[ad_1]
Germany Bayreuth Festival 2022 – Wagner, Siegfried: Soloists, Bayreuth Festival Orchestra / Cornelius Meister (conductor). Recorded (directed by Michael Beyer) on the Bayreuth Festspielhaus and out there on STAGE+ till 14.11.2047. (JPr)
Production:
Director – Valentin Schwarz
Designs – Andrea Cozzi
Costumes – Andy Besuch
Lighting – Reinhard Traub
Dramaturgy – Konrad Kuhn
Cast:
Siegfried – Andreas Schager
Mime – Arnold Bezuyen
Wanderer – Tomasz Koniezcny
Alberich – Olafur Sigurdarson
Fafner – Wilhelm Schwinghammer
Erda – Okka von der Damerau
Brünnhilde – Daniela Köhler
Woodbird – Alexandra Steiner
Young Hagen – Branko Buchberger
Grane – Igor Schwab (silent)
The household travails of Valentin Schwarz’s new Bayreuth Ring continues with Siegfried and its unfolding story of a failed try at eugenics. For the primary act we’re in the home Hunding has clearly deserted (Die Walküre assessment right here), it has been bordered up and the peephole within the door suggests they’re cautious of holiday makers. It appears to be Siegfried’s birthday and Mime (in fancy costume as a wizard) has organized a celebration for him it appears. There are papier-mâché dolls of characters now we have seen on this Ring on small stools (together with one with a gold T-shirt), in addition to white toy horses, a microwave on the electrical fireplace, and a outstanding fish tank. Our ‘hero’ (in a looking gilet vest) staggers in consuming what appears like vodka and rapidly destroys Mime’s current of a flimsy glowing-white sword earlier than Mime provides him a small piece of cake with a sparkler. Mime has a crutch and sometimes sits on a stairlift and Siegfried acts as his carer and washes him. To clarify his origins Mime places on a puppet present and the fragments of sword listed below are arm bones and a small knife that are faraway from the fish tank. When Siegfried goes out once more (we see later he has gone for some Chinese takeaway) Wotan/Wanderer is available in accompanied by two minders (Ravens?) to drop off – very like an absentee father would – a gift of his personal. He breaks Mime’s strolling help and places on the gold/black baseball cap and appears extra like Trump than ever. (Siegfried is blonde and so is Wotan which settles any doubts over his paternity however now means Brünnhilde is his half-sister.) Wotan has given Siegfried a brand new crutch which he fights over with Mime earlier than Siegfried finds a sword blade (Nothung, lastly) inside it that he takes to the kitchen the place sparks fly as he sharpens it. There is not any different forging to be seen although Siegfried’s ‘song’ is accompanied by him destroying – Tcherniakov additionally has him do that later in Berlin – the vestiges of his childhood, earlier than cooling the sword within the water within the tank and firing a gun (for the hammering on the anvil). Mime is mistreated and his head compelled into the microwave, and likewise the tank, earlier than resorting it appears to consuming fish meals. At the tip of the act each Siegfried and Mime collapse to the ground exhausted.
I’m not certain who Fafner is, however he seems an aged relative whose bequests on his dying are eagerly awaited. He is mendacity – as an clearly recalcitrant affected person – in his finish of care hospital mattress in an space of the household mansion we haven’t but seen. Attending him are a nurse (the Woodbird) and the kidnapped boy from Das Rheingold (assessment right here) who has now grownup and is recognisably Hagen. Alberich appears a lot as he did earlier than however considerably older. Catching the attention is the dice with the pyramid and likewise outstanding is a well-stocked drinks cupboard from which Wotan will provide Alberich a drink; their apparent connection right here remembers how Tcherniakov reveals them as twins. Siegfried remains to be ending his Chinese meals when he enters carrying Siegmund’s overcoat and Mime has his crutch and the gun. Fafner doesn’t appear to be getting the very best of care and maybe doesn’t deserve it as he makes a seize for his nurse. There is not any reed pipe nor horn name and Siegfried tries to make a go on the Woodbird who rejects him while nonetheless seeming excited by his advances and particularly the sword he brandishes. Fafner will get up and staggers round on a walker and a distraught Hagen witnesses Fafner being pushed to the bottom and dying on account of the autumn. Meanwhile Wotan and Alberich are ever-present within the background. Brass knuckles are recovered from Fafner’s black raincoat which he dies on and by way of Siegfried they get handed to Hagen. Alberich and Mime face-off and there’s a wrestle for the gun which Alberich claims whereas the Woodbird, Siegfried and Hagen are on a sofa with drinks in hand (it’s the alcohol that helps Siegfried perceive Mime and the Woodbird). At the cupboard Mime has blended one thing to do hurt to Siegfried and sits between him and Hagen. Eventually the exasperated Siegfried will use his sword on the treacherous Mime earlier than Siegfried after which Hagen provide the coup de grâce by smothering him with a pillow. The baseball cap which regularly adjustments fingers now will get again to the glowering Hagen. As the act ends, Siegfried and the Woodbird kiss earlier than, now self-aware and fearless, he races with Hagen up the steps to breach some yellow/black barrier tape looking for Brünnhilde.
Act III opens with Wotan roaming by the mansion together with his fedora on and shining a torch. In the room there’s nonetheless the hospital mattress and is that the useless Fafner on the again? The vivarium remains to be there stage proper and now there’s one other enormous tank with black rocks. Erda is a down-and-out and there’s one other youthful lady there, additionally clearly a tough sleeper, wrapped in a shabby quilt, barrier tape and gold foil. Some years have handed however that is the younger blonde lady Erda ushered away on the finish of Rheingold and she is going to stroll her out right here too. After the confrontation with Erda, Wotan takes the gun she fingers him and places it to his head earlier than eradicating the bullets and hiding in Fafner’s mattress. Siegfried and Hagen have clearly bonded and when Wotan is found Hagen threatens him with the knuckleduster and his hat will get performed with. Wotan is definitely disarmed of his (empty?) gun when it’s knocked from his hand by Nothung. Intriguingly, Wotan places his fingers on Hagen’s face who pulls away in disgust (was he a sufferer of abuse?). Wotan goes out on the again and there’s a unusual lime-green glow earlier than we realise Brünnhilde hasn’t been sleeping however away to have a face-lift and now enters – adopted by her grizzled companion Grane – along with her face bandaged, carrying darkish glasses and a pale-yellow cape. With Hagen repeatedly obvious at them Siegfried removes Brünnhilde’s bandages and her face masks earlier than they kiss and embrace. The visibly upset Hagen appears as if he has been deserted as soon as once more and strikes quietly away. Meanwhile Siegfried remains to be evaluating Brünnhilde’s face to his picture of Sieglinde and stays somewhat confused. He goes over to the big pyramid construction on the aspect of the stage (whose significance I’m not certain of) and is prevented from going additional up the steps to it by the over-protective Grane who by now has Nothung. There is a tug-of-war between him and Siegfried with Brünnhilde between them and the combat with Grane over her continues and he will get harm. There is a little bit of byplay with Wotan’s fedora between Brünnhilde and Grane earlier than she succumbs to Siegfried’s passionate advances. Having placed on Fafner’s overcoat and scarf and with the gun in her hand she goes off with Siegfried (holding Nothung) and Grane in the direction of the automotive headlights we see approaching on the again. Oddly, the baseball cap (Tarnhelm?) stays discarded on the ground.
Listening by loudspeakers, Andreas Schager does have outstanding stamina for Siegfried given how hyperactive he must be for Schwarz and he was in brisker voice right here in Bayreuth than in Berlin the place Tcherniakov had him speeding round too. However, I discover Schager’s Siegfried uncharismatic and his singing relentlessly stentorian and he typically appears on the limits of his (appreciable) assets. Arnold Bezuyen’s wily and deceitful Mime was strongly sung and since there was no try at vocal caricature, I most well-liked his tenor voice to Schager’s. Just like Bezuyen, Tomasz Konieczny (a wearily resigned Wanderer/Wotan), Olafur Sigurdarson (an aggrieved Alberich), Wilhelm Schwinghammer (a surly Fafner) and Okka von der Damerau (a deep-toned, bewildered Erda) had been as spectacular once more as they had been in Das Rheingold. Alexandra Steiner proved a youthful, eager-sounding Woodbird and Daniela Köhler was a radiant and vocally safe Brünnhilde.
Cornelius Meister led the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra in an immaculate Siegfried with no obvious longueurs and he delivered to the ‘scherzo’ of the Ring a eager sense of its overarching span while producing all the fervour and dramatic fireplace it wanted.
Jim Pritchard
[ad_2]