by Ken
As usual, some of you will know right away what this clip is, and perhaps who, maybe even when (in this case a tad harder than usual). For both those who know and those who don't, if your first reaction is, "That's about as beautiful a half-minute of singing as I've ever heard," we're on the same page.
Now consider these versions of the same excerpt, one of which has a close connection to the version we heard above:
Or if you hanker for a super-speedy bird:
NEW! NEW! (since the earlier version of this "tease"): There's one more clip -- no, make it two -- we might listen to, which from the vocal standpoint are even briefer. For identification purposes, in anticipation of the "clip reveals" to follow in the jump of this post, let's log these in as Clips 5 and 6.
Now if we left it at this, I'd say that this is really a tease. As readers of the earlier version of this "tease" -- when I still thought it was going to be a tease for this week's main post -- know, I always planned to beef it up, though I always worried that the thing might spin out of control. (I refer you to the scheduling note in the jump of this version of the post.)
In that earlier version I proceeded to offer some more music, and even provided proper discographic identification.
Philharmonia Orchestra, Francesco D'Avalos, cond. ASV, recorded Oct. 22, 1987
NOW, BEFORE WE GET BACK TO OUR SINGING BIRDIES
Let's take a more proper listen to that gorgeous music we just heard, ripped out of Scene 2 of Act II of Siegfried, as Siegfried, picnicking in the forest and enjoying a too-uncommon respite from the company of his appalling foster father, the Nibelung Mime, takes in the beauty of his surroundings.
Siegfried: from Act II, "Forest Murmurs" (orchestra only)
Berlin Philharmonic, Klaus Tennstedt, cond. EMI, recorded c1980
NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, cond. Music & Arts, recorded live in Carnegie Hall (in stereo), Apr. 4, 1954
Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond. EMI, recorded Oct.-Nov. 1961
Philharmonia Orchestra, Yuri Simonov, cond. Collins, recorded August 1990
NOW BACK TO OUR WORD-WARBLING WOODBIRDS (WITH
THE PROMISED NOTE ON THE TINY CHANGE OF SCHEDULE)
For a change, the schedule (for want of a better word) got completely out of control, so this "tease" became for next week's post instead of this weeks. Last week, you may recall, while we continued fraternizing with Siegfried as he awakened the sleeping Brünnnhilde on her mountaintop in Act III of Siegfried, we also ventured back to the closing scene of Die Walküre to hear how Brünnhilde came to be found there, awaiting a hero valiant enough to penetrate Wotan's protective ring of fire. The major question I ducked was how Siegfried found his way there, an omission I was already regretting even as I was performing it. So this week we're venturing a quick(ish) version of an answer, in anticipation of the fuller version we'll have next week.
We've already heard the really quick version of the answer, or at least it's been hinted at in the first words out of the mouth of the Woodbird Siegfried hears late in Act II of Siegfried: As it says in the post title, a little birdie told him. Properly speaking, what Siegfried is hearing is the Stimme eines Waldvogels, the Voice of a Woodbird -- the endearing (and newsy) little critter is only heard, not seen, from whatever perch the designer and stage director have worked out. We're going to hear a good deal more of this episode next week, but one thing we can say is that we've already heard the musical groundwork Wagner laid for his super-chatty Woodbird, in the "Forest Murmurs" from earlier in Act II of Siegfried (which I'm thinking we should also hear in more properly contextualized form next week), as Siegfried soliloquized alone in the forest, leading to . . . well, all sorts of things. For now, let's just listen again to our sample Woodbirds, in the same order in which we heard them up top.
Siegfried: Act II, Woodbird, "Hei! Siegfried gehört nun der Niblungen Ring"
VOICE OF A WOODBIRD [on a lime tree
above SIEGFRIED's head]:
Hey! Siegfried now owns the Nibelungs' hoard!
O let him now find in the cave the treasure!
If he were to win the Tarnhelm now,
it would help him do wondrous deeds:
and if he were to take possession of the Ring,
it will make him master of the world.
Joan Sutherland (s), Woodbird; Covent Garden Orchestra, Fritz Stiedry, cond. Pearl, recorded live, June 25, 1954
Joan Sutherland (s), Woodbird; Vienna Philharmonic, Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded October 1962
Erna Berger (s), Woodbird; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fritz Stiedry, cond. Live performance, Feb. 10, 1951
Kiri Te Kanawa (s), Woodbird; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bernard Haitink, cond. EMI, recorded November 1990
Obviously the "close connection" I mentioned between two of the clips involves the first two, where we hear Joan Sutherland both times. In Covent Garden's 1954 Ring cycle, when management knew they had something in the young Australian soprano, but not quite what, she sang the Woodbird in Siegfried and also Woglinde, the "lead" Rhinemaiden, in Das Rheingold and Götterdämmerung. What we're hearing, from a two-CD Pearl set of Siegfried excerpts focusing on Set Svanholm in the title role and Ms. Sutherland, all that seems to survive from that cycle, this was thought to be the earliest recording of Sutherland we hav
e.
By the early '60s, when Decca's John Culshaw was planning the first-ever commercial recording of Siegfried (which took place in May and October of 1962), Covent Garden and the rest of the world had more than figured out what to do with Sutherland, and in the short time from her first Covent Garden Lucia di Lammermoor in 1959, she had vaulted right over stardom to superstardom. Since she was already under contract to Decca, it didn't take a wild imagination for Culshaw to ask her if she might be willing to reprise the Woodbird, and happily she agreed. If the high A's seem even more effortless in 1954, in the 1962 studio recording we can better hear the voice's amazing fullness and color as well as ease.
It so happens that in the Met's 1951 Ring, the great Erna Berger had also sung both Woglinde and the Woodbird, and you'd be hard put to find a more playful and beguiling Woodbird. I thought I'd throw in one more famous Woodbird, so we've also heard Kiri Te Kanawa managing Bernard Haitink's lickety-split pace, which I'm assuming was his interpretation of Wagner's lengthy score note on the proper rhythm for the first bar of the Woodbird's song.
NOW, AS TO CLIPS 5 AND 6 --
This is of course from the opening scene of Das Rheingold -- the 12 seconds or so of singing we hear are the very first bits of vocalizing in the The Ring cycle. In recollection of Sutherland's appearnce as Woglinde as well as the Woodbird In that 1954 Covent Garden Ring, I thought it would be fun to hear a little of her Woglinde -- not from 1954, which as I indicated we don't have, but from the 1957 Covent Garden Ring conducted by Rudolf Kempe, in which Sutherland didn't sing the Woodbird but did sing Woglinde again. So here, in fuller form than we heard in Clips 5 and 6, is the opening of Das Rheingold from Covent Garden 1957 and the Met 1951, starting from the top and continuing long enough to get Alberich into the action -- we've got two really good ones here.
Das Rheingold: Opening of the opera
At the bottom of the Rhine: Greenish twilight, lighter above, darker below. The upper part of the scene is filled with moving water, which streams restlesly from R. to L. Toward the bottom the waters resolve themselves into a fine mist, so that the space, to a man's height from the stage, seems free from the water which floats like a train of clouds over the gloomy depths. Everywhere are steep points of rock jutting up from the depths and enclosing the whole stage; all the ground is broken up into a wild confusion of jagged pieces, so that there is no level place, while on all sides darkness indicates other deeper fissures.
When the curtain rises, the waters are in motion. In the center of the stage, around a rock whose slender apex stretches up into the denser area of densely swirling water, one of the RHINEMAIDENS is circling with graceful swimming strokes.
WOGLINDE: Weia! Waga! Wander you wave!
Waft to the cradle! Wagalaweia!
Wallala! Weiala! Weia!
WELLGUNDE [from above]: Woglinde, are you on watch alone?
WOGLINDE: With Wellgunde I would be two!
WELLGUNDE [dives down to the rock]: Let's see how you watch!
WOGLINDE [eludes her by swimming]: Safely ahead of you!
[They playfully chase one another.]
FLOSSHILDE [from above]: Heiaha weia! Wild sisters!
WELLGUNDE: Flosshilde, swim! Woglinde flies!
Help me catch the fleeing one.
[FLOSSHILDE dives down between them.]
FLOSSHILDE: The gold's sleep you guard badly.
Keep better watch over the slumberer's bed,
or you'll both pay for your play!
[With merry cries they swim apart. FLOSSHILDE tries to catch first one and then the other; they elude her and then together chase her and dart laughing and playing like fish between the rocks. From a dark chasm ALBERICH climbs up one of the rocks. He remains watching the RHINEMAIDENS with increasing pleasure.]
ALBERICH: Heh-heh, you nymphs!
[The MAIDENS stop playing on hearing ALBERICH's voice.]
[Rest of the text to come]
Joan Sutherland (s), Woglinde; Una Hale (s), Wellgunde; Marjorie Thomas (c), Flosshilde; Otakar Kraus (b), Alberich; Covent Garden Orchestra, Rudolf Kempe, cond. Live performance, Sept. 25, 1957
Erna Berger (s), Woglinde; Lucine Amara (s), Wellgunde; Hertz Glaz (ms), Flosshilde; Lawrence Davidson (b), Alberich; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fritz Stiedry, cond. Live performance, Jan. 27, 1951
NEXT TIME: LET'S SEE IF WE CAN'T GET SIEGFRIED
SIEGFRIED BACK ON THE VALKYRIE ROCK
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