree of strain might well be argued to fit the text well. Sparing use of the head voice proved moving too. Initially I wondered whether something a little ‘more’, however indefinably so, might have been desirable from Sarah Connolly. However, it soon became apparent that consolation was developmental; the arc of her performance was fully considered and all the more powerful for it. ‘Yes – for one moment thou shalt see thy Lord,’ offered perhaps the most radiant singing of the evening, though I might equally have said that of her final solo, ‘Softly and gently, dearly-ransomed soul’. It set me thinking, not for the first time, how much Janet Baker’s repertoire seems to suit Connolly; one would never mistake the voices, but the Fach is clearly similar. (I should love to hear her as the Wood Dove in Gurrelieder.) Moreover, Connolly’s duetting with Groves relatively early on in the second part sounded as close to opera as Elgar would venture, The Spanish Lady notwithstanding. James Rutherford was a very late substitute for Brindley Sherratt, and brought off his parts with great aplomb, rich toned and full of presence. After the words, ‘To that glorious Home, where they shall ever gaze on Thee,’ I almost expected to hear a tenor respond, ‘Amfortas! Die Wunde!’

 

The London Philharmonic Choir and the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge were also on excellent form. At the first entry of the Assistants, they sounded very much as the best of the English choral tradition. Evensong did not sound so very far away, though writ large of course. They managed lightness equally well, clearly encouraged by Elder, for instance in parts of the first ‘Praise to the Holiest’, in which elements of earlier Romanticism, Mendelssohn and perhaps Schumann, came winningly to light. A truly ringing conclusion to its successor, with the words ‘Most sure in all His ways!’ was a tribute to conductor, orchestra, and chorus. It was something of a pity that Elder’s caressing way with what followed made it seem a little too much of an anti-climax, but I should not exaggerate, for there was seraphic beauty to be experienced – ironically – from Clare’s Voices on Earth. As I said, there was a great deal to admire. And if Newman’s text may be difficult for some to take, ultimately it was redeemed by Elgar’s music – and by the performers.