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Dickie Wagner’s Merry Melodies New York
David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center
01/16/2025 - & January 18, 19, 2025
Richard Wagner/Lorin Maazel: The Ring Without Words
New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Nathalie Stutzmann (Conductor)
N. Stutzmann (© Rand Lines/Atlanta Symphony Orchestra)
“The whole ‘Ring’ will become–I am not ashamed to say–the greatest work of poetry ever written.”
Richard Wagner
“The characters of ‘The Ring’ are nothing but thieves, liars and blackguards.”
Sir Arthur Sullivan
One likes to imagine Lorin Maazel, that superb Wagnerian, after hearing the Ring as background for everything from Bugs Bunny to Apocalypse Now, decided to feed us the whole 15‑hour operatic tetralogy in a single 78‑minute gulp.
Or, more likely, as Liszt “covered” his contemporaries by reducing music to the piano, Maazel simply wanted us to hear the glories of Wagner without intermissions–and without words.
Thus Maazel’s arrangement, or transcription, or anthology, or medley of the full Ring Cycle, in the orchestral work given by the New York Philharmonic yesterday.
One would never question Parsifal as an orchestral suite. The libretto to Parsifal is more inane, pseudo‑sacred and silly than certain religious tomes. (I won’t name them here). Ring, though, does have its endless dramatic connections.
And while my poor German precludes being a Wagnerian fanatic, I did sit through the Met’s whole four evenings a few years ago. Even planning a book of limericks on the opera. (“When looking for a voice that had filled a/Huge stadium, look for Brunnhilde./Ya want immolation?/Super‑human elation?/Here’s the mezzo whose voice might have killed ya.”)
Maazel–the first Jewish conductor in Bayreuth–was more serious than that, and his epic single‑movement Ring was brought to New York last night. After decades of triumphs in Europe, including Bayreuth the New York Philharmonic was led by a similarly ardent Wagnerian, Nathalie Stutzmann.
Ms. Stutzmann, these days music director-conductor of the Atlanta Symphony, bringing her wide repertoire to the plantation-owners and indentured laborers of the Deep South. New York has her for several concerts this weekend, including two Bach oratorios at the Cathedral of St. John’s.
She is indeed a mighty force with the baton, stabbing, cueing, holding both hands behind her head in exaltation, Ms. Stutzmann took the Phil through its paces from the rippling of the Rhine through the march to Valhalla, providing countless tunes with light and excitement.
The audience, who might ordinarily not sit through all 15 hours, nudged and smiled as familiar melodies were blasted from the Phil. And indeed, when the tympani let out a few ffffffs, they got in the spirit of the thing with unalloyed excitement.
In fact, Ms. Stutzmann took the orchestra through all four opera, including those Wagnerian Golden Oldies. “Entry of the Gods into Valhalla”, “Ride of the Valkyries”, “Wotan’s Farewell and Magic Fire Music”, “Forest Murmurs”, “Siegfried’s Rhine Journey”, “Siegfried’s Death” and of course the “Funeral March”.
Scholars probably take issue with Mr. Maazel’s choices. For one thing, he goes from one motif to another without pause. He had vowed not to add any non‑Wagnerian notes, but some really needed a baritone or mezzo notes. Then the cries of the Valkyries weren’t vocal, they are flutes. And the anvil music needed Alberich’s imprecations.
That, though, was hardly the problem. This is a work which needs tumultuous brass, and they did create a tumult, both onstage and in the wings. Missing, though, were the right notes. Horns, trombones and tubas were unsure of themselves. In a way, they resembled the third‑rate Met Orchestra before James Levine put them into shape.
This didn’t detract from conductor Stutzmann’s excitement. In a way, the work was like hearing a truncated graphic novel of the Ring. The images were graphic, the strings were eloquent, and those drums could have knocked down the Bayreuth roof.
I have seen books listing all the leitmotifs in the four operas–and the books run into the hundreds of pages. Lorin Maazel wouldn’t–obviously couldn’t–fit in the story and the themes. But he took the best of them.
And Ms. Stutzmann, despite the shortcomings of score and instruments, produced a yes, truncated, but always thundery, thumping good show.
Harry Rolnick
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