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Heil und Lebe Wohl London Royal Albert Hall 09/28/1998 - Richard Wagner : Das Rheingold osemary Johns (Woglinde), Gillian Webster (Wellgunde), Leah-Marian
Jones (Flosshilde), Ekkehard Wlashicha (Alberich), John
Tomlinson (Wotan), Michelle DeYoung (Fricka), Rita Cullis (Freia), Kristinn
Sigmundsson (Fasolt), Matthias Höle (Fafner), Timothy Robinson (Froh),
Alan Held (Donner), Philip Langridge (Loge), Robin Legatte (Mime),
Catherine Wyn-Rogers (Erda)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Bernard Haitink
(conductor) The Albert Hall tonight was remniscent of the old Soviet Union, with queues
everywhere -- for the Ladies, for the bars, and down two flights of stairs
for programmes. But the massive applause that greeted Bernard Haitink was
deeply affectionate and certainly not orchestrated. And the performance of
Das Rheingold itself was a powerful and painful reminder of what the
Royal Opera can do if only it has the management and resources to support
it. While it is truly cheering that Haitink seems to have recovered from
major heart surgery, there was a strong sense of foreboding tonight after
the cancellation of the current Royal Opera season from January.
Das Rheingold is light entertainment only in contrast to the rest of
the Ring, but this performance flew by. The semi-staging, with the cast in
concert dress, which used a stage in front of the orchestra platform and
some lighting effects, was based on Richard Jones' controversial production
of 1996. It kept a few props and all of the characterizations, with
complete success in the hands of a nearly impeccable cast.
The Rhinemaidens were at least as alluring in little black dresses and blue
scarves as they were previously in latex. They delivered both the playful
anarchy of their opening games and the portentousness of their final
warning at either end of a production that brought out the
comic-sinister-tragic cycle of greed and stupidity. Michelle De Young was a
Junoesque, big-voiced Fricka and Rita Cullis rather subdued as Freia.
Catherine Wyn-Rogers was a resonant Erda.
John Tomlinson pretty much owns Wotan, but his performance was fully
integrated into the production and anything but automatic, a natural leader
struggling for authority and integrity in chaos, but always ready for a
pragmatic compromise and definitely with limited vision. It wasn't quite a
surprise that Fafner and Fasolt caught him out the same way he did
Alberich.
Philip Langridge was equally interesting as a spivvy Loge, with a dark red
shirt and slimy manners. His singing was always full of character and
strange angles. Ekkehard Wlashicha as Alberich started out as comically
stupid, and ended as a near perfect counterpart of Wotan, delivering a
deeply threatening curse. He's neither a dwarf nor an elf, of course. The
giants were even heavier, in character and vocally, but showing a glimmer
of a sense of higher things along with the comic stupidity. Timothy
Robinson was a lovely-voiced, cheerful Froh, and Alan Held a solid Donner
(with a hammer from the tool box).
As ever, the orchestra and Bernard Haitink were even more crucial to the
success of the performance than the singers. They delivered an incredible
amount of detail over the boom of the echo in the hall. Haitink,
understandably, lacked the energy he showed in the Barbican Mephistofele
six months ago, but he and the orchestra made up for any lack of energy
with both style and substance.
It is heartbreaking to think that, although the singers who performed
tonight will certainly be back in London again, it is quite possible that
Haitink will choose not to remain long in a position that must be deeply
demoralizing. And the future of the orchestra is equally uncertain, with
the risk that the superb ensemble will be lost. There are performances of
Die Walküre on 29 September, Siegfried on 1 October and
Götterdämmerung on 3 October in the Albert Hall and of the
complete cycle in Symphony Hall, Birmingham on 5, 6, 8 and 10 October. See
them if you can. On the basis of this one they will be terrific. But that
last Götterdämmerung may be hard to take. H.E. Elsom
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