Sounds & Fury

Schmuck

Christoph Schlingensief, the Eurotrash vandal responsible for the current Bayreuther Festspiele Eurotrash production of Wagner's Parsifal which was given its third-season premiere yesterday (the production premiered at the Festspiele in 2004), had this to say concerning his underlying "vision" for the production in an interview with a German news agency:

It may be a lot to expect of the people in the expensive seats, but I have reconciled Nietzsche with Wagner by negating Wagner's silly Buddhist dream.

Self-involved, self-important schmuck.

RTWT here.

Pathetic And Paltry

We've just read the sole review of the 2006 Bayreuther Festspiele Tankred Dorst production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen filed by New York Times chief music critic Anthony Tommasini, and it's as pathetic a piece of critical writing as we've ever had the displeasure of reading. No enlightenment is to be gained from nor any insight or real substance to be found in this worthless bit of critical dross beyond the de rigueur requirements of even the rankest journeyman review. And as if to add insult to injury, the paltry number of words* allotted this putative complete coverage of this premiere presentation of a new production of Wagner's 16-hour, four-episode masterpiece presented over four days at the world's oldest, most famous, and most prestigious music festival is nothing short of an outrage — most especially and most particularly so considering that this almost burlesque of an opera review was published not in the pages of the Grover's Corners Sentinel, but in our so-called "National Newspaper of Record".

While the review lacked meaningful substance, it was not lacking what is fast becoming a Tommasini opera review trademark: the inexcusable gaffe. Writes Mr. Tommasini:

Because of Bayreuth’s unique covered pit, the orchestra players cannot be seen. So it was a lovely touch during the final ovations on Monday when the curtain opened to reveal the musicians standing onstage, instruments in hand, in their dressed-for-comfort wear. They won a huge and much-deserved ovation.

Perhaps someone should have informed Mr. Tommasini that this "lovely touch" was not merely a lovely touch at the close of this performance, but a tradition of longstanding at the Festspiele at the close of a premiere performance, and would have been worthy of remark only had the tradition not been observed.

But then, the inexcusable gaffe is also a tradition of sorts in a Tommasini opera review, and so, we suppose, we perhaps ought not to begrudge Mr. Tommasini its observance.

---

* 1300 words; the approximate word-count of an ordinary weekly newspaper column.

A Quick Note On The 2006 Bayreuth Götterdämmerung

I'm going to run through this as swiftly as possible, and I post it only because, given my three previous Quick Note On entries for this Ring webcast, I suspect it would be more conspicuous by its absence.

The Prologue and first act of this Götterdämmerung were unqualified train wrecks musically (and therefore dramatically as well). I'm not talking subtleties here. I'm talking things as rudimentary as off-pitch singing, and singing — or rather bellowing — wrong notes at top volume. I'm talking confused ensemble and clams to spare from the orchestra, and orchestra and singers going their separate ways. Everyone was implicated; no-one absolved. There were no innocent parties here — except, perhaps, the put-upon audience, that is.

Act II brought back a measure of sanity and professionalism and a seemingly different opera company, and things went mostly OK for the duration, the only standout being the glorious singing of the Bayreuth chorus (but when has the Bayreuth chorus not sung gloriously?). My expectation concerning the Siegfried — the young American tenor, Stephen Gould — alas, fell short of fulfillment. While he wasn't defeated by the role as he was by the Siegfried Siegfried, he was nevertheless unable to rise to the first-rate realization I'd expected of him of this far less demanding character. As for Act III, it went pretty much OK as well, and sported three vocally lithesome Rheintöchter as added graces.

And that's all the detail, and all I have to say about this Götterdämmerung. Had I been obliged, however, to sit myself on those hard wooden seats in a 85-degree Festspielhaus for almost five hours — and that after having to wait almost 10 years for tickets — you can bet I'd probably have lots more to say about it.

The Man Doesn't Have A Clue

Guess who. That's right. None other than New York Times chief music critic Anthony Tommasini again. In a "color" piece filed from the Bayreuther Festspiele, he writes:

If the Wagner family truly wants to jolt the festival [sic] with new perspectives on the master’s works, I have a proposal. How about, now and then, performing works by other composers? It would place Wagner’s astounding achievement in context to hear at the house he built both works that inspired him, like Beethoven’s “Fidelio,” and works that would have been impossible without his example, like Schoenberg’s “Moses und Aron.”

And how about, every so often, commissioning a composer to write a music drama [for Bayreuth] with Bayreuth’s acoustics in mind? Sacrilege, I know. But what a way to honor Wagner the status-quo-smashing modernist.

And this is the music critic The New York Times — The New York Times, for chrissake!, this country's "National Newspaper of Record" — sends to cover the Bayreuther Festspiele (and I refrain from pointing out one glaring error, and an innocent and technically correct but curiously misleading bit of wording that also appeared in this otherwise vapid and information-stale piece).

What's wrong with this picture?

Will Wonders Never Cease: 2006 Bayreuth Götterdämmerung

More small and fuzzy photos, this time from the 2006 Bayreuther Festspiele Tankred Dorst production of Götterdämmerung, and I'm becoming just a bit suspicious vis-à-vis the Eurotrash question. We non-German-speakers who can't read the German press' descriptions of the production will just have to wait for Anthony Tommasini's New York Times review of the entire cycle to make more clear what it is that's shown here. As always, our apologies to the Bayreuther Festspiele for snitching these photos from its website.

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.

A Quick Note On The 2006 Bayreuth Walküre

Before this morning, I'd never heard of Adrianne Pieczonka, much less who she might be. After this morning, I'll never forget. From the instant she sang her first several lines as Sieglinde in Act I of the new Bayreuther Festspiele Tankred Dorst production of Die Walküre, I knew we had a contender for the Sieglinde of the century. Possessing a true so-called jügendlich dramatic soprano — not a pumped-up lyric on steroids — the texture of her voice puts one in mind of nothing so much as sweetly-flowing warm honey, but with a power and intensity that, when required, can at the very same time suggest the steel of a Nilsson. And that's just the beginning. Her German diction and declamation are perfect, but more importantly, her voice has a capacity for exquisite musical and dramatic nuance that seems limitless, and in its realization, perfectly natural and effortless; in short, a genuine singer-actor who by her voice alone can make a role come rivetingly and persuasively alive. I feel lucky to have heard her today notwithstanding my well-known (by regular readers of this blog) and somewhat notorious disinterest in, even antipathy for, opera singers generally.

What's that I hear you saying? Probably another operatic fat lady whose physical presence destroys any illusion her voice may bring to a role?

Oh ye of little faith!

Ms. Pieczonka's website is located here.

Will Wonders Never Cease: 2006 Bayreuth Die Walküre

More small and fuzzy photos, this time from the 2006 Bayreuther Festspiele Tankred Dorst production of Die Walküre, and once more, not a hint of Eurotrash to be discerned. Bless you, again!, Herr Dorst. As before, our apologies to the Bayreuther Festspiele for snitching these photos from its website.

A Quick Note On The 2006 Bayreuth Rheingold

Finally got to hear this late this afternoon by delayed webcast (the streaming audio of the live webcast was impossibly bad), and I just want to note here a few reactions concerning Christian Thielemann's conducting as he's, for me, the central draw of this Ring. I've never heard his reading of any part of the tetralogy before, and had huge expectations given my experience of his stellar Wagner conducting with other of Wagner's works.

To start at the beginning (as good a place as any), while listening to Scene 1, I became convinced Thielemann had gone ill, and been replaced on the podium. This critical scene (critical for the entire tetralogy) was played out both on stage and in the pit bereft of all dramatic nuance. Smooth as a sheet of glass it was, and just as flat. Quite mind-numbing, actually. Things got a bit better with Scene 2, but didn't hit full Wagnerian stride until the trip down to Nibelheim. Things went nicely (but not outstandingly) after that until the Erda episode — easily the most profound moment in Das Rheingold, and one of the most profound of the entire tetralogy — where, for reasons unfathomable, Thielemann picked up the tempo, and fairly ran through Erda's entire doom laden monologue, blunting the episode's dramatic and mythic sense in addition to contradicting Wagner's score which notates this episode, Langsam (slow). Thielemann botched the tempo of the work's climax — the so-called "Entrance of the gods into Walhall" — as well, downshifting (without any warrant in the score) to a tempo so slow one feared the gods would never make it across the Rainbow Bridge before the start of Die Walküre.

All in all, and not to put too fine a point on it, we were not amused.

Will Wonders Never Cease: 2006 Bayreuth Das Rheingold

Here are some photos, small and fuzzy though they may be, of the 2006 Bayreuther Festspiele Tankred Dorst production of Das Rheingold, and — mirabile dictu! — it all looks just splendid! Not a hint of Eurotrash anywhere to be discerned. Bless you!, Herr Dorst. (Well, maybe just a wee Eurotrashy hint: What's Loge up to wearing a 21st-century leather overcoat?) And our thanks to reader Earl for giving us the key to securing these quasi-thumbnail photos from the Bayreuther Festspiele website, and our apologies to the Bayreuther Festspiele for snitching them.

Bayreuther Festspiele Opening Day

[Note: This post has been updated (1) as of 3:29 PM Eastern on 25 Jul. See below.]

Today is opening day at the Bayreuther Festspiele. The Festival opens with a production of Der Fliegende Holländer conceived and directed by Claus Guth that had its premier at Bayreuth in 2003. Marc Albrecht conducts. Link to the live webcast, which begins at 11:55 AM Eastern, is on our right sidebar.

---

Update (3:29 PM Eastern on 25 Jul): The presentation of Der Fliegende Holländer has concluded. For dates and times of the live webcasts of the rest of the Festival, check the links on our right sidebar.

Bayreuth Festival 2006 Listing (Administrative Note)

The links to the listings of live webcasts have now been added to our Bayreuth 2006 listing on the right-hand sidebar.

Bayreuth Festival 2006

[Note: This post has been updated (1) as of 2:07 PM Eastern on 19 Jul. See below.]

We've added to the top of our right-hand sidebar the schedule for the opening performances of the 2006 Bayreuth Festival. As is the custom, these opening performances will all be webcast live, and as that fine website Operacast makes available the sources for those webcasts, each entry in the list will be linked accordingly.

This year's Festival looks to be a genuinely exciting one as it will for the first time mount a new staging of the Ring by director Tankred Dorst (we're keeping fingers crossed here that it will not be yet another Eurotrash outrage), and perhaps even more exciting, the cycle is to be conducted by that most gifted of present-day Wagner conductors, Christian Thielemann.

Stay tuned.

---

Update (2:07 PM Eastern on 19 Jul): The links to the listings of live webcasts have now been added to our Bayreuth 2006 listing on the right-hand sidebar.