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Opera UK, May 2013 |
Hugh Canning |
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Twilight of the Gods - The Ultimate Wagner Ring Collection |
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The
DG album's title will immediately be recognized as commercial hype of the
most cynical kind. At first glance, it is hard to work out who this
'Ultimate Wagner Collection' is for, but it soon becomes apparent when you
read Mike Ashman's booklet note, 'The Ring in Late Mythologies', which
attempts to persuade its purchasers that the Ring is relevant because it is
a forerunner of the Star Wars saga and the film version of Tolkien's The
Lord of the Rings'—for which read: 'Perhaps you saw the Met's Ring in the
movie theatre. Now buy the potted souvenir version on CD.' It is surprising
to find Ashman, one of the more readable and most knowledgeable British
writers on Wagner, making tenuous comparisons between Siegmund and Sieglinde
and Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, and between Mime and Yoda.
The
DG selection begins with Levine unfolding his plush orchestral underlay to
support some wonderful singers in Rheingold and Walküre. Eric Owens's
trenchant bass Alberich is a bit too nasal for my liking, and his German
vowels sound odd, but he is a vivid presence cavorting with a euphonious
trio of Rhinemaidens, and powerful in his Curse. Patricia Bardon delivers a
lyrical Erda's Warning with sensuously beautiful tone, devoid of contralto
hootiness, and Bryn Terfel's majestic Wotan presides over an excellent
family of Gods: Dwayne Croft, especially, makes a star turn of Donner's
'Heda, Heda, Hedo', but we hear far too little of his brother Richard
Croft's guileful and sweet-toned Loge. The highlight from Die
Walküre is Jonas Kaufmann's 'Winterstürme' and the succeeding exchanges with
Eva-Maria Westbroek's impassioned Sieglinde. With Terfel, these are singers
to compare with some of the finest on disc. Levine's Valkyries,
too, are an impressive troupe.
The vocal standard plummets after
Deborah Voigt's threadbare though reasonably accurate war-cry, and neither
her later contributions, nor those of Jay Hunter Morris's Siegfried—who may
not be Mime's son, but sounds very much like Gerhard Siegel's Nibelung — are
really what one expects from a house of the Met's international stature.
Morris was a late-ish replacement for Gary Lehmann, who replaced the
originally announced Ben Heppner, and he gets through the role without
accident, but Voigt's timbre sounds too light for Brünnhilde, and her once
big and bright jugendlich-dramatisch soprano now sounds worn and effortful. |
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