A Quick Note On The 2006 Bayreuth Siegfried

Just finished listening to the delayed webcast of Siegfried (once again the live webcast was impossibly bad), and with this work conductor Christian Thielemann — who previously turned in a meaningfully flawed reading of Das Rheingold (see this post), and a merely solid reading of Die Walküre ("merely solid" because it's Christian Thielemann from whom one — or at least this one — expects something more) — finally hit his full stride as a Wagner conductor in this Festival, and what a prodigious and glorious stride it was. I've never heard a reading of this score quite as powerful and simultaneously quite as lovely. Thielemann drew from the Bayreuth orchestra a richly detailed and nuanced performance, musically and dramatically, that in my experience was positively nonpareil. From the intricate weaving of the most delicate threads to the massing of the most massive climaxes, everything was right there right where it ought to have been, and all perfectly proportioned each to the other and all to the whole. This was Wagner conducting of the most sterling sort, with a Wagner orchestra to match (and I single out for special mention the brave hornist who did the second-act horn calls which were done spectacularly well and clam-free).

Of the singers, I suppose I should say something of the young American tenor, Stephen Gould, who made his debut in the role of Siegfried with this production. He certainly has a fine, big voice, but, alas, this impossible role defeated him ultimately as it has so many others before him. I expect, however, he will make a first-rate Götterdämmerung Siegfried, and I look forward to his performance in that work on 31 July. I should also single out the sweetly dulcet Stimme des Waldvogels (voice of the Forest Bird), Robin Johannsen, and the bravura performance of Gerhard Siegel as Alberich's brother, Mime, all in all one of the very best performances of this very tricky role in my experience.

Finally, an administrative note of sorts: I've posted no production photos of the 2006 Bayreuth Siegfried as I have of the first two music-dramas of this new production of the Ring. The reason is that the quasi-thumbnail production photos of Siegfried available to me are utterly indecipherable in their quasi-thumbnail form, and so posting them would be pointless. I do, however, leave you tonight with one photo from this production for your delectation: that of Gerhard Siegel as Mime.

Pleasant dreams.