Siegfried, The Met, Oct 2011, Overview and documentary of Siegfried's "3d" effects

Nothing really new but the première will soon be upon us and I thought it was time to up the details

Lepage, discusses Siegfried plus 3d effects "teaser":

Cast

Conductor: James Levine
Brünnhilde: Deborah Voigt
Erda: Patricia Bardon
Siegfried: Gary Lehman
Mime: Gerhard Siegel
Wanderer: Bryn Terfel
Alberich: Eric Owens

Dates: (Sold out)

Thursday, October 27, 2011, 6:00 pm

Tuesday, November 1, 2011, 6:00 pm

Saturday, November 5, 2011, 12:00 pm

Saturday 5 November will be the MET in HD performance in a cinema (hopefully) near you. See below for details:

Siegfried in HD  click below for details

• U.S. Theaters
• Canada-Atlantic Provinces
• Canada-All Other Provinces

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A None Review: Siegfried Longborough (LFO) 2011

"Friend Seidl tells us about the performance of Siegfried in Munich, which to judge by his report, must have been thoroughly bad - they have gone out of their way it seems to do everything differently from Bayreuth. "I don't want to hear a word about it." R (Wagner) exclaims, and "What a curious fate these works have had" Cosima Wagner: Diaries - June 17 1878 (Trans: Geoffrey Skelton)

Longborough, Siegfried 23/07/11:

Going to the opera can be a traumatic experience - as visitors to Bayreuth's new  Tannhäuser production  have discovered this week.One can never can be sure before hand what sort of production to expect.  For those going to Longborough's Siegfried it is fairly safe to say they can expect a production that sits firmly in the mould of the neo-traditional Ring staging, verging on the traditional.  Alan Privett’s direction, and Kjell Torriset’s designs, allow Wagner’s music; the wonderful Negus and his orchestra; and the cast to tell this story – for this is a collaborative event. And it is also the story that Wagner wrote - not one imposed upon it by yet another opera director that feels that they know what it is all about , (or in many cases what they feel it should have been about). Now, this is not to say that the Ring is nothing more than a “fairy tale” – for it certainly is not – but, as I have said, Wagner wanted the audience to come to it’s true meaning without guidance – assuming of course by the end even he was still aware of it’s true meaning. As Wagner said himself, “I shall within these four evenings succeed in artistically conveying my purpose to the emotional -- not the critical -- understanding of the spectators.”  Myths and fairy tales are always about more than what they appear on the surface.  If they have a purpose other than to entertain, it is to “teach” us lessons, express our own inner desires and fears, etc. Within their pages – should we wish to look – they encompass the whole of human experience. But as I repeat constantly, we are all very different and how we perceive these lessons – and indeed what knowledge we take - is an individual processing event.  The point of myth and fairytales is not to impose a lesson but to allow the listener to acquire  knowledge on their own, and sometimes that knowledge may be outside of normal reasoning processes. This is what Privett seems to allow.

Using limited resources and space (compared to the MET or ROH for example) Alan Privett and Kjell Torriset emphasis the dreamlike quality of the ring – especially up to Brunnhilde’s awakening where Siegfried reaches maturity. Until this point, much of the stage is only partly lit (which has the effect on occasion of making things seem claustrophobic. I am still unsure whether this is deliberate or accidental). Shadows dominate – as they can do in darkest of dreams and the furthest reaches of consciousness. In act two for example, rope netting hangs across the front of the stage and until Siegfried arrives it stays this way (although occasionally being partly moved aside).  While this may be to simply emphasis the fact that we are in a forest with a dense growth obscuring our view it equally tends – at least to me – to emphasis the dream/myth like quality of what is taking place – especially at the beginning of this act where the only communication is between purely mythical constructs: dragons, gods, dwarfs and even the very forest itself. We are seeing things through the veil of myth perhaps? Possibly, it is certain that the forest itself in myth is a metaphor.

It is only in the final act that full use of light and the full area of the stage itself are used – in a manner reminiscent of the earliest “Wagner Brothers” New Bayreuth productions (there is even a small disk in the middle of the stage although this is not used in the same way as it was at Bayreuth). Siegfried has now fully awoken from his boyhood, he stands in the “light” suddenly he is no longer purely part of myth and legend but he is now making a new legend.  Indeed, we shall find in the next opera how greatly what he – and ultimately Brunnhilde – have done to begin to deconstruct the old myths and ultimately destroy them – although they are still not truly free of the Norn’s ever watchful gaze.

Ever present throughout the productions are the three silent Norns of Suzanne Firth. They have had a mixed reaction from the reviewers with only one, Nicholas Wroe at the Guardian, being highly enamored with them. I have to say that I do become nervous whenever I find extra members added to the cast (mimes, dancers or whatever) a la Grange Parks’ Tristan (Sorry Grange Park – I loved the production except for that – and the cardboard cutouts of course – see here). However,  at Longborough they worked remarkably well. Not only do they add to the staging but they  are without doubt central to its success – and hence I discuss them here within the context of the production design rather than with the cast. Ever present, yet not obtrusively so, they have multiple functions:  First they manage lighting (wonderfully), effects and scenery change. Second, they help remind us of an important part of the Ring: from the moment Alberich meets the Rheinmaidens every character's future is set -  with the exception, in part, of Siegfried and certainly Brunnhilde. The wheel of destiny is set in motion and no-one – even Erda, as we discover in Siegfried – can do anything to stop it. In Die Walkure, when Wotan tries to bring about Siegmund’s “free will” recovery of the ring, Freya points out that this has been manipulated by Wotan – Siegmund and Sieglinde have no more free will than the gods. Everything is predicted, everything is known.  The Norns in this production remind us of this and in a real sense become both the storytellers and observers they really are – or at least they will be until Gotterdammerung.   But thanks to Suzanne Firth’s wonderfully unobtrusive choreography they never dominate.  On a technical level, it is also difficult to see how Guy Hoare could have achieved some of the lighting effects he did without them or how many of Wagner’s demanding scene changes could have occurred.

This of course is not to say that the production is  without faults – even if they are minor. Up to the wonderfully realized  last act there can be a certain “rough around the edges” feel to some parts of the set – although this is not anywhere near  enough to distract from the opera as a whole. But one feels that this will easily be rectified as the season continues and will certainly be resolved for the full cycle in 2013. This is after all a massive drain on any opera house (SO’s ring cycle nearly bankrupted the company for example and Bayreuth has been bankrupted by the Ring at least once in its history).  The program contains the set designs for Siegfried and it is clear from these exactly what needs to be done to turn this into a highly attractive set indeed.  If I was to make one recommendation it would be that the first act is slightly cluttered and the removal of the odd extra bit of scenery would help greatly – but then this is only my opinion of course. Wagner needed to build an opera house to stage the Ring – and to call on the monetary resources of the royal families of Europe. To do what the Grahams have done at Longborough is extraordinary.

The costuming is in keeping with a traditional Ring staging – Brunnhilde even has a breastplate!  The only thing not expected is Mime’s costume which looks like it has come from a Mad Max movie. And yet, within the industrial setting of act one it works well. Siegfried may well be born of the natural world so loved by the Romantics – and his costuming suggests this – Mime is clearly of the industrial revolution – whose oppressiveness was so hated by the Romantics and Wagner especially.

Cast:

We only really get to be with the “real” Mime once in the entire opera, right at the beginning of the first act, when he is alone. Once again trying to forge a sword  that Siegfried will not break within moments. For the rest of the opera we see  and hear only the “public” face of Mime, the one who manipulates Siegfried and has been doing so all of his life.  The other Mime that we see - even when talking to Wotan in some respects – is the public Mime ,the frankly rather whiney, “caring”,  hard done by Mime (or so he pretends). As Siegfried mocks, cruelly, “… that shuffling and slinking, those eyelids blinking…”. Of course all of this is part of Mimes manipulation. I think for us to believe that Mime has managed to manipulate even the frankly dumb Siegfried, for his whole life, we must believe that the “real” Mime is able to do this. This is reflected in the opening of the ring and requires a good actor – both vocally and physically – to reflect this. Colin Judson manages to achieve this well and undergoes the transformation to the public Mime with skill – both vocally and physically. He is a great actor and his previous experience of this role is easy to see. Someone else has said this already, but it is indeed sad to see him go in act 2. Mime, if he is convincingly performed,  can “grow on you” despite his inherent evil. It does take a good performer to make this take place and Colin Judson is indeed such a performer and a fine singer also.

Was Wagner really thinking with any logic when he created and wrote for Siegfried?  Let us think about the demands for a moment. The role requires a heroic tenor able to sing for nearly five hours, act convincingly – and with great physicality – sound,  look and act for two and a half acts like an overgrown schoolboy, who then transforms in act 3 into a man  - and indeed the ultimate hero . Who must after hours of hard singing, sing alongside a soprano who has had a good sleep for the rest of the opera! It is for this reason that Siegfried is so difficult to cast in live performance - as so many reviews, listening to live broadcasts or going to the opera will tell you.  So, how is it that Longborough have managed to find one of the most amazing Siegfried’s in modern opera history? A tenor no one – including me – had ever heard of? A tenor who despite excellent previous reviews is unrecorded – anywhere?  A tenor who reminded one reviewer , partly, of Melchior (and there are similarities – he certainly shares the energy ,  heroism and vocal expressiveness and power of a young Melchior  - if, at the moment, he is  lighter of tone for what perhaps would be considered a typical  Wagnerian heldentenor).  Indeed, I have searched a rather extensive library of Wagner recordings here in an attempt to find anyone like him – and have had to go back to early 20 century recordings to find anything even close.  He  sings and acts with such energy that I thought in the beginning he was making the classic mistake of not pacing himself – but no. He maintained the same lyricism and energy (and excellent German) right through to the last act – only once or twice showing signs of tiredness when facing the fully refreshed – and always wonderful - Mellor. And what a joy to see a modern Siegfried so obviously enjoying himself  (even in the last act), able to act and manage to make us believe, both psychologically and vocally, the change in Siegfried in act three!  He even somehow manages to make Siegfried likable, or at least understandable – no easy task. Wherever you get the chance,  see this young man. 

Yesterday, Domingo announced his fight against classical music piracy – proven by falling record sales. Perhaps the classical recording industry would not be facing falling sales if they recorded more unknowns like Brenna instead of the same reworked  CDs by the same limited number of  – but well known – performers. And BBC Radio 3? Where were you? Would it really have been that much bother and cost to have recorded and broadcast this performance?  Do we really need to hear another Boheme from the ROH or Butterfly from the MET featuring more over exposed “stars”?

Phillip Joll is of course something of a legend to British Wagnerians and what a joy it was to see him back on form as Wotan – and much more impressive vocally than the last time I saw him a few years ago. Wotan is a role that he could no doubt do in his sleep and yet the energy,  gravitas and nobility that he brought to the wanderer was a joy. His encounter with Mime was excellently done. With Alberich in act 2 – the person responsible for so many of his problems – it was like two old enemies meeting again and handled wonderfully to construct a believable relationship. This was helped greatly by Nicholas Folwell’s fine Alberich – an Alberich that still has not learned anything even when confronted by Joll’s Wotan – a Wotan who has clearly grown to become wiser and more world weary than when they last met. At curtain call he seemed genuinely surprised with the rapturous greeting that met him – he should not have been.

I have already mentioned Nicholas Folwells fine Alberich. He is a suitable and menacing Alberich, convincingly sung and acted. I have always had a soft spot for Alberich and Folwell is believably both menacing and rather tragic a figure.

Julian Close makes his entry as Fafner on a piece of moving scaffolding (those poor Norns). It reminded me a little of the cranes that suspended so many of the performers at the Valencia Ring. Did it work? All companies struggle with the Dragon – even the METs from ’89. With all of its budget, Fafner  looked like an escaped monster from a 70’s TV science fiction series. Let me put it this way, I often find myself suppressing a giggle when yet another silly dragon appears on stage – I didn’t need to do that this time. Julian is a fine actor and played the role well – with wonderful power and tone. But then, as he is the METs Fafner in Lepage’s Siegfried next season perhaps this should not come as a surprise.

It’s always difficult for directors to know what to do with the Forest Bird. Stick her  up on a crane? Hang her from the rafters? It’s a brave performer that takes this role, but at least this time Allison Bell did not need to fear for her safety. She begins off stage and then enters stage left, dancing her way around Siegfried for all the world like Kate Bush in one of her late 70s videos! Oddly enough, she looks a little like a young Kate Bush – which is no bad thing. It is unusual to find a soprano that can also perform “modern” dance and was a refreshing change. She makes a more than pleasant Forest Bird vocally also.

And finally act 3 (the act that I know is the only reason some people go to Siegfried) The entrance of Evelyn Krahe’s Erda is done masterfully (act three is the most successful visually of this production).   It is simply too complex to describe, but Krahe’s frankly ill and somewhat statuesque entrance to Wotan’s command – being led by her three daughters – needs to be seen. Krahe’s frail and obviously “dying” Erda is something that must be seen and heard. The entire scene is well conceived and the interaction between Krahe and Joll believable.

Next, Alywn Mellor’s Brünnhilde!  One of the reasons that I went to Longborough was to see Mellor’s Brunnhilde following her magnificent Isolde at Grange Park (Oh dear, one hopes one is not becoming star stuck at my age) . My intent was to wait till 2013 and see the entire Ring at Longborough then.  Although after Siegfried I will be returning next year with no hesitation – the dates are already blanked out in my diary.  But what can I say? Magnificent?  Sublime? I have already said enough I think in my thoughts on her Isolde – see here. And yet, perhaps vocally she was on even finer form – and now against the forces of a greater and more powerful orchestra, under the control of one of Britain’s leading unsung Wagnerian conductors  and a wonderful Siegfried. Top, middle and bottom of her register were magnificent. Even with the excellent cast that the Grahams had somehow managed to assemble, on awaking it is as if a Brunnhilde of legend has entered the stage. It is no wonder that Seattle have selected her as their Brünnhilde for 2013. I think that not everyone is convinced by what I write about Mellor.  Well, you will have the chance to hear for yourself shortly as she is Sieglinde (once more working alongside the extraordinary Clive Bayley as Hunding) in Die Walkure in Opera North’s ongoing Ring Cycle. This I believe, like the Rheingold, will be broadcast live June 2012.

Anthony Negus and the LFO orchestra. What was most amazing was that it was nearly impossible to tell that you were listening to an orchestra nearly half the size as specified by Wagner. A reviewer somewhere mentioned it being a chamber orchestra – but this, thanks to Negus’s wonderful management - is a chamber orchestra in name and size only, but certainly not in sound.  While performing in an opera house that was built to deliberately mirror Bayreuth helps (or perhaps hinders  - see below),  there was all of the lushness that you would expect from a full sized world class, Wagner orchestra.  Negus – and the LFO orchestra - cannot be commended enough. And while it is true that there was a fine cast, one wonders, given the inexperience of Brenna in the role of Siegfried  for example, if they would have been as good under a lesser conductor. What is surprising about Negus is that although he received much of his Wagner training under Goodall (although of course he was also assistant conductor at Glyndebourne’s Meistersinger this year and has worked with many other world class conductors), his tempos are nothing like Goodalls. His command and understanding of Wagner’s opera may be similar, but he has far more forward momentum then Goodall - even in his later years. Goodall was “discovered” relatively late in his career as the conductor that he was, one wonders if it is a pattern repeating itself with Negus? If you wish to see him on the podium before LFO next year, he will be conducting WNO Marriage of Figaro February through to April next season.

And Finally, LFO itself. It is unusual for me to comment on a “venue” but LFO needs to be discussed a little before I conclude. There has been much made of LFO’s “amateurish nature”, that the opera house is a former “chicken shed”, that it is all highly “eccentric” etc. This needs to be clarified and addressed. If LFO was indeed ever a “chicken shed” it in no way resembles one now. Instead, you are met with a highly professional opera house – if one on the scale of Grange Park (they have similar capacities). What is extraordinary about it is its similarity – acoustically – to Bayreuth.  Bayreuth is designed (whether accidently or intuitively by Wagner is a matter of debate)  to add a certain “lushness” to the orchestra while at the same time favouring the voice (to some conductors disdain) . LFO is the same. Nowhere in England – and possibly anywhere in the world outside of Bayreuth – will you hear Wagner (and especially the Ring and Parsifal) sound the way Wagner intended them to be heard. This may sound like an exaggeration but it is true nevertheless.   Read any of the reviews and you will hear comments that the voice is favoured at LFO. It is the same at Bayreuth – only it is now so well established that few comment upon it. This allows LFO to use voices that anywhere else simply would not have the raw “power” to be heard against Wagner’s orchestral forces. It is thus possible for LFO to use singers who are highly lyrical but elsewhere would simply not have the vocal “heft” to succeed in Wagner – and this adds a very special dynamic. 

Even more extraordinary is the sheer determination of the Grahams. Within a few years they have gone from staging Mozart in their living room to building an opera house specifically to stage Wagner and then begin to stage a full Ring Cycle! Sheer insanity and yet they have done it. And the opera house itself is constantly developing,  only a few years ago the roof was raised – literally. And one senses they have not finished yet.

And finally for the British Summer Opera Festival “snobs” among you  - you know who you are. Yes, you with  Debrett’s Social Season page set as your homepage.  LFO offers the “full” experience. Set in fine gardens, in the middle of lush rolling countryside, it is easily on par with the Glyndebourne or Grange Park “experience”.

As noted in my opening remark – Wagner was often dismayed with what happened to his operas once they left his control. And Siegfried perhaps above all of his mature works, is the most difficult to stage. What is certain is that at LFO Siegfried is in safe and confident hands. Roll on 2012.

Disclaimer: There is a debate taking place about "sponsored" blogs over at Twitter at the moment - an unhealthy practice in my opinion. With that in mind I thought it worth making the following clear: I have no associations - monetarily or socially (except of course when I buy tickets from them) with LFO, the Grahams or anyone - as far as I am aware - associated with LFO). LFO has not approached me in  any way while I produce any article about it . I happen to be in the relatively comfortable position to be able to do this stuff purely for pleasure. Indeed, if I feel that I might write about an event I try to remain as far away from it's organisers as possible. While at Longborough for example,  we were sitting in a box very close to the Grahams but we did not even go and congratulate them on the performance - for this reason (well I am also an unsociable old so and so and a tad mean - it would be terrifying if I had to buy them drink -  but that's another issue).

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Siegfried: Longborough Festival Opera - Review of the Reviews

Yes, it's that time again. The critics have digested their picnics, metabolised their no doubt unhealthy consumption of alcohol (I will write an ode to the expense account one day - or failing that, to the liver of a journalist) returned their rented evening wear to Moss Bros (why are most arts reviewers male?) and faced off with their editors about word limits (not something that I would envy - as readers of my more than verbose ramblings will attest). Emerging from darkened, smoke filled rooms, copy in hand (well in the 21st Century they are more likely to have pressed "send" on their Apple Note Books, but you know what I mean) the votes are in. Rising majestically from their royal seats, togas flung nonchalantly to one side (although not to far to one side one hopes), thumbs posed - up or down?

But, before we start, the usual words of warning: Perception and information processing is not uniform across all individuals (after all, isn't that what makes us "individual" and why Buddhists spend so much time in meditation?). Each reviewer is influenced, as I know you are aware but is so easy to forget, by their past present and even perhaps future experiences, a repository of all those little quirks , likes and dislikes, physiological and psychological perfections and indeed imperfections. Look for patterns in reviews is my motto - look for patterns and therein may lay some resemblance of the "truth" - whatever that may be. One might also notice that the Times and the Telegraph are conspicuous by their absence. This is no doubt because they are simply slow typists (I know from twitter that the Telegraph descended on LFO yesterday) I was going to wait but alas my own "none review" is growing impatient to be typed - and I wished to do this first. Also, there is both enough quantity and quality already here to do - although it would have been nice to add Michael Tanners thoughts over at the Spectator. Perhaps later. So, with that in mind, onward to the judges.

Production

Given the limited budget that LFO operates under and the size of the stage there was bound to be some disagreement about the staging one supposes - but then in opera productions - especially Wagner - there is never likely to be agreement.

Nicholas Wroe at the Guardian (NW-G) enjoyed the simplicity of the sets saying: "Kjell Torriset's set contrasts hard scaffolding with the softness of fabric, Guy Hoare's lighting adds depth, and the balance of stark simplicity against the richness of the score, with all its psychological and metaphorical allusions was always artful." Of the "Norns" (every present at LFOs ring cycle) he was equally impressed and indeed found them central to the production: "Key to the integrity of this staging is the role of the three Norns, the mythological spinners of the thread of life: an almost constant presence in head-to-toe black, subtly choreographed by Suzanne Firth, observing and assisting, moving props and scenery, they point up the centrality of the emotions with great economy of line"

Over at the Stage George Hall (S-GH) was equally impressed although not as enamoured with the Norns: "Alan Privett’s staging, designed by the Norwegian artist Kjell Torriset, has some sparse, limited sections - the three additional actors, dressed like stage attendants in a Noh production, can seem intrusive. Yet scene after the scene realises the essential meaning of the work in a semi-traditional, simple way. The entire third act is a triumph."

At The Arts Desk, Stephen Walsh (AD-SW) finds "'Nature, such a crucial aspect of Wagner’s dramaturgy, is nowhere to be seen' He goes on: Like many modern directors, Privett (with designer Kjell Torriset) rejects the great outdoors in favour of quasi-interiors littered with bric-a-brac, not all of it obviously relevant to the plot in hand, so that an already cramped stage becomes an obstacle course of gantries and scaffolding, criss-cross ramps, and in the first act a huge furnace door, far downstage, which also oddly enough serves as an entrance and exit." He wasn't keen on Fafner either: "Fafner the dragon, grandly sung by Julian Close, trundles on atop a cherry-picker scaffold tower, a most disappointing adversary for our eager young hero"


At the other stage - Whats On Stage - Simon Thomas (WOS - ST) considered the staging merely "functional" and even went as far as to suggest the second act was "semi-staged" (What would he have made of the Wagner Brothers "New Bayreuth Style"?). But then suggests that: "Alan Privett’s production is strictly functional, beginning with bare scaffolding combined with a burnished disc which harks back to the industrial setting of Patrice Chereau’s 1976 Bayreuth cycle"! Going on to say: "The opening of the final act is the most pleasing visually, with a raked platform that slides apart to let out an eerily effective Erda" So he might have liked the the Wagner Brothers productions after all.

Mark Ronan (MR) at his Theatre Reviews blog is more interested in the performance (not a bad thing) only commenting on the act one staging: "The Act I set with its huge circular furnace door makes a strong impression, and in forging the sword, Siegfried hammered like a percussionist with fine musical effect"
Performance:

Daniel Brenna - Siegfried

It must be said that everyone was unanimous in their praise for this productions Siegfried:

Says WOS-ST: "The casting of the central role in Siegfried, a headache for any opera company these days, is a considerable challenge for a small house like the Cotswolds-based Longborough Festival Opera. What a coup if they could not only cast it but unearth a new tenor who will go on to shine in the role around the world. They might just have done that."

He goes on: "American tenor Daniel Brenna bounds on in Act 1 and bounces around like a chubby schoolboy, showing so much youthful exuberance that you can’t help wondering if he’ll last the night. But, apart from showing signs of wear at the very end of this first performance, he certainly stayed the course. The paradox of the role is that the voice needs maturity, which Brenna’s bright, sweet sound will gain over time but, in the meantime, how refreshing to have a Siegfried who actually looks as though he could be Brünnhilde’s nephew rather than her father. His acting needs some attention (far too much teenagerish flouncing and grimacing which fails to convince) but a new, genuinely youthful Siegfried has arrived and it’s something to be celebrated"

While over at the Guardian: In Daniel Brenna, Longborough has a young Siegfried of irrepressible physical and vocal energy. Tall and impetuous, his journey from petulant youth towards manhood and love was wholly confident, only less convincing expressive lyrical moments betraying debut nerves. The final scene when he awakens Alwyn Mellor's voluptuous-sounding Brünnhilde to ultimate rapture had a slight gaucheness, only partially implied by Wagner

And more praise over at the Stage:"Vocally, too, this is a remarkable evening. The young American tenor Daniel Brenna looks and acts the callow hero impressively and his tone remains convincing to the close."

And at the Arts Desk? What did you find Mr Walsh?

 "At its head is a young American Siegfried, Daniel Brenna (main picture), who as far as I know is completely new to the British stage. From his first “Hoi-ho” it’s instantly apparent that he’s a Wagner tenor of outstanding promise, a natural with a brilliant, easy top to the voice that half-recalls Melchior, strong projection throughout the range, excellent German and a completely unforced stage presence." 

Lauritz Melchior -"Notung! Notung!"- Siegfried

Wait did you say that Brenna reminds you of MELCHIOR? Now if that were correct... But he is not finished yet: "...it’s great to hear this difficult, taxing music sung so uninhibitedly, and without a trace of exhaustion to the very last phrase of his final-act duet ..."

Melchior? Sorry, still taking that in - give me a minute...

Ok, recovered. Onwards, like Siegfried through the forest of his unconscious. Sorry! went all Freudian there for a minute. Melchior? Still in shock it would seem. Anyway, onto to Mark Ronans perceptions:"It seemed incredible that a mere twenty-something could be singing Siegfried, though Daniel Brenna is in fact in his early to mid-forties despite his brilliant portrayal of a rambunctious young man. His enunciation of the words was so strikingly good that I needed no surtitles — it was as though he were merely speaking, yet with excellent pitch and an admirable heroic tone"

And trust me, this goes on and on with all of the reviewers that I have found. Lets stop there - lest Brenna is snapped up by one of the major (ie those with tons of money) opera houses before he can return for the final part of the Ring - lets call it the "Mellor effect".


Colin Judson - Mime

It seems Simon Thomas' editor over at WOS gave him very limited copy space that ment he had little space left for the rest of the cast: "Colin Judson is a bright, sharply characterized and sung Mime"

Mark Ronan gives himself a little more space

:"Colin Judson was equally superb in his portrayal of the insecure and dissimulating dwarf Mime. Of course he deserves to die in Act II after inadvertently expressing his true feelings, but from a vocal point of view I was sorry to see him go."

However, the Guardian's reviewer only got space for: "All the frustration and angst of Siegfried's relationship with the wily Mime (Colin Judson), and of Mime with Alberich was cleverly handled"

Says This is Gloucestershire in its frankly wonderfully concise review: "Colin Judson, another fine singer, is a convincing Mime with his twitches and other irritating mannerisms."

And finally the Arts Desk: "the Mime of Colin Judson, a clever, witty character tenor, more likeable, maybe, than this slimy, manipulative dwarf should be, brilliantly watchable in his scene with the Wanderer (Philip Joll), voice and face reflecting exactly the ebb and flow of the riddles which will in the end cost him his life"

Phillip Joll - The Wanderer

Philip Joll - a legend among British Wagnerians especially - after all these years what did the press think?

Mark Ronan: "As the Wanderer, Phillip Joll showed power and gravitas, particularly in his Act II dialogue"

The Guardian? "Philip Joll as the Wanderer – the god Wotan in disguise – was always forceful and imposing, if indeterminate of pitch" And yet over at WOS: "Philip Joll is a vintage Wotan and his Wanderer sounds in surprisingly good shape"

Equally, Roger Jones: "The excellent Phillip Joll as Wotan seems to be a cut above the others – he is a god, after all – and his rich baritone voice lends him an air of authority."

And Finally the Arts Desk:

"(Phillip) Joll himself, a voice from the past in this role as far as I’m concerned, turns out to be still in fine fettle, superb especially in his third-act confrontations with Erda and Siegfried – the only music Wagner wrote for the Ring’s ambiguous, Zeus-like hero after picking the work up again post-Tristan and Meistersinger"

Alwyn Mellor - Brunnhilde

To be honest, all of the reviewers said much the same and, like with Brenna, are unanimous in their praise. : 

Says WOS: "Alwyn Mellor, so impressive as Isolde at Grange Park earlier in the season, is a fresh voiced and attractive Brünnhilde"

The Guardian: "...Alwyn Mellor's voluptuous-sounding Brünnhilde..."

Roger Jones: "We have to wait till the end of the opera to glimpse Alwyn Mellor in the role of Brünnhilde, but she is well worth waiting for. Passionate and feisty, the iron maiden demonstrates she is no push-over as she thrills the audience with her top Cs."

The Stage: "British soprano Alwyn Mellor adds further to her Wagnerian reputation with her confident Brunnhilde." 

The Arts Desk: "Alwyn Mellor, who herself sings Brünnhilde with radiant tone and vivid dramatic intensity"

And finally, least it all go to her head, Mark Ronan:

"Alwyn Mellor showed immense power and presence as Brünnhilde, and although Longborough has only 500 seats, she will sing the same role in The Ring at Seattle in 2013, in an auditorium for 2,500.

The Rest Of The Cast: (sorry for the limited space - seems editors are strict about word counts. I shall try to make amends in my future "none review" and address the cast fully.

The Guardian:  "Evelyn Krahe was a very fine Erda and Julian Close a fearsome Fafner"

Mark Ronan: "Nicholas Folwell’s strongly sung Alberich, and when he wakes Fafner, we hear the deep voice of Julian Close who will cover the same role at the Metropolitan Opera next season". "...woodbird in her pretty skirt and flighty movements, delightfully sung by Allison Bell"

"In her Act III portrayal of Erda, Evelyn Krahe’s slow movements and almost ghostly appearance, helped give a sense of power to the role..."

The Arts Desk: "Evelyn Krahe’s Erda admirably statuesque, dark-voiced, but beautiful enough, in a cadaverous sort of way..."  "Nicholas Folwell, also rather well directed, remains one of the best Alberichs imaginable: a dark, virile baritone, remorseless in his exposure of Wotan’s hypocrisies, yet in an odd way vulnerable..."

"the Woodbird is a pretty singing dancer, Allison Bell, not very feathered, though mildly avian in tone and tuning.

The Stage:

"Vocally, too, this is a remarkable evening". "Nicholas Folwell makes a striking Alberich, Evelyn Krahe a resplendent Erda and Allison Bell a delightfully fresh Woodbird"

The Conductor and Orchestra.

The Guardian: "Negus's profound musicianship carries the day and the audience rightly roared its approval' 

"Both words and plot were delivered with a immediacy in itself refreshing and often witty, allowing conductor Anthony Negus to reveal the further motivations and machinations embedded in the infinite layers of Wagner's musical characterisations"


Mark Ronan: "The orchestra of about 65 members played Wagner’s music beautifully under the sensitive direction of Anthony Negus"

The Stage: "What is remarkable about this year’s Siegfried, the third section of the cycle, is just how much is achieved. The 66-piece orchestra, conducted with authority by Anthony Negus, rises ever more confidently to the challenge and is regularly superb"

WOS:  "Anthony Negus draws luscious playing from the orchestra, especially in the love duet, which leaves the audience as fresh and invigorated at the end of the six hours as at the beginning."

Conclusion: Over-all high praise indeed, a Ring Cycle to watch closely it would seem. More, when I ramble on for hours - soon. Did some one say Melchior...?

Lauritz Melchior - Mein Lieber Schwan

Links to the full reviews below:

http://markronan.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/siegfried-longborough-festival-opera-july-2011/

http://www.whatsonstage.com/reviews/theatre/Opera/E8831311537401/Siegfried.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jul/25/siegfried-review

http://www.theartsdesk.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=4192:siegfried-longborough-festival&Itemid=27

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/REVIEW-Siegfried-Longborough-Festival-Opera/story-13009911-detail/story.html

http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/33020/siegfried

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Melchior and Easton: Siegfried Act 3 Scene 3 (1932)

Excellent quality. The youtube uploader has dated this as 1931 but as far as I am aware this should be dated 1932. If anyone could confirm?

Details (for the full set):

Siegfried on HMV, Berlin and London 1927-32


Full Cast and recordings:

* Siegfried: Lauritz Melchior
* Brünnhilde: Florence Easton
* Der Wanderer: Friedrich Schorr, Rudolf Bockelmann, Emil Schipper
* Erda: Maria Olszewka
* Mime: Heinrich Tessmer, Albert Reiss
* Alberich: Eduard Habich
* Fafner: Eduard Habich
* Waldvogel: Nora Gruhn

It was recorded as following:

* Vienna 1927, Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Karl Alwyn
* London 1929, London Symphony Orchestra, Albert Coates
* London 1930, London Symphony Orchestra, Robert Heger
* London 1931, London Symphony Orchestra, Robert Heger
* London 1932, Royal Opera Orchestra, Covent Garden, Robert Heger

The 37 78rpm sides, originally issued in five different sets, represent a good two-thirds of the full Siegfried score, and Act 3 is almost complete.

Act 1 1931 DB 1713, 2B 529 DB 1578-81, 2B 528-34
1929 D 1690-1, CR 2197-2200
Act 2 1931 DB 1582, 2B 554-5
1929 D 1692, CR 2401-2
1931 DB 1583, 2B 556-7
1929 D 1693, CR 2403-4
Act 3 1927 D 1533-4, CK 2938-9, 2899-2900
1929 D 1694, 1836 CR 2405-6, 2498
1930 D 1836, CR 2499 D 1837, CR 2500
1932 DB 1710-13, 2B 2896-2902

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Anthony Negus leads Wagner's heros in the English countryside. First Hans Sachs at Glyndebourne now Siegfried at Longborough

From today's Guardian. Follow the link to continue reading.

Anthony Negus: with Siegfried at last
Anthony Negus is looking forward to conducting Wagner's Siegfried at Longborough Festival Opera

Nicholas Wroe

Anthony Negus at Longborough

Anthony Negus ... 'We really are creating something remarkable with this Wagner pilgrimage.

While there is rarely a shortage of Wagner's operas being staged in the UK, the increased pace of productions emerging from national, regional and festival opera companies in recent years represents a discernible uptick in activity. Two of the most significant productions of this summer have been Glyndebourne's Meistersinger – streamed to wide acclaim on the Guardian website a couple of weeks ago – and the continuation of the Longborough festival Ring cycle which, next week, will follow up its triumphant 2010 Die Walküre with Siegfried. The two productions have a common link in the conductor Anthony Negus, who has emerged as a slightly unlikely figure to be at the heart of this Wagnerian intensity.

Negus has been on the music staff of Welsh National Opera for more than 35 years and has worked on many dozens of productions in Wales and around the world. But most often his role has been in assisting the lead conductor in preparing the production; he has conducted relatively few performances himself. But a closer look at this apparently modest CV reveals that not only has Negus worked closely with a long list of eminent names – Mackerras, Boulez, Reginald Goodall and, more recently, Vladimir Jurowski – he has also enjoyed a lifelong engagement with Wagner's music. It is therefore fitting that that, as he celebrates his 65th birthday, this engagement appears to be coming to remarkable fruition. "It's true that there is a lot of Wagner activity all over the world," Negus explains. "And it will speed up in the next couple of years in the runup to the bicentenary of his birth in 2013. For those of us closely involved, it feels like our version of preparing for the Olympics."

Walkure at LFO: 2010

For Negus the highlight of 2013 will be conducting, in a single season, the complete Ring cycle at Longborough, the Gloucestershire opera festival best known for being held in what was, originally, a converted barn. Longborough's involvement with Wagner began with a reduced-size Ring, for an orchestra of just 18 players, adapted by the composer Jonathan Dove, in the late 1990s. Negus took over conducting duties on the project halfway through and managed the impressive feats of slightly enlarging the orchestra and bringing in Bayreuth's Wotan, Sir Donald McIntyre, for the final performances.

Longborough's owner, Martin Graham, had long held the ambition, apparently ludicrously unrealistic, of staging a full-size Ring cycle. Every winter he made additions to the theatre – the red velvet seats came from Covent Garden when it was refurbished; the pit has been enlarged to accommodate 60-plus musicians. The Longborough Ring eventually commenced, under Negus's baton and directed by Alan Privett, with Das Rheingold in 2008. A concert version of the first act of Die Walküre was included in the 2009 season – "to get the orchestra acquainted with the very long journey we were about to take" – and last summer the full version was performed.

"The fact that people still talk about chicken sheds and so on in relation to Longborough does wear a bit thin," Negus says. "We really are creating something remarkable with this Wagner pilgrimage. The small Ring worked very well and the full-scale Das Rheingold went better than we could have hoped. But last year's Die Walküre was the best thing we have done and a significant step forward. I can't wait for Siegfried."

The critics agreed about Die Walküre. Michael Tanner claimed the ongoing cycle could stand comparison "in terms of musical interpretation and commitment, to any Ring one might see in the world". The Sunday Times identified Negus as a "British Wagner conductor second to none". Though he may have had comparatively limited experience of conducting full-scale operatic productions, when the opportunity came to take on the Longborough Ring, Negus was nothing if not prepared.

As a child of musical parents he saw his first Ring in his early teens and a Rudolf Kempe-conducted Rheingold in 1960 at Covent Garden when he was 14. The following year the family attended a Bayreuth festival Ring cycle and the year after that, Negus, on a student exchange visit to Germany, found himself actually in the Bayreuth pit for a Karl Böhm performance of Tristan.

"Of course the stage door man shouted at me, but some instinct told me I'd be OK if I stayed put and didn't leave for the whole evening, even to go to the loo. The players were completely unfazed. The pit was covered and they wore civvies, so there were even a few rather fat men in lederhosen." The young Negus found a way to return to the pit repeatedly and observed at the closest quarters conductors such as Kempe – "conducting in a T-shirt", Knappertsbusch – "very crumpled summer jacket" and Sawallisch. "I was there the first time boos were heard at Bayreuth in 1963 for a Wieland Wagner production. I also bought tickets and remember queuing in 1966 for Boulez's Parsifal. The whole period was very formative."

In the early 70s Negus returned to work at Bayreuth and became friends with Wagner's grandson, the director Gottfried Wagner. He worked as an assistant on a new production of Tannhäuser directed by Götz Friedrich and on some Ring rehearsals. He remembers marital tensions among the Wagner clan and political anxieties about Friedrich being the first East German to work at Bayreuth. He was also becoming increasingly aware of the cultural difficulties surrounding Wagner's work, not least the accusations of antisemitism.

"While it is never possible to be entirely free of politics, when I first went to Bayreuth it was a comparatively apolitical period. In the years since I've observed how we apply our increased psychological knowledge and understanding of Wagner's period to the way we approach the pieces. And I find my understanding of the dramatic aspect of the pieces has grown naturally with all this. And being a Wagnerian allows one to hate him as well as to admire him at times. I've read things he did and said, even aside from the Jewish issue – the way he treated friends, for instance – that provoke abhorrence. But I've also read about compassionate aspects of his character that moved me deeply."

Walkure at LFO: 2010

Working most recently on Meistersinger and Siegfried, Negus acknowledges that in the characters of Beckmesser and Mime there are quite clearly Jewish parodic elements. "These things can blacken the overall picture. David McVicar directing at Glyndebourne was all too aware of the shadow that can hang over the last scene of Meistersinger. We all have to deal with it in our own way, but when you penetrate below the surface of what Wagner is writing, then it goes much deeper than the nationalistic elements that were grabbed by Hitler and the Third Reich."

Negus admits there have been periods of his career when he has needed "to get away from the whole Wagner thing". He says the period from 1974, when he returned from Germany, to 1979 was "almost a Wagner-free zone" until Goodall was invited to conduct Tristan for the WNO. "It was a major moment in my life when I heard Goodall's Mastersingers at Sadler's Wells in 1968. I hadn't realised that Wagner could sound like that. Solti was the main Covent Garden conductor of Wagner at that time, and while he could be thrilling, this had a far more gentle quality of attack: there was a rich undertone and measured, unhurried tread, which was quite amazing."

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Siegfried (New Production) LFO: An Overview With Music

"This Longborough Ring is becoming better than any at Bayreuth for years, possibly since Wieland Wagner’s first post-war version.

I am simply lost in admiration for it all, and I suggest that he deserves every possible support that the Wagner Society can give him towards his vision of a complete Ring in the Wagner centenary year of 2013. (

PAUL DAWSON-BOWLING: 

The Wagner Society News)"

What makes Wagnerians/Wagnerites (or whatever name you chose) go to the extremes that they do? Some will buy every recording ever made; read every book ever written; travel the world to see every performance of every cycle of the Ring, even start their own academic journal! They will spend enormous amounts of money in pursuit of that Wagner "fix". Few, if any, other composer finds such obsessive "followers" (if that is what they really are - but that is a discussion for another time). However, no matter how powerful the "addiction" very few would - or have -  built their own opera house, just to hear the perfect Ring, in their own "back garden. Yet this is exactly what the Grahams have done (see here for an overview). This year  23 July, sees the premier of Siegfried, next Götterdämmerung and in 2013 an entire ring cycle.  For those interested, I present this overview. For more information - and the few remaining tickets - go to LFO website here: LFO.org.uk

Siegfried - Daniel Brenna

Born the USA, he studied music performance at Boston University, receiving Master of Music and an opera diploma.
While a Tanglewood Fellow, he sang Bernstein’s Songfest with the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra under the musical direction of Seiji Ozawa, and Milhaud’s L´Homme et son désir under Daniel Harding. He appeared in a number of roles in the USA, as well as in a Wagner concert with the Washington D.C. Wagner Society.
Since 2006 he has sung such roles as Turridu, Riccardo, Hans, Siegmund, Max, Grigorij Boris… In Summer 2010, he sang at the renowned Opera Festival St. Margarethen and in 2011 he made his debut at the Zürich Opera House as Aron (Christoph von Dohnányi/ Achim Freyer), a role he sung before with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestera.

And what have the press said of his Wagner? (Forgive the poor German translation but time waits, etc)

Theater Görlitz – Die Walküre - SIEGMUND
''And, as sung,  acted and played, that is the next surprise… In the end, we have the ballad of Siegmund and Sieglinde impressively interpretted by the Görlitz Ensemble members Daniel Brenna and Yvonne Reich. Brenna’s youthful tenor, Reich’s vulnerable, knowing Soprano, both make the most of the musical extremes, surrendering themselves to the music and to the audience. Wagner singing in the dimensions of a song evening, ranging from delicate passages of internalized speech to highly charged emotional outbursts.' - Klassik.com

'…Daniel Brenna is  musically and dramatically a discovery: very worth hearing.' - Sächsische Zeitung

'...Yvonne Reich (Sieglinde), Daniel Brenna (Siegmund), and Gary Jankowski (Hunding) carry production. They perform the music, they live in the characters, they play their believable relationships. They sing Wagner and his verses movingly. Their voices bloom. The text is understandable, working in its foreign artificiality with the pathos of the music. The result is a gripping hour of musical theater, thus Wagner finds its audience in Görlitz. Bravo!'   - Sächsische Zeitung

Brünnhilde – Alwyn Mellor

Liebestod

Mellor is certainly a wagnerian soprano to watch. Having just completed one of the most extraordinary Isoldes I have ever seen, at Grange Park (see my review here), she will be off to Seattle as Brunnhilda in their 2013 Ring Cycle. Catch her in the UK while you can. Born in Lancashire, Alwyn Mellor began her career where she has enjoyed a wide range of roles, most recently appearing as Tosca. She has sung three seasons at Santa Fe Opera and other companies with whom she has appeared include the Canadian Opera Company, Opéra-Théâtre de Limoges, English National Opera, Glyndebourne Touring Opera, Opera Ireland and Opera North. In concert she has appeared widely throughout the UK and Europe, and sang Brünnhilde Die Walküre for Longborough Festival Opera last Summer. Future engagements include Minnie La Fanciulla del West, Brünnhilde Götterdämmerung and Sieglinde Die Walküre for Opera North, Isolde Tristan und Isolde for Grange Park Opera, Gerhilde Die Walküre for the Royal Opera, London, Brünnhilde Siegfried for Den Nye Opera (conducted by Kent Nagano) and Oper Leipzig and Brünnhilde Die Walküre / Siegfried for the Paris Opera. In 2013, she appears as Brünnhilde Der Ring des Nibelungen in Seattle Opera’s three Bi-Centenary Cycles.

What the Press have said of her Wagner:

"The quality of singing is also high, with Richard Berkeley-Steele and Alwyn Mellor strongly cast as the lovers" - Barry Millington

Mellor's fleshy-toned Isolde sounding amazingly fresh as she soars through the climactic Liebestod - The Guardian

And of Alywyn Mellor?  What can one say : her vocal power, beauty and warmth have grown substantially. Her Isolde is not only a revelation due to her fine acting - which manages to make this the most human of Isoldes – but so to is her vocal performance. Rarely does one truly feel one is in the presence of an Isolde of exceptional beauty and quality but tonight was one of those nights. - The Wagnerian

"That was bloody marvellous - The Wagnerian's Partner

Mime – Colin Judson

As Mime

After completing vocal studies he established a successful relationship with Glyndebourne Festival Opera for whom he sang Coryphee Le Comte Ory and Gaston La Traviata, Andrew in Birtwistle’s The Last Supper (also Staatsoper Berlin, Queen Elizabeth Hall) and Remendado Carmen. Colin subsequently became a member of the Cologne Opera where roles included Hirt/Junge Seeman Tristan und Isolde, Monostatos Die Zauberflöte, Spoletta Tosca, GoroMadama Butterfly, PedrilloDie Entführung aus dem Serail and Truffaldino The Love for Three Oranges.
Colin has sung with ENO and at the Royal Opera as well as at the Teatro Real Madrid, the Opera National du Rhin (as Mime Das Rheingold), in Bordeaux and Toulouse. A series of short television operas featuring Colin in a variety of roles was broadcast last year on BBC TV.Future projects include Nick Fanciulla del West at the Edinburgh Festival, Truffaldino Love for Three Oranges in Limoges and Dr. Caius Falstaff in Nantes.

What the Press have said of his Wagner:

"... Colin Judson's Mime, absolutely top -world-class. He seemed to have taken 'Vater und Mutter zugleich' as his springboard, sporting two aprons, one masculine-blacksmith, the other feminine-housewife-he could swap gender at the drop of a semiquaver, really unsettling. This riveting, well-sung impersonation, half malevolent, half strangely sympathetic, forever teetering on the edge of madness, reminded you that Mime is one of Wagner's most dazzlingly brilliant creations..." Opera Magazine, June 09

Wotan – Phillip Joll

With Goodall As Wotan (Documentry:  Click plus to expand)

Phillip Joll was born in Wales and studied at the RNCM and the London National Opera Studio. He has sung at all the major houses in the UK and abroad at the New York Met, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Arizona, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo, Opera Bastille Paris, Bordeaux, Dresden, Stuttgart, Cologne, Frankfurt, Munich, Karlsruhe, Dortmund, Brussels, Amsterdam, Reisopera Enschede, de Vlaamse Opera, Turin, Palermo, Bologna, Barcelona and in Korea and Bangkok. He has a large repertoire including Wotan/Wanderer, Amfortas, Kurwenal, title role Der Fliegende Holländer, Donner, Barak, Johanaan, Orest, title role Wozzeck in both Berg and Gurlitt’s version, Pizarro and Kaspar Der Freischütz. His Italian roles include Amonasro, Simon Boccanegra, Macbeth, Francesco I due Foscari, Falstaff, Anckarström, Rigoletto, Scarpia, Alfio Cavalleria Rusticana, Tonio I Pagliacci, Jack Rance La Fanciulla del West, Sharpless, Michele Il Tabarro in addition to BalstrodePeter Grimes, King Fisher A Midsummer Marriage, Nick Shadowthe Rake’s Progress, Creon Oedipus Rexand Thoas Iphigenie en Tauride. Future performances include Scarpia Tosca for Bangkok Opera, Priest Grigoris The Greek Passion for Teatro Massimo and a return to Welsh National Opera.

Alberich - Nicholas Folwell (Straight from Opera North's Rheingold!)

Nicholas Folwell has sung with all the major British opera companies. For ENO Blond Eckbert, Papageno, Tonio, Falke, Mutius,Timon of Athens, Sancho Don Quixote, Poacher/Forester, Major Mary Die Soldaten, Music Master Ariadne on Naxos, Bosun Billy Budd, Host Sir John in Love, Antonio Figaro, Commissar of Police Rosenkavalier. Other notable engagements Figaro, Leporello, Pizarro, Escamillo, Poacher, Klingsor, Alberich (WNO); Poacher, Antonio (ROH); Figaro, Alberich, Melitone Forza del destino, Bartolo Il barbiere di Siviglia, Mumlal The Two Widows (Scottish Opera); Pizarro, Figaro (GTO); Beckmesser, Leporello (Opera North); Alberich (Nantes); Figaro, Le chat/L’horloge L’Enfant et les sortilèges (Opera Zuid); Masetto (Tel Aviv); Marullo (Frankfurt); Koroviev in première of Der Meister und Margarita (Paris Opera); Don Inigo Gomez L’Heure espagnole; Pizarro (Holland Park); Forthcoming: Nachtigall (ROH), Alberich and the Forester Cunning Little Vixen (Nationale Reisopera), Alberich in Norway under Kent Nagano. Nicholas sang Alberich in Das Rheingold in 2007.

What the Press have said of his Wagner:

Nicholas Folwell’s brutish Alberich is magnificent – his curse the best bit of sustained Wagnerian fury I’ve heard in years.” Richard Morrison / The Times

“ …Of the uniformly strong cast Nicholas Folwell’s Alberich was horribly good.” Rian Evans / The Guardian * * * *

Fafner – Julian Close

Julian has appeared with ENO, Scottish Opera, WNO, Opera North, Mid-Wales Opera, Lyric Opera Dublin, Stanley Hall Opera, English Pocket Opera, Jubilee Opera, The Opera Project, and the Wexford, Buxton, Northampton, Longborough and Iford Festivals in roles including: Wotan, Fafner, Hunding, Hagen Der Ring des Nibelungen, Titurel Parsifal, Colonna Rienzi DosifeyKhovanschina, Vodnik Rusalka, Commendatore Don Giovanni, Grand Inquisitor Don Carlos, Pistol Falstaff, Sarastro and Sprecher Die Zauberflöte, Dr. Bartolo Le nozze di Figaro, Count Walter Luisa Miller, Nilakantha Lakme, Méphistophélès Faust, Zuniga Carmen, Mayor Jenufa, Collatinus The Rape of Lucretia, Timur Turandot, Colline La Bohème, Don Basilio Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Ferrando Il trovatore,Bonze Madama Butterfly, Luther and Crespel Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Sparafucile Rigoletto and RamfisAida. He has also performed concerts across the UK and in the US including LES NOCES with the Michael Clarke Dance Company at the Barbican, London and the Lincoln Center, New York. Later this year he will cover Fafner Siegfried for New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Julian has sung at Longborough on a number of occasions.

Erda – Evelyn Krahe

To Listen to her Erda click here

Evelyn Krahe studied singing with Diane Pilcher and took part in master classes with Brigitte Fassbaender and Claudia Eder.
Performances at Theater Bonn, Theater Bremen, Theater Detmold and Theater Brandenburg included Annina The Knight of the Rose, Hippolyta A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Karoline von Günderrode (Kleist) and Erda, Flosshilde Das Rheingold , and for WDR radio orchestra she sang the role of Melousine Operette Cloclo. Evelyn regularly performs as a concert singer.

She made her British debut 2007 at Longborough as Erda and FlosshildeDas Rheingold, returning in 2008 and in 2010 to sing Schwertleite Die Walküre. Since the 2008/2009 season, Evelyn has been a member of the Landestheater Detmold, where Wagners Ring is currently being performed. There she sings Flosshilde, Erda Das Rheingold, Grimgerde Die Walküre, ErdaSiegfried and 1. Norn, Waltraute and Flosshilde Götterdämmerung.
During the 2009/2010 season, Evelyn sang Filipjewna Eugene Onegin at the Staatstheater Braunschweig, and Grimgerde at the Deutsche Opera am Rhein, Düsseldorf.

What the Press have said of her Erda

Evelyn Krahe - an Erda with a magical straight-forward contralto, a voice crafted from only the finest! Opernnetz 

(...) passionately boasting with beautiful volume - Evelyn Krahe's Erda. Lippische Landeszeitung, 30.03.2009

(...) Evelyn Krahe exudes great augustness as the earth godess Erda, thanks to her darkly resplendent contralto. Westfälische Nachrichten, 01.04.2009

A beautiful, slim Erda, Evelyn Krahe faces her summoner full of dignity in an umber-coloured gown, giving voice to her weighty arguments with an appropriately sonorous contralto. Der Neue Merker Wien, March 2009

(...) Evelyn Krahe's Erda stands out with its metallic, slightly dark timbre. OMM (Online Musik Magazin)

Forced into daylight from out of the foot of the tree, practically from out of the roots themselves - one of the most poetical images of the evening - Evelyn Krahe let flow the balmy primordial words of the Wala. Finally we get to hear once again in this role an established contralto voice and not a mezzosoprano struggling with the lower notes. La Krahe is also blessed with a captivingly beautiful timbre. Der Opernfreund, April 2009

Evelyn Krahe is also to be mentioned as a truly profound Erda (...) Opernwelt, May 2009
Evelyn Krahe lent magic to her short scene as Erda with an exceptionally unusual volume and colour.Opernglas 5/2009

Forest Bird – Allison Bell

Tasmanian born Allison Bell studied Music and History at Sydney University. In Europe she received numerous awards including the La Scala Prize at the Viñas Competition in Barcelona.Roles include Folie Platée (Rameau), Aspasia Mitridate(Mozart), Königin der Nacht Die Zauberflöte (Mozart), Glauce Medea (Cherubini), Adele Die Fledermaus Olympia Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Allison created the role of Sierva Maria in Eötvös’ Love and Other Demons at Glyndebourne under Jurowski, repeating the role in Vilnius and Strasbourg. . With the LPO Allison was soloist for the UK premieres of Schnittke’s Three Madrigals, Three Scenes and Der Gelbe Klang and Pierrot Lunaire. Other recent performances include Carmina Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia and Le Feu, La Princesse and Le Rossignol in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortileges with the Bolshoi. Forthcoming performances include Berio’s Chamber Music London Sinfonietta, Grisey Quatre Chants pour Franchir le Seuil with the LPO,Mahler’s Das Klagende Lied in Berlin and Munich.

Anthony Negus  - Conductor

A Wagner enthusiast since his youth, Anthony worked for WNO with the legendary Sir Reginald Goodall, and has gained international authority as a conductor and coach of Wagner’s works.
Since his first Parsifal performances for WNO in 1983, he has conductedTristan, Rheingold, Siegfried, Gotterdammerung, Parsifal again (2003).

Together with director Alan Privett he built up the CBTO/Jonathan Dove Ring Cycle for LFO. He also performed this version in Pittsburgh with Opera Theatre Pittsburgh. For WNO, in addition to Wagner, he has conducted a wide range of operas, especially Mozart (all of his major operas and in particular The Magic Flute andFigaro), Beethoven Leonore, Richard Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten, Elektra, Ariadne auf Naxos. Other 20th century operas include Janacek Katya Kabanova, Jenufa, Berg Wozzeck, Martinu The Greek Passion, James MacMillan The Sacrifice (now issued on Chandos CDs. Future plans include a performance of Die Meistersinger for Glyndebourne in 2011.

Alan Privett - Director

Alan Privett’s career reflects a wide and varied training in a number of different fields that have contributed to his work as a director. As Artistic Director of Longborough Festival Opera he has been responsible for the development of the Ring project.
Alan was born in Cheshire and read English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He also studied at the Leicester School of Education and at the Architectural Association, and has an ARCM in vocal performance

As a director he has worked with a variety of companies in this country and abroad. Operas include Handel Rinaldo, Agrippina, Acis and Galatea, Partenope, Cavalli Erismena, BauldNell (Donmar Warehouse); Cosi fan tutte, Marriage of Figaro; Verdi Rigoletto; Dido and AeneasMidsummer Opera; Newson Mrs Fraser’s Frenzy (Canterbury, Cheltenham Festivals, Purcell Room);Madam Butterfly, Turandot, Verdi Aida, Macbeth, Traviata, L’Elisir d’Amore, Orpheus in the Underworld, Don Giovanni (Opera South East); The Ring, The Magic Flute, Cosi fan tutte, Tosca, Hansel and Gretel, Carmen (Longborough).


Kjell was born in Norway. He trained at Sir John Cass College, St. Martin’s School of Art (BA hons), London, Brighton Polytechnic and Statens Kunstakademi, Oslo. He is principally an artist, but his work for the stage includes designs for Nasjonaltheatret, Oslo and Longborough Festival Opera Das Rheingold and Die Walküre. As an artist he has exhibited in London, Hamburg, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen and Edinburgh. He has executed large-scale public commissions for the new University Library, Georg Sverdrups Hus, Oslo University: Royal Norwegian Embassy, London: Tafjord Kraft, Aalesund, Norway; Radiumhospitalet, Oslo; Nasco Headquarters, Edinburgyh. His work is in many public collections includign the British Museum, London; the National Museum for Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo; the Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo.

Dates:

23, 25, 28, 30 July 2011

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Anthony Negus Discusses: Longborough Opera's Ring Cycle,Goodall, Bohm, Wagner, Martin Graham and conducting the Ring

As I am sure you are aware, this year sees England's Bayreuth -  Longborough Festival Opera -  get closer to its complete Ring Cycle,  with the premier of Siegfried this month. (see here and here for more details).

To celebrate what  must surely be one of the most ambitious Wagnerian projects outside of the early days of Bayreuth itself, I will be publishing a series of articles examining this project right-up-to the premier of Seigfried on July 23 2011.  And where better to start than at the beginning with the interview below between Longborough's Ring conductor Anthony Negus and Seen and Heard's Jim Pritchard. This was originally published  in 2007  - as Das Rheingold premièred and the entire project began. This is a fascinating insight into not only the art of conducting Wagner, but Longborough Opera, the origins of its Ring Cycle, its founders the Grahams, and even Reginald Goodall. A truly Wagnerian tale.

Thanks to Jim Pritchard for allowing me to post this.

Never just the bridesmaid, often the (blushing) bride! Jim Pritchard meets Anthony Negus

As (admittedly adjusted) clichéd phrases go, the one in this title is highly appropriate to the long career in music of the conductor – and long time member of the music staff at Welsh National Opera – Anthony Negus.

Another such phrase is ‘Hey guys! Let’s put on a show’ and if we 'marry' the two ideas together they describe Anthony’s current project at Longborough where the full version of Wagner’s Das Rheingold is staged for the first time on 23rd June. ‘Full’ is important here because for many years Longborough has been home to cycles of a cut-down Ring in the Jonathan Dove version originally used by the City of Birmingham Touring Opera in 1990.

The Longborough Festival began in 1991. Martin Graham, a property developer with a large house and grounds in the Cotswolds, decided to convert an old chicken barn into an opera house. Sounds simple enough but a rocky road of traffic, planning and VAT rows had to be travelled before the colonnaded Palladian building with some of the red plush seats from the old Royal Opera House, could be established. It has been especially refurbished and enlarged for the 2007 season. The audience, many wearing black tie, picnic before and during the performances in the gardens and car park as they would do at Glyndebourne upon which Longborough evenings are modelled.

Anthony says that without Martin and his wife Lizzie ‘None of this would have happened’. He went on to explain how ‘Martin seems to have something guiding him on and he gives energy to everyone to leads us on. I am very fond of them both and I really clicked with Martin when I met him for the first time. It was while we were doing the shorter version of the Ring when I was feeling a little low for whatever reason. I arrived and he was playing the Furtwängler La Scala cycle with Kirsten Flagstad and I heard this and thought “Wow, yes of course, this is why we are doing it” so I said to Martin “You have really galvanised me by this!” It is certainly not personal ambition that is pushing them.’

Wagner and Anthony Negus is an interesting story, so how did it all begin? ‘Well, my parents took me to Bayreuth when I was 15. I was already showing interest in Wagner and they loved Wagner as well. So they decided to get tickets for the Ring and they did that in 1961. My sister came as well and it was the second year of the Wolfgang Wagner/Rudolf Kempe Ring. I went back the following three years because I had the good fortune to do an exchange visit with the son of a dentist who only lived seven minutes from the Festspielhaus. So then I gained access to the orchestra pit and felt so at home there, I really loved it.'

The Grahams

'In those days Bayreuth was balanced between the older school - because Knappertsbusch was still there until 1964 and I heard him conduct Parsifal - and there was Kempe who was always someone I followed. Every evening there was a different conductor; there was Böhm doing Tristan and then Kempe with the Ring. Kempe’s interpretation was more modern, more flowing, lighter in texture and what I loved most was his saving the big climax in the music until it was really there. Sometimes he almost went too far by suppressing some of the climaxes along the way but he had this wonderful sense of structure and it was quite in contrast to Solti at Covent Garden in the 1960s that tended to go much more for the moment.'


'In the ‘60s -1966 was the last time I was there and I saw Parsifal under Boulez and the Wieland Wagner Tristan when it had reached its full fruition with Nilsson, Windgassen and Böhm. Several years later I auditioned there and was engaged for the music staff for1972 to 1973.’

Anthony had a long time association and friendship with the legendary British Wagner conductor Sir Reginald Goodall and describes how this came about. ‘It was of course through hearing the famous The Mastersingers that Goodall conducted for Sadler’s Wells Opera as it was then in 1968. Like many of my contemporaries I was hearing a Klangwelt, a ‘sound world’ we had never heard before and that seemed to come from another era. When I heard it, I still had some doubts about the sheer expansion of some of it but it was such a new experience for me and I just knew after that I must get to know Goodall. Actually it was more than that … I felt we were destined and so I wrote to him and we actually met by chance at a 1969 Glyndebourne dress rehearsal of Pélleas er Mélisande (one of his favourite operas) so I asked if I could be a voluntary assistant and did that since I was free-lancing at the time.'

'I sat in on the rehearsals of The Mastersingers at the London Coliseum when they transferred it there and subsequently helped him with The Valkyrie which was the beginning of the famous Coliseum Ring Cycle. Then I got a job in Germany and missed the rest of that Ring unfortunately during my four years there. Taking over from him in 1983 for the Welsh National Opera performances of Parsifal was of course entirely unexpected. He had been working for months with the cast and conducted one play through with the orchestra in December 1982. At the start of 1983 I was told he was ill and would I mind taking the first sectionals; and it grew from there so I gradually took it all over. Although he did come back and conduct a couple of rehearsals, his withdrawal felt inevitable though it did not come until s week before the première and they asked me to take over.'

Does Anthony have any special memory of Goodall? ‘Well there are all sorts of funny and wonderful moments in rehearsal, many of which are well known, but mine is a more personal memory. It was just talking with him about life, death and the world on a walk with him in the Mumbles where his hotel was, when we recorded Tristan at Swansea’s Brangwyn Hall. It is a picture of his face when he would kind of stop and stand back on his heels. It is the moment that just stays with me. I felt that having worked with him for so many weeks at a time, I was internally tuned in anyway by that stage so we had a kind of contact that was becoming quite telepathic and I treasure moments like that I had with him.’

Anthony told me how he first came to work at Longborough: ‘I was rung up at the end of 1999 by Alan Privett the director of the shortened Ring and now the director for the full version of Das Rheingold to say they needed a conductor for the new production of Siegfried and the revival of The Valkyrie. The original conductor Alistair Dawes had withdrawn and so I thought it would be a good opportunity to do my own thing. I had some worries about that version but looking back over 5 cycles for Longborough and 2 for Pittsburgh in 2006 I am extremely grateful for the experience and feel we managed to invest something really Wagnerian into it. I also think I managed to improve certain things in Jonathan Dove’s version as it had been prepared in rather a hurried way.'

'I, of course, went back as much as I could to Wagner’s original score and generally rehashed a few moments - for instance in Valkyrie Act I there was a passage that had been transposed to another key because of the cut before it. However I managed to write three bars of transition music that got everything back to the right key. What is important about that is if the singer singing Sieglinde – it was her passage – goes on to do the full version then it is much better that what she is singing is actually Wagner.'

'Now we are building on this past but it is a new concept and Alan is very anxious to point that out. We are doing the real work with an orchestra of nearly 60 players and no cuts. The pit doors have been altered so there is a bit more space and the theatre has been enlarged and the roof raised. We have a wonderful Norwegian designer for the scenery and costumes, Kjell Torrset, and we have gone beyond Longborough and Pittsburg for our cast.’

A Very British Bayreuth

With a singer of his in the cast, the great Wagnerian bass-baritone Sir Donald McIntyre was at the rehearsals in Ealing where I talked to Anthony and he even sang a couple of parts for singers who were not there at the time. Anthony has an association with Sir Donald - dating from that 1983 Parsifal to recent performances last year of that opera in New Zealand - but he also came into the Longborough Ring once and I asked how that had come about: ‘Brian Bannatyne-Scott did three cycles in 2002 and for various reasons withdrew and we needed another Wotan and my wife, Carmen, urged me to ask Donald because I was thinking “I don’t think he would agree to do this”. She said to try him and I was surprised when he took to the idea and said “Oh yes I’d like to do that (and) it’s not a bad idea that it is not such a full version”. Having Donald in the cast is an inspiring experience for everyone. He brought a special caché to those performances and to the others in the cast by leading by his example.'

'Conducting Parsifal in New Zealand with Donald as Gurnemanz, Simon O’Neill as Parsifal, Margaret Medlyn as Kundry and Paul Whelan as Amfortas was one of the more exciting things I have done because I was being invited to conduct a great orchestra, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, with this wonderful cast. It is due to the loyalty of Donald who believed in me that I got the job. He said we must have Anthony Negus conduct and since I am not a famous name they said they did not know me, but Donald insisted “He’s the man for the job!” It was a great experience and with modesty I can say that it came off well.'

As we reached the end of our time together I wanted to know what Anthony’s aims are in a Wagner performance: ‘Well it is for the dramatic truth of it all. I try and grasp what is implied behind the text. The correct text declamation in the right tempo and with the right expression. The understanding of above all when a motif appears for the first time and considering the scale of its significance, balancing out that with recognising that when the moment comes that it really is special. It seems to me a real Wagnerian experience means you come into the moment, so in Das Rheingold for example when the Rhinemaidens see the sun and we get that magical awakening of the sleeping gold, it bursts out with the trumpet motif in C major, with cymbals and triangle and into “Rheingold!” This must be given expression of pure utter joy because it is the only time in the entire Ring that you get this pure utter joy. It is complete unadulterated joy yet later out of that motif comes the most sinister of ones in Götterdämmerung.'

'The more one understands how one thing leads to another … that’s very important I think. It was one of Reggie Goodall’s favourite expressions “one after the other” and that means you have got to allow it to unfold. It is a sense of pacing, it is not whether it is fast or slow but you have got to know where it is all going, so it is my job as a conductor to carry most understanding of the piece as a musical whole because everyone else has a certain part in it. The conductor has got to have the overall picture and the more concentrated I am in the moment then the more, I am totally convinced, this will transmit to an intelligent audience. Stand outside it, let it unfold …but don’t interfere with it.’

Anthony looked back at other specially fulfilling evenings for him on the podium and mentioned a Khovanshchina this April where he conducted the last performance in Birmingham for WNO, a Katya Kabanova in Llandudno in 2004, other Parsifals in Birmingham in 2003, as well as one or two of his Mozart evenings. I enquired whether he had any unfulfilled ambitions and he replied: ‘My greatest longing is to be involved in a production of Die Meistersinger, obviously I would like to conduct it but more importantly would like to do it in depth because that is something I have not done yet.’(Note from the Wagnerian: Since this article was written Anthony has acted as assistant conductor on Glyndebournes Meistersinger this year taking over the baton on the May 10 performance)

Meanwhile this most genial, unassuming and highly intelligent musician who deserves to be much more widely known than he is, can to be found at Longborough and he concluded by adding: ‘I’m naturally concentrating now on establishing as authentic a Das Rheingold as we can do it and I am concerned that every aspect should be true. Of course I must say we will not have 18 anvils … but we will have anvils. Of course we are not going to have the backing and expansion to fall back on as in a larger house but it is very exciting to be involved with it. This year is a fundamental one to see how it all works and how realistic it is to do Das Rheingold and then the other Ring operas in such small surroundings, but I am hopeful and believe strongly in it.’

Jim Pritchard. Orginally published at Seen and Heard, 2007

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