On the pleasures of getting lostin Götterdämmerung: revisiting the path to here, Part 2

SUNDAY 8:30pm UPDATE: After the earlier fillings-in, mostly around the Götterdämmerung and Walküre selections, I've added some Siegfried performance notes, and barring some likely (hoped for?) post cleanup, that should be about it!

OH WAIT! The missing "Norn Scene" audio clip is found -- and is now in place below! It's from the Met, March 1974: the beautiful (and beautifully cast) Götterdämmerung broadcast conducted by Rafael Kubelik during his sadly brief time as music director.

Brünnhilde (Deborah Voigt) has been awakened by Siegfried
(Jay Hunter Morris), at the Met, 2013. [photo by Ken Howard]

After being kissed by SIEGFRIED, BRÜNNHILDE opens her eyes. SIEGFRIED stands up and stands before her. BRÜNNHILDE slowly rises to a sitting position. She raises her arms in solemn gestures, greeting the heaven and earth that now she sees again.

BRÜNNHILDE: Hail to you, sun! Hail to you, light!
Hail to you, radiant day!
My sleep was long; I am awakened.
Who is the hero who awoke me?
SIEGFRIED [deeply moved by her look and her voice, stands as if rooted to the spot]:
Through the fire I struggled, which blazes around the rock;
I broke you out of your tight helmet;
I am Siegfried, who awakens you.
BRÜNNHILDE [sitting straight up]: Hail to you, gods!
Hail to you, world!
Hail to you, shining earth!
My sleep is at an end.
I am awakened: it is Siegfried who awakens me!
SIEGFRIED [breaks out in ecstasy]:
I bless my mother, giving me birth!
bless the earth that gave me my strength!
Now I behold those eyes,
bright stars which laugh on my joy!
BRÜNNHILDE [overlapping, in impassioned accents]:
I bless your mother, giving you birth!
bless the earth, that gave you your strength.
Your eyes alone could behold me,
my heart to you alone wakes!
[Each remains in radiant, rapt contemplation of the other.]

Deborah Voigt (s), Brünnhilde; Plácido Domingo (t), Siegfried; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Antonio Pappano, cond. EMI, from a Voigt-Domingo Wagner CD recorded January 2000

[kind of scrunched to fit the 78 side] Frida Leider (s), Brünnhilde; Rudolf Laubenthal (t), Siegfried; Berlin State Opera Orchestra, Leo Blech, cond. EMI, recorded Aug. 27, 1927

Kirsten Flagstad (s), Brünnhilde; Lauritz Melchior (t), Siegfried; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Artur Bodanzky, cond. Live performance, Jan. 30, 1937

Helen Traubel (s), Brünnhilde; Set Svanholm (t), Siegfried; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fritz Stiedry, cond. Live performance, Feb. 10, 1951

Birgit Nilsson (s), Brünnhilde; Wolfgang Windgassen (t), Siegfried; Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Philips, recorded live, July 1966

by Ken

For a post that flaunts Götterdämmerung in the title -- and doesn't it seem to go on for inches and inches? -- we're going to be hearing precious little of it today. There will be a little, though, coming up in just a moment, as we revisit, in somewhat expanded form, the first two of the three iterations of what we're calling "the 'Awakening' music," from the "Second Day" (Siegfried) and "Third Day" (Götterdämmerung) of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung.

So no, there won't be any trace this week of the third iteration, which comes so, um, dramatically in the next-to-last scene of Götterdämmerung. We've still got too much ground to cover before we might logically come to it. Nevertheless, even though it wasn't part of my original plan, I'm thinking that maybe we do want to get there at some point, but for sure not this week, or likely even next.

My thinking for this week is that, considering that last week ("On the pleasures of getting lost in Götterdämmerung: revisiting the path to here, Part 1") we were poking around the actual awakening of Brünnhilde, in Scene 3 of Act III of Siegfried, why not start with the awakening itself? And as long as we're awakening her, why not revisit the great succession of Brünnhildes, from Frida Leider to Kirsten Flagstad to Helen Traubel (maybe not unequivocally part of this line of succession, but so close, I think, to rating a place in this line of succession) to Birgit Nilsson?

By the way we're not done with this scene, which is on today's itinerary. But before we come back to it, I thought we might have another reminder of the point we're aiming to get back to, which is the second of the three "Awakening" iterations, in such strikingly altered musical form. Trust Wagner to begin the vastest of his operatic creations in such seemingly understated, and yet such richly detailed, form. And so, without further ado --

WE'RE BACK AT THE START OF GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG, AND NOW (AS PROMISED) WE'RE GOING JUST A BIT DEEPER IN

Probably next week we'll hear what higher-class singing can mean for even a grim character like Hunding -- this week we've got some other business

STORMY WEATHER -- AS IF SIEGMUND DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH
TROUBLES! NO WONDER HE'S SO DESPERATE FOR SHELTER

Inside a dwelling. In the middle stands a mighty ash tree, whose prominent roots spread wide and lose themselves in the ground. The summit of the tree is cut off by a jointed roof, so pierced that the trunk and the boughs branching out on every side pass through it, through openings made exactly to fit. We assume that the top of the tree spreads out above he roof. Around the trunk of the ash, as central point, a room has been constructed. The walls are of rudely hewn wood, here and thre hung with plaited and woven rugs.

In the foreground, right, is a hearth, whose chimney goes up sideways to the roof; behind the hearth is an inner room, like a store room, reached by a few wooden steps. In front of it, half drawn, is a plaited hanging. In the background, an entrance door with a simple wooden latch. Left, the door to an inner chamber, similarly reached by steps. Further forward, on the same side, a table with a broad bench fastened to the wall behind it and wooden stools in front of it.

A short orchestral prelude of violent, stormy character introduces the scene. When the curtain rises, SIEGMUND from without, hastily opens the main door and enters. It is towards evening; a fierce thunderstorm is just about to die down. For a moment, SIEGMUND keeps his hand on the latch and looks around the room; he seems to be exhausted by tremendous exertions; his raiment and general appearance proclaim him a fugitive. Seeing no one, he closes the door behind him, walks to the hearth, and throws himself down there, exhausted, on a bearskin rug.

-- translation by Andrew Porter

This storm has more menacing weight:

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim, cond. Teldec, recorded live, June-July 1992
While this storm has more slashing drive:

Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi, cond. Decca, recorded 1992

by Ken

The above should provide a gentle reminder that coming off last week's post ("Last week I stuck up for Josef Greindl as Wagner's Daland, and this week too, as both Daland and Hunding -- but only up to a point"), we're lodged in Act I of Die Walküre, with particular focus on that shrouded-in-darkness householder Hunding, into whose house we have just slipped, mere minutes in advance of Siegmund. The idea for this week was that we were going to listen closely to Hunding's contributions to the grisly little domestic scene. We're looking to see what singing of real vocal distinction, allied with seriousness of purpose, of course, can add to the character's dimension.


I STILL WANT TO DO THAT -- JUST NOT RIGHT NOW

"Spurn not the nobly born": No, not the proper post planned for this week, but we do make a little progress, and we hear some really nice music

"Spurn not the nobly born," exhorts Earl Tolloller to the no-way-no-how-interested-in-high-rank Phyllis (who has much else to say and sing on the subject); here they're John Elliott and Kate Holt, in a 2009 Iolanthe production by Woodley Players Theatre (Stockport, U.K.). You won't hear much in the video clip, but naturally we've got a slew of audio clips --

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: Iolanthe: Act I, Phyllis, "Nay, tempt me not, to wealth I'll not be bound" . . . Earl Tolloller, "Spurn not the nobly born"

PHYLLIS: Nay, tempt me not;
to wealth I'll not be bound.
In lowly cot
alone is virtue found.
CHORUS OF PEERS: No, no; indeed high rank will never hurt you,
the peerage is not destitute of virtue.
EARL TOLLOLLER: Spurn not the nobly born
with love affected,
nor treat with virtuous scorn
the well-connected.
High rank involves no shame --
we boast an equal claim
with him of humble name
to be respected!
Blue blood! Blue blood!
When virtuous love is sought,
the power is naught,
though dating from the flood,
blue blood!
Spare us the bitter pain
of stern denials,
nor with low-born disdain
augment our trials.
Hearts just as pure and fair
may beat in Belgrave Square
as in the lowly air
of Seven Dials!
Blue blood! Blue blood!
Of what avail art thou
to serve us now?
Though dating from the flood,
blue blood!
CHORUS OF PEERS: Of what avail art thou
to serve us now?
Though dating from the flood,
blue blood!

Elsie Morison (s), Phyllis; Alexander Young (t), Earl Tolloller; Glyndebourne Festival Chorus, Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Oct. 21-24, 1958

Mary Sansom (s), Phyllis; Thomas Round (t), Earl Tolloller; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, New Symphony Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded September 1960

Elizabeth Woollett (s), Phyllis; Phillip Creasy (t), Earl Tolloller; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus and Orchestra, John Pryce-Jones, cond. Jay Productions-Sony, recorded June 28-July 2, 1991

by Ken

No, as noted above, we have no proper post this week -- it just got too hard, and too stressful, and even though I got most of the audio clips made and had a pretty good idea (I think) of where and how the real post was/is intended to go, I just couldn't do it. (And after all, to anybody but me what does it matter?) Still, I've rallied enough to cobble together a sort of coulda-shoulda post-substitute, drawing on some of those already-made audio clips, which we'll hear in the click-through, but also with some additional clips made to order.

In the later stages of the time spent so busily not producing a post, I found myself reflecting me that the plight facing the operatic character we'll be hearing from in the click-through of this non-post, society's unyielding prejudice against persons of rank and privilege, isn't unique on the musical stage, which is how we come to be hearing from the implacable Phyllis and the imploring Earl Tolloller and chiming-in fellow lords.


JUST WHAT MIGHT A PERSON OF RANK ENDURE TO
OVERCOME SOCIETY'S SCORN FOR THE PRIVILEGED?

Sunday Classics snapshots: Ramón Vinay and the search for the soul of Otello

Lauritz Melchior sings Otello's monologue (in German, in a 1930 HMV recording) maybe better than I've heard anyone else sing it. (Note: We've got English texts coming up in a bit if you want to jump ahead to them.)

by Ken

I first heard about the Melchior performance of Otello's monologue in Conrad L. Osborne's 1963 High Fidelity magazine discography of Otello. It took awhile, but eventually one day I was browsing the import section of the new releases at one of the record stores I frequented, and there was an LP devoted to Melchior on a label I had never seen, which as far as I could tell didn't even identify itself, except as "Lebendige Vergangenheit," or LV. The company turned out to be Preiser, which became and remains an important source of vocal reissues. I didn't know that then, though, but I had no choice except to pay bust-out retail for the disc. (When could I expect to find this unknown label on sale?)

As I hope you've already heard, the performance turned out to be every bit as good as promised by CLO.

As it happens, Conrad's Otello discography in High Fidelity is also the source of the quote about Ramón Vinay's Otello that I talked about the other day, when I recounted how I succeeded in digging it up for an obituary I was assigned to write of the Chilean-born baritone-tenor-baritone after he died (on Jan. 4, 1996; I looked it up).


NOW HERE I AM, FACED WITH THE SAME SITUATION!

Preview: The long-separated twin brother and sister Siegmund and Sieglinde recognize each other

Plácido Domingo and Adrienne Pieczonka as Siegmund and Sieglinde at the Met, April 2009

by Ken

This week I want to finish up with my contention that that extraordinary depth of pain we hear coming out of Wotan, first in Act II of Die Walküre and then, of course, in the his final farewell to his cherished daughter Brünnhhilde at the end of the opera, is tempered by our knowledge that most of this pain is self-inflicted.

Last time we listened to the whole of Act I of the Walküre, the second opera (but properly speaking "First Day") of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung tetralogy. In preparation for Sunday's installment, we're going to back to the end of Act I, and pick up after Sieglinde, having heard her mysterious guest's woeful life story, has drugged her husband Hunding and returned to share some of her background. Suddenly the door of Hunding's house blew open, and Sieglinde has asked who left.

This is of course one of the supreme scenes in the musical literature. We're going to start with the Melchior-Lehmann performance we already heard as part of the complete Act I recorded by EMI in Vienna in 1935 under the baton of Bruno Walter, but then we're going to hear an earlier Melchior recording -- unfortunately acoustical -- with the great Brünnhilde and Isolde Frida Leider as Sieglinde. Then we hear Jon Vickers, who I think it's safe to say has been the most successful of the post-Melchior Siegmunds, in the Karajan recording with the surprising choice of the lyric soprano Gundula Janowitz as Sieglinde (I happen to enjoy her performance a lot), and finally we have the sturdy Siegmund of Sieglinde coupled with the vocally strongest Sieglinde at least since Leonie Rysanek.