Siegfried As Heard Via The Met's Live Stream

Siegfried, the third music-drama of the Ring tetralogy, has, with more than a little justice, been called the scherzo of the Ring and Maestro Fabio Luisi, the Met's Principal Conductor, seems to have taken that designation to heart and turned in a luminously spirited and beautifully nuanced reading of the score, a reading realized to perfection by the superb Met Orchestra, the greatest of the great legacy bequeathed the Met by its longtime Music Director James Levine. This reading of Siegfried was the finest reading of this score of our experience and we wish we could have been in the house to witness it in the flesh so to speak. Unhappily, the same cannot be said for what went on onstage due, for the most part, the inappositeness of the singers's respective instruments.

To put the matter as gently and briefly as possible, let us first say that Gerhard Siegel's Mime was just dandy as was Hans-Peter König's Fafner, and Mojca Erdmann's Waldvogel was delightfully fetching. As for the rest of the cast, Jay Hunter Morris would have made a fine Mime but his instrument lacks altogether what's required to make an even passable Siegfried. Similarly, Bryn Terfel's instrument is far better suited to Alberich than to Wotan (or Wanderer), and Eric Owens's instrument to Wotan (or Wanderer) rather than to Alberich. It's truly jarring when the Alberich comes across sounding more commanding and powerful than the Wotan (or Wanderer) as was the case tonight and as was the case in last season's Das Rheingold. As for the girls, Patricia Bardon's Erda needs, um, some work, and Deborah Voigt simply sounded way off her game. We know she can do better. The Siegfried Brünnhilde should be a tiptoe through the tulips compared with the Walküre and Götterdämmerung Brünnhildes but for some reason Ms. Voigt just didn't (or couldn't) pull it off tonight. Perhaps next performance.

The above notwithstanding, tonight's performance was worth the hearing just to experience the Met Orchestra's perfectly realized performance of Mr. Luisi's splendid reading of this difficult score. We look forward to Götterdämmerung.