"Wagner has beautiful moments, but awful quarters of an hour," Rossini remarked. Many of both sorts are coming up this week. In the world of live streaming, we have a week of Wagner offerings. There's a whole Ring Cycle to fill four of your days and/or nights. More about this below.
Note: with daylight saving in Melbourne, times for Met opera live streamings have changed: the opera will now be available on the date noted here from 10.30 am and stays available till 9.30 am the next day.
But first, there's a modern Parsifal to consider and to contrast with the traditional production the Met screens Monday our time.
A radical take on Parsifal
Is Parsifal your favourite opera? Or like this reviewer, did you take an instinctive dislike to the morbid Christian symbolism? Or just find those hours far too long for the passages of wonderful music?
Yes, there's some glorious music - just as well since it's a formidable length. To start it, try a radical interpretation of the highly problematic Parsifal! Detailed review here. You can always return to the very traditional Met production on Monday.
OperaVision screens till Tuesday 6th October the extraordinary production by director Tatjana Gürbaca at Opera Vlaanderen.
Modern, stark and rivetting, it turns the story upside down. Watch a trailer here. It won the Opera Award for Best Wagner Anniversary Production in London. Details and a trailer here will give you an idea of the contrast of this production with the Met's classic version screening on Monday our time. Very detailed critical review here. Other trailers and interviews on OperaVision site.
Wagner Week at the Met
(Note: access to the current live streaming opera is less direct on the Met's website now. Go to https://www.metopera.org/ - then scroll down to "Nightly Opera Stream". The box shows the current opera with a picture. You just click WATCH NOW.)
Appropriate opera for these times? At the Met, it's Week 30 of their free live streamings, and this is Wagner Week. They're doing the full Wagner, starting with two relatively recent productions of what are probably the most and least known of his operas. (Details below)
The Met has put up a fine range of 'supplementary content' for this week - from stories of the operas to interviews with directors, recording of orchestra parts and podcasts about themes. Click here to see what's available.
Tuesday, October 6 Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde Starring Nina Stemme, Ekaterina Gubanova, Stuart Skelton, Evgeny Nikitin, and René Pape, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. From October 8, 2016.
It was a daringly different production, with wonderful voices. Guardian was scathing: "a feverish squandering of elite operatic resources." But whatever you think of the production, this opera is alight with some of Wagner's most exquisite music. New to the opera? CLICK HERE for the introduction on our earlier website. It includes a link to the account by Royal Opera House conductor Tony Pappano of the 'Tristan chord' that changed modern music,
Wednesday, October 7 Wagner’s Tannhäuser Starring Eva-Maria Westbroek, Michelle DeYoung, Johan Botha, Peter Mattei, and Günther Groissböck, conducted by James Levine. From October 31, 2015. By all accounts, a musically splendid performance of a very old (OttoShenk) production.
and then - a long weekend's Ring Cycle!
Faithful readers of this blog will recall that back in March, at the dawning of the new world of COVID19 , the Met screened a week of Wagner, featuring the 2016 performances of their current entire Ring Cycle. Go to our post for lots of information and links to more information about Wagner, the Ring and the ending of the world. As I commented then, this is your chance to view the infamous Met Ring Cycle with the multi-million dollar "Machine" representing the World in its various ups and downs. Not a bad metaphor for the present.
The Cycle being shown this week is the Met's much older (1989-90), pre-Machine version by Otto Schenk. The NY Times described it as a 'grandly old-fashioned production, a storybook staging of Wagner’s mythological tale... As outlandish and agenda-laden “Ring” productions keep cropping up around the world, the Schenk “Ring,” however conservative, has been a relief for many beleaguered Wagnerites.'
Only one of the four operas of this version, Die Walküre, has been live streamed this year. It showed a very different reading of the ring operas; simple and 'naturalistic' sets, very 'old fashioned' direct singing by an amazing cast of Wagner stars. This week we get all four operas from that season.
Do you need more information and even some comic relief? There's a good synopsis of the whole vast complex story here.
Opera North offers a splendidly statistically illustrated Ring in a Nutshell. Please go back to my earlier post at the beginning of March, "Time on your hands?" The Opera North Ring, an innovative, concert-style production, is still available online. Follow the links to our earlier pages on Wagner.
Thursday, October 8 Wagner’s Das Rheingold
Starring Christa Ludwig, Siegfried Jerusalem, James Morris, and Ekkehard Wlaschiha, conducted by James Levine. From April 23, 1990.
Friday, October 9 Wagner’s Die Walküre
Starring Hildegard Behrens, Jessye Norman, Christa Ludwig, Gary Lakes, James Morris, and Kurt Moll, conducted by James Levine. From April 8, 1989. If you missed it earlier, don't miss it now.
And if you can't view it, at least listen here to Jessye Norman as Sieglinde - singing "O hehrstes Wunder!" in 1989.
Saturday, October 10
Starring Hildegard Behrens, Siegfried Jerusalem, and James Morris, conducted by James Levine; From April 26, 1990.
Murkiest morals in this opera, and Siegfried is a role challenging any tenor to interpret him as a hero. A fascinating review here from the NYTimes.
Sunday, October 11 Wagner’s Götterdämmerung
Starring Hildegard Behrens, Christa Ludwig, Siegfried Jerusalem, and Matti Salminen, conducted by James Levine. From May 5, 1990.
And that's it for the ring - at least this time round.
Monday, October 12 Wagner’s Parsifal Starring Katarina Dalayman, Jonas Kaufmann, Peter Mattei, Evgeny Nikitin, and René Pape, conducted by Daniele Gatti. From March 2, 2013.
This is a very traditional production of the very difficult opera, with the music dominating and the long awaited Met performance by Kaufmann the main focus. The Belgian reinterpretation discussed at the top of this post couldn't be more different.
Lyn 2 Oct 2020