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New York Post, April 24, 2011 |
By JAMES JORDEN |
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Wagner: Die Walküre, Metropolitan Opera, 22. April 2011 |
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Met’s 'Die Walkure' is cursed
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In "Die Walkure," the second installment of Wagner’s four-part "Ring" cycle,
the god Wotan enlists his children to recover the stolen Ring of the
Nibelung, a source of infinite power carrying a deadly curse.
A
lesser curse dogged the divas of Friday night’s sold-out performance at the
Met. Deborah Voigt, as the valkyrie Brunnhilde, lost her footing on uneven
scaffolding and fell before singing a single note.
Later, debuting
soprano Eva Maria Westbroek took sick, leaving understudy Margaret Jane Wray
to finish her role of Sieglinde.
A more serious problem was James
Levine’s erratic conducting, unfocused in the first act and glacially slow
in the second. Even a superbly paced final act couldn’t dispel concerns
about the maestro’s health as he tottered out, frail and exhausted, to a
standing ovation.
At least the giant motorized metal slats of the $16
million set didn’t stall as they did in the previous "Das Rheingold." Richly
detailed projections morphed from snow-flecked forest to flame-encircled
mountain peak, with only an occasional clank or scurrying stagehand to break
the spell.
But director Robert Lepage’s obsession with eye-popping
visuals showed little concern for the work’s complex intellectual and moral
dimensions.
The finest performance of the night, and the
clear audience favorite, was Jonas Kaufmann’s role debut as Siegmund,
Wotan’s troubled mortal son. The German tenor deployed his dark, virile
voice with a precision that always sounds spontaneous, and created a moody
"loner" character far more subtle and nuanced than the usual heldentenor
posturing.
Voigt’s first-ever Brunnhilde found her soprano
metallic but penetrating. Even when dusting herself off after her pratfall
she looked fierce in a tousled red wig and the traditional warrior maiden
garb of silvery armor.
After some melodramatic lurching early in the
opera more appropriate to Sweeney Todd, bass-baritone Bryn Terfel joined
Voigt to build the emotional third act father-daughter encounter into the
opera’s musical and dramatic highlight. In sumptuous voice, he capped the
evening with a lyrical account of Wotan’s "farewell" aria.
For those
who complain that "they don’t sing like that anymore," there was Stephanie
Blythe, who does sing "like that" and then some. Her glamorous mezzo-soprano
sailed from thundering low notes to a gleaming top. Even in a campy getup
that suggested Queen Elizabeth I guest-starring on "Star Trek," her Fricka
projected the haughty grandeur of the queen of the gods.
The final
two installments of Wagner’s epic arrive next season; with any luck, they’ll
shake the curse on this "Ring" — Lepage’s shallow, flashy direction. In the
meantime, Wagnerians on a budget may want to check out the HD simulcast of
"Die Walkure" on May 14.
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