Richard Wagner Festspiele
Bayreuth, Germany
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (25 July 2001)
Lohengrin (26 July 2001)
Der Ring des Nibelungen (27, 28, 30 July; 1 August 2001)
Cast lists are provided below.
Bayreuth 2001 came as something of a shock. In 1993 Tristan und Isolde had Siegfried Jerusalem and Waltraud Meier singing the exhausting heldenparts for the first time in their careers, and Daniel Barenboim conducted a spellbindingly beautiful and spartan staging by the late (East) German playwright Heiner Müller. That was the festival setting standards.
While the quality of conducting remained high, this year's festival overall fell short of its recent past. Christian Thielemann proved himself the heir to von Karajan and Kempe in a Meistersinger of rare depth, humanity and wit, notwithstanding Wolfgang Wagner's dull, conventional and ugly staging. The 2001 singers are not to be compared with previous Bayreuth Meistersinger casts. Robert Holl's dour, uncharismatic Sachs, Robert Dean Smith's "correct" but unglamorous Stolzing, Emily Magee's brittle and slightly tarty Eva, and Clemens Bieber's thin-toned and somewhat elderly-looking David were all perfectly acceptable but hardly of the quality that one expects at the world's premier Wagnerian address.
The vocal level of the opening Meistersinger proved to be fairly representative of what was to follow in Lohengrin and the Ring — all evidence of a crisis in contemporary Wagnerian singing. Keith Warner's gloomy staging of Lohengrin has a thrilling conductor in the London-born American Antonio Pappano. He brought an Italianate lyricism to the "Grail" music with the help of the wonderful Bayreuth Festival Orchestra's strings. The singing, however, was patchy. Although the German soprano Melanie Diener brought her beauty, youthful demeanor and radiant tone to Elsa von Brabant, she tired audibly towards the end of a long evening. Peter Seiffert's Lohengrin was rapturously applauded by the audience, but his once golden-toned lyric tenor has severely deteriorated. Sounding nasal and pinched, he sang "In fernem Land" and "Mein lieber Schwan" as if he were auditioning for Loge or Mime in the Ring. The voices of those playing Ortrud, Telramund and King Henry might be described charitably as provincial.
The singing of the principal roles in the Ring wasn't much better, with one or two exceptions. Bayreuth's former Wotan, John Tomlinson — a veteran of the two previous productions by Harry Kupfer and Alfred Kirchner — was a world-class Hagen, his black bass still in prime condition. Danish contralto Mette Ejsing upheld a proud Bayreuth tradition in the tricky role of Erda, occasional intonation problems aside. Violeta Urmana's thrilling, dramatic mezzo is a piece of unconventional casting for Sieglinde. The other outstanding individual performances were supplied by veterans of the Kupfer Ring at Bayreuth: Günter von Kannen's awesome Alberich and Graham Clark's histrionic virtuosity as Loge in Rheingold and Mime in Siegfried remain as vivid as they were in the late 1980s.
Adam Fischer had the difficult task of replacing Giuseppe Sinopoli, whose unexpected death at the age of 54 robbed Bayreuth of one of its longest-serving conductors. Last year, the Italian's conducting was controversially slow — too slow, apparently, for his Brünnhilde who declined to appear in the revivals. Her replacement was the California soprano Luana DeVol, who was serviceable, if not overwhelming, but did sing the many piano passages sensitively and musically. Alan Titus remained a Wotan with plenty of vocal stamina but negligible stage presence — it didn't help that both Brigit Remmert's light-voiced Fricka and DeVol's strapping Brünnhilde towered over him. Even worse were both of the Siegfrieds: Christian Franz, a relative newcomer who has sung the role for Barenboim in Berlin, crooned and shouted his way through the opera; Wolfgang Schmidt, a survivor of the Kirchner Ring, barked and bleated the music of his older incarnation in Götterdammerüng — a truly horrible noise. Faute de mieux, this is probably the future of heldentenor singing, in Europe anyway — a dismal prospect.
Despite vocal mediocrity, this Ring is still worth catching between 2002 and 2004. Fischer's conducting of the mighty score was outstandingly well-paced and scrupulously musical even if it missed the cosmic breadth and incandescence of the Ring's most famous interpreters, and by 2004 it might be a different story. The staging looks stunning with Erich Wonder's hi-tech modernist designs. Traditionalists might demur at the "corporate" architecture of Valhalla, Nibelheim and the Gibichung Hall, a spectacular steel-and-chrome "airport" lounge on three levels. But Flimm devised some breathtaking effects: the "Ride of the Valkyries" is a Hollywood sci-fi spectacular with troupes of Amazon women performing military maneuvers, abseiling from the flies and, overseen by their eight singing "team leaders," collecting the discarded armor of dead warriors parading like zombies into Valhalla. Flimm and Wonder supply an unforgettable image for the collapse of the Gibichung Hall at the end of Götterdammerüng. The airport lounge sinks into the ground spouting flames, the backdrop curtain falls and the chorus, wearing everyday modern clothes, moves tentatively towards a new world of blazing light. This is a truly cataclysmic vision of the Ring's message of destruction and renewal, thrillingly realized. If only this Ring were better sung, it might become a classic.
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Robert Holl (bass) — Hans Sachs
Guido Jentjens (bass) — Veit Pogner
Bernhard Schneider (tenor) — Kunz Vogelgesang
Alexander Marco-Buhrmester (bass) — Konrad Nachtigall
Andreas Schmidt (bass) — Sixtus Beckmesser
Hans-Joachim Ketelsen (bass) — Fritz Kothner
Arnold Bezuyen (tenor) — Balthasar Zorn
Peter Maus (tenor) — Ulrich Eisslinger
Helmut Pampuch (tenor) — Augustin Moser
Sándor Sólyom-Nagy (bass) — Hermann Ortel
Alfred Reiter (bass) — Hans Schwarz
Jyrki Korhonen (bass) — Hans Foltz
Robert Dean (tenor) — Walther von Stolzing
Clemens Bieber (tenor) — David
Emily Magee (soprano) — Eva
Michelle Breedt (mezzo-soprano) — Magdalena
Attila Jun (baritone) — Night watchman
Christian Thielemann (conductor)
Wolfgang Wagner (director)
Wednesday 25 July 2001
Richard Wagner Festspiele, Bayreuth, Germany
Lohengrin
Stephen West (bass) — King Henry
Peter Seiffert (tenor) — Lohengrin
Melanie Diener (soprano) — Elsa
Oskar Hillebrandt (baritone) — Telramand
Linda Watson (mezzo-soprano) — Ortrud
Roman Trekel (baritone) — Herald
Bernhard Schneider (tenor) — First Nobleman
Arnold Bezuyen (tenor) — Second Nobleman
Attila Jun (baritone) — Third Nobleman
Jyrki Korhonen (bass) — Fourth Nobleman
Antonio Pappano (conductor)
Keith Warner (director)
Thursday 26 July 2001
Richard Wagner Festspiele, Bayreuth, Germany
Das Rheingold
Alan Titus (baritone) — Wotan
Hans-Joachim Ketelsen (bass) — Donner
Endrik Wottrich (tenor) — Froh
Graham Clark (tenor) — Loge
Johann Tilli (bass) — Fasolt
Philip Kang (bass) — Fafner
Günter von Kannen (baritone) — Alberich
Michael Howard (tenor) — Mime
Birgit Remmert (mezzo-soprano) — Fricka
Ricarda Merbeth (soprano) — Freia
Mette Ejsing (contralto) — Erda
Dorothee Jansen (soprano) — Woglinde
Natascha Petrinsky (mezzo-soprano) — Wellgande
Laura Nykänen (mezzo-soprano) — Flosshilde
Adam Fischer (conductor)
Jürgen Flimm (director)
Friday 27 July 2001
Richard Wagner Festspiele, Bayreuth, Germany
Die Walküre
Robert Dean Smith (tenor) — Siegmund
Philip Kang (bass) — Hunding
Alan Titus (baritone) — Wotan
Violeta Urmana (mezzo-soprano) — Sieglinde
Luana DeVol (soprano) — Brünnhilde
Birgit Remmert (mezzo-soprano) — Fricka
Irmgard Vilsmaier (soprano) — Gerhilde
Irene Theorin (soprano) — Ortlinde
Judit Nemeth (mezzo-soprano) — Waltraute
Elena Zhidkova (mezzo-soprano) — Schwertleite
Ricarda Merberth (soprano) — Helmwige
Lioba Braun (mezzo-soprano) — Siegrune
Anette Jahns (soprano) — Grimgerde
Yumi Koyama (mezzo-soprano) — Rossweisse
Adam Fischer (conductor)
Jürgen Flimm (director)
Saturday 28 July 2001
Richard Wagner Festspiele, Bayreuth, Germany
Siegfried
Christian Franz (tenor) — Siegfried
Graham Clark (tenor) — Mime
Alan Titus (baritone) — The Wanderer
Günter von Kannen (baritone) — Alberich
Philip Kang (bass) — Fafner
Mette Ejsing (mezzo-soprano) — Erda
Luana DeVol (soprano) — Brünnhilde
Britta Stallmeister (soprano) — Voice of the bird
Adam Fischer (conductor)
Jürgen Flimm (director)
Monday 30 July 2001
Richard Wagner Festspiele, Bayreuth, Germany
Götterdämmerung
Wolfgang Schmidt (tenor) — Siegfried
Hans-Joachim Ketelsen (baritone) — Gunther
John Tomlinson (bass) — Hagen
Günter von Kannen (baritone) — Alberich
Luana DeVol (soprano) — Brünnhilde
Ricarda Merbeth (soprano) — Gutrune
Lioba Braun (mezzo-soprano) — Waltraute
Mette Ejsing (alto) — First Norn
Irmgard Vilsmaier (mezzo-soprano) — Second Norn
Judit Nemeth — (soprano) Third Norn
Dorothee Jansen (soprano) — Woglinde
Natascha Petrinsky (mezzo-soprano) — Wellgande
Laura Nykänen (mezzo-soprano) — Flosshilde
Adam Fischer (conductor)
Jürgen Flimm (director)
Wednesday 1 August 2001
Richard
Wagner Festspiele, Bayreuth, Germany
