Selective Listening

Sam Shirakawa heard the Met's first Götterdämmerung of the season, but he didn't see it. He explains:

WAGNER: GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG
METROPOLITAN OPERA
25 APRIL 2009 Season Premiere

Have you ever felt glad that you didn’t get into an opera performance you really wanted to attend?

Through quirks of fortune, I was unable get to the Metropolitan Opera’s first performance this season of Götterdämmerung--which happened to take place on last Saturday´s broadcast matinee. So I tuned in to the radio at home--late--just in time for the Brünnhilde-Siegfried Duet that caps off the Prologue.

Ugh!

In my recent report on the Met’s first Siegfried of the season, I said that Christian Franz in the eponymous role had learned to refrain from squawking out notes, an annoying proclivity that had marred his previous performances, when I had heard him elsewhere as Siegfried.

I spoke too soon.

Apart from barking out note-less words here, there, and a lot, Franz was also afflicted on this occasion with a nasty wobble that often straddled at least two semi-tones.
Incipient motion sickness I was beginning to experience from that wobble was little helped by Katerina Dalayman’s squally Brünnhilde. She hit the top C in the duet squarely on target, but her mid-size voice appeared to be laboring fruitlessly under the weight of the role.

What to do?

Listening via radio or computer allows you do other things at the same time or just tune out. So, I opted for the latter and went outside to enjoy a beautiful spring afternoon--pitying, from time to time, those sea-worthy Wagnerites consigned to stay afloat in their seats at the Met.

When I returned home, the live performance was over, but a delayed transmission of the third act was about to begin online by way of a European station [Editor: Ireland's Lyric FM]. The Rhine Maidens were in good shape. A good omen maybe? If it was, Franz’ pneumatic delivery of the Hunting Narrative fell short of it. Some tender moments, yes, but I nonetheless found myself craving Siegfried's demise.
The Funeral Music came as an ear-cleanser. Levine’s Spell held the Met Orchestra in thrall. Great playing.

The phone rang, so I didn’t hear much until Brünnhilde’s Big Moment.
Dalayman had the energy for her Immolation Scene but not the gravitas. Rarely have I been so grateful for Brünnhilde to catch fire; this is no role for a pleasant, pushed-up mezzo. Several years ago, I heard Dalayman as Lisa in Pique Dame in Munich, and she was wonderful. She should stick with roles in which she sounds wonderful.

Judging from snippets I heard, John Tomlinson as Hagen was a study in malevolence, Margaret Jane Wray was a good Gutrune and Iain Paterson, making his Met debut as Gunther, was a revelation--a singer on the threshold. Don’t be surprised if he soon becomes a star Amfortas, Dutchman, and, of course, Sachs.

I am told the Schenk/Schneider-Siemsen/Langenfass production is not being dismantled after this season. Is the Met hedging its bets on the new production of the Ring, set for 2010? No matter. If the news proves true: O tidings of comfort!

© Sam Shirakawa

Lehman does Tristan....

An internet correspondent, REG, was in the house to hear Gary Lehman (hero of last seson's star-crossed Tristan run), sing his first Tristan of this season on Tuesday night (12/2/08), replacing an indisposed Peter Seiffert:

. . . . Almost as interesting was tonight's performance of Tristan. The MET, I think, is already experiencing revival-itis with this production, and much of the problem has to lie with Baron Danny-boy, who led an at-best fitful performance. When Mozart died, the young Beethoven, who had hoped to study with him and was instead shuttled off to an older and somewhat less-motivated Franz Josef Haydn, was told by his patrons, "Receive Mozart from the hands of Hadyn." I suppose in going to Danny-boy performances, I always expect to be somehow handed performances of the depth and complexity of Furtwangler, but in the event he almost consistently disappoints, and tonight was no exception. While I think as a pianist he remains, when he is in technical fettle, first-rate, his major limitation as a conductor is that he has, essentially, the attention span of a gnat - at any given moment, there can be a lovely emphasis (he particularly seems to favor the darker woodwinds, and the strings sounded heavenly towards the end of Act II when Tristan turns to Isolde and asks her if she will accompany him in exile), but he doesn't ever seem to 'see' these details against each other, or in terms of a larger structure, and so solecisms and musical tautologies abound....I thought that the entire first part of Act III might never end, although Gary Lehman himself did a wonderful job as Tristan. A pianist can get away with moment-to-moment insights in recital, in quicksilver differences in touch and musical underlinings, but a conductor cannot so easily do so. I thought the orchestra sounded well, but it didn't have either the glow that a great Levine performance can have, or, for that matter, the warmth I'd hoped to hear from the Baron.

As to casting, I thought Lehman did a more-than creditable job in the house. The sound isn't particularly clarion, or even highly colored - he is clearly not a pushed-up baritone - but he (almost) never tired, and he saved enough of himself to be impressive indeed on stage in Act III, even with a few moments where he lost focus. If Peter Gelb's Dram Shop ever opens, I'm afraid that Katarina Dalayman is most likely to be found at the Kool-Aid counter - she has almost all the notes, and she's obviously listened when people have told her to move, but as to the singing, it was largely dispassionate and, frankly, not much more than dutiful - if she felt the role, she certainly didn't share it. If Voigt has some moments of vocal frailty, she is still an Isolde in bearing and line, and can dominate the orchestra and the music where she has to. Michelle DeYoung is a fine singer, but I thought the voice smaller (or was the orchestra louder?) than last time around, and this is a tough role if you don't make a real impact in the middle of the voice. Rene Pape was passionate and made a lot of the words (particularly in the upper half of his voice), but though Marti Salminen isn't the superstar the Pape is, I thought Salminen's King Marke a far greater accomplishment - the voice was more solid, the bearing more regal, and interpretively Salminen knows that an effective interpretation starts from a single point of view, and not a kaleidescope of individual moments. But you know me, I'm not complaining.

The production has been tampered with a bit - most obviously the various-colors of lighting seem to have been eliminated in favor of a recourse at moments of emotion to yellow verging on chartreuse, and more unfortunately, the crespuscular darkness of Act II and the hieratic staging, which were all of a piece, have been sacrificed to something both more neutral, and naturalistic, at the cost of some of the sense of suspense and wonder in that critical scene.

Heads up to listeners to tomorrow's MET broadcast --- Mr. Lehman will be singing Tristan (finally getting his due...), but (and it's a big caveat) Pape has canceled and Youn is singing King Marke.

TRISTAN UND ISOLDE at the Metropolitan Opera

Sam Shirakawa has been to the Opening Night of the Met's run of Tristan und Isolde:

28 November 2008

A surprise saved Friday night's season premiere of Tristan und Isolde at the Met from terminal boredom:

René Pape has sung King Mark over a dozen times at the Met, and it would seem that he's old news. He is still too young for the part, but surprisingly, he is even more astonishing every time you hear him, and he turned out to be the glue that held a patchy performance together.

Headlining the new news, of course, was the house debut of Daniel Barenboim. It seems he's performed everywhere, except at the Met. He has recorded Tristan commercially, and numerous live performances and broadcasts of his forays into the work can be found on tape.

Remember that sampling of his way with Tristan back in 1989, when he assembled Hildegarde Behrens, Gary Lakes and L'Orchestre de Paris for a concert version of Act Two at Avery Fisher Hall?

If you don't remember, that may be the key to the disappointment I, at least, felt at Friday's performance. That long ago performance was not memorable, and neither was Friday night's.

Forget about those knee-jerk complaints that may come up: the orchestra was too loud, the sound synthesis was overly brass heavy, the textural contrasts were exaggerated. These are all signature characteristics of the Barenboim-the-Conductor brand. A lot of people love it and buy it, especially on CD where digital technology can produce aural miracles that have little to do with the source material. But no filter except denial can disguise the zits, warts and whoopsy-daisies exposing themselves mercilessly within the real-time exigencies of a live performance. On Friday, there was plenty of rhythmic smudging among the singers and vast stretches of listlessness that prevented the performance from taking off or shaping up into an organic whole. This, despite the Met orchestra playing as though its life depended on it. [During rehearsals several orchestra members commented on how exited they were to work with Barenboim.] Fabulous as the Met Orchestra always is, and no-less so for the wonderful English Horn solo by Pedro R. Diaz, it was left to Pape to provide rescue and respite.

Evidence of the Gestalt that Friday's performance was producing could best be seen in the droves of people departing, even during the first intermission. Does this say more about the departed than about brand DB? Barenboim brings them in, oh yes, but for those many who left, it apparently was not a night to remember.

Barenboim was not entirely to blame, unless he approved the casting, which he almost certainly must have. After all, he led the opera just two months ago with three of the principals -- Katarina Dalayman, Michelle DeYoung and Gerd Grochowski -- at Berlin's Staatsoper unter den Linden, where he is Music Director. (And another lead singer in that short string of performances is also in town at the moment.)

Let's face it folks: Dalayman is at best a B-line Isolde. Despite some attractive singing in the softer passages of the second act love duet, she failed to summon mortal rage in the cursing climax of the Narrative and delivered a diffident Liebestod. Her top notes were squally, her middle range middling, and her lower register thin. Dalayman was a laudable Brangaene when she made her Met debut in 1999, and I marveled at her Lisa in Pique Dame in Munich several years ago. Net-net though: Katya Darling, Isolde is not the way to go.

Peter Seiffert as Tristan is an appealing Wagner tenor and an effective stage personality, but he is developing a worrisome beat in his voice -- which also is showing signs of wear. He tired toward the end of his third act delirium. A few seasons ago, he sang one of the finest Tannhäusers that the Met has heard since the opera was revived in 1976. Why is he now palpably ruining his voice?

Michelle de Young reprises her well-received Brangaene from last season. She is one of the Met's brightest young singers, and she might well take a hard look at Dalayman's misstep in considering what roles she would be ill-advised to undertake.

Gerd Grochowski made an objection-free debut as Kurwenal. Stephen Gaertner was a serviceable Melot.

While Barenboim deservedly has won acclaim for his Wagner, I have always thought his true life resides at the piano. He is scheduled to perform Liszt's operatic transcriptions at the Met on 14 December. Now THAT should be a treat.

©Sam H. Shirakawa