Ladies and gents, meet Hagen[in fullest and final(ish) post form]

TUESDAY MORNING (FINAL) UPDATE: I did finally add some extra thumbs-up versions of our chosen scenelet, but this still leaves loads of stuff undone, as summarized in the note at the end.

Let's eavesdrop -- for now just a bit --
on Hagen, left alone with his thoughts

"Hier sitz' ich zur Wacht": William Wildermann as Hagen

"sits watch" over the Hall of the Gibichungs in Seattle, 1975.

You sons of freedom,

joyful companions,

merrily sail on your way!

Though you may scorn me,

you'll serve me soon,

the Nibelung's son.

-- singing translation by Andrew Porter,

used in our English-language recording

[1]

[Suggestion: Dial back the volume on [1]; my source is loud (and noisy).]
[2]

[3]

[4 (in English)]

Patience, Hagen fans! Credits for the performances will appear in due time.

by Ken

Not a "whistle a happy tune" kind of guy is our Hagen.

One of the above performances is very much not like the others, and I'm not thinking about the difference in language between our first performance and the others. I've intentionally omitted identification of the performances so we can focus on the performances themselves, but be assured that eventually they'll be fully identified, when we'll also clarify another, even more obvious trick embedded in the layout of the performances. For now, I'm just curious whether the difference I have in mind will be as obvious to other listeners.

Now, this isn't literally our meeting with Hagen, as might have been assumed from the post title. That occurred roughly 40 minutes earlier in Götterdämmerung, at the start of Act I -- and we need to remember that Act I isn't the start of Götterdämmerung, inseparably attached as it is to the roughly 40-minute Prologue, counting the extraordinary orchestral bridge known as "Siegfried's Rhine Journey," which takes us from the ecstasies of Brünnhilde's sendoff to her beloved Siegfried, as he sets out on his journey on the Rhine, to the more workaday world of the Gibichungs, specifically the king and queen of the Gibichungs, the brother and sister Gunther and Gutrune, and their half-brother (same mother, different fathers) Hagen.

(According to present plan -- and for those of you who are new to these parts, "plans" hereabouts have a way of, er, mutating -- we are eventually going to hear our initial encounter with Hagen.)

Let's hop on the boat with Siegfried for his "Rhine Journey"!

Preview: What a difference a top-quality bass makes as King Heinrich in "Lohengrin"

WAGNER: Lohengrin: Act I: Royal Herald, "Gott richtet euch nach Recht und Fug" ("God will pass rightful judgment on you") . . . King Heinrich, "Mein Herr und Gott" ("My Lord and God")

ROYAL HERALD [to LOHENGRIN and TELRAMUND]:
God will pass rightful judgment,
so trust in Him, not in your own strength!
LOHENGRIN and TELRAMUND [standing opposite each other, outside the circle]:
God will pass rightful judgment on me,
so I shall trust in Him, not in my own strength!
KING HEINRICH [proceeding to the middle with great ceremony]: My Lord and God, I call upon you
[Everyone bares their head in deepest reverence]
to be present at this fight!
Proclaim through the sword's victory a verdict
that clearly shows what is deceit and what is truth!
May he who is innocent fight with the arm of a hero,
and may he who is false be sapped of strength!
So help us God in this hour,
for our wisdom is but folly!

PERFORMANCE A

PERFORMANCE B

PERFORMANCE C


by Ken

What we have here are three performances of the King's great prayer near the end of Act I of Lohengrin -- performances widely spaced in time, by basses who were all highly regarded in their times, and also widely spaced in quality, ranging from the near-sublime to the near-ridiculous. We'll hear them again in a moment, with proper identifications.

But first I should explain that when we first dipped into Wagner's Flying Dutchman last month ("Preview: Father's Day special -- meet the sea captain Daland" and "Father's Day special -- Wagner's Daland usually knows better than to trust in the wind"), the idea was to focus on the outstanding German bass Karl Ridderbusch in his glorious prime, in two great performances, as Daland in Dutchman and as the King in Lohengrin. Then I got sidetracked into "A little more of The Flying Dutchman -- we hear from the sailors" (preview) and "In The Flying Dutchman Wagner shows there's more than one way to get from Act I to Act II and from Act II to Act III." Well, around here that's always a risk.

This week I want to proceed to Ridderbusch's King Heinrich der Vogler, and we'll get there Sunday, but first I wanted to hit the King's two vocal high points.. We started with the King's stupendous invocation near the end of Act I, initiating the trial by combat between the unknown knight who has fallen from the heavens to defend Elsa of Brabant, accused of causing the disappearance of her little brother, Gottfried, and her accuser, her and Gottfried's guardian, the Brabantine noble Friedrich of Telramund.

NOW LET'S HEAR AND IDENTIFY OUR THREE PERFORMANCES