At the Metropolitan Musical show, the German baritone Michael Volle has wore an eye fix and got a lance to sing his initially complete "Ring" cycle (exhibitions proceed through May 11). Here, three of The New York Times' established music scholars — Michael Cooper, a journalist, Joshua Barone, a ranking staff manager and faultfinder, and Seth Colter Dividers, a commentator — examine his astounding execution up until now.
MICHAEL COOPER I was struck by how Mr. Volle explored a chilling minute in "Bite the dust Walküre," the second "Ring" musical show.
Wotan has quite recently reluctantly caused the passing of his own child by interceding in a natural fight.
His pitiful obligation done, the shattered, angry god pretentiously dispatches the victor he has quite recently helped, and, with only a word — "Geh!" ("Go!") — strikes his child's executioner dead.
Some incredible Wotans of the past would nearly murmur that "geh," including Hans More blazing, whose accounts I actually wore out, and James Morris, whose rich, liquid voice made him the Wotan of my childhood. I once heard John Tomlinson for all intents and purposes thunder it, and Bryn Terfel scornfully growl it.
Mr. Volle snarled it brutally — the sort of snarl it nearly harms your throat to hear. Be that as it may, he returned in the following demonstration singing just as ever. One minute he was unnerving in his fierceness, the following he was singing the tenderest, most lieder-like of bedtime songs in his goodbye to his insubordinate little girl, Brünnhilde. It was as gutsy, and brightly differed, a Wotan execution as any I can recollect.
JOSHUA BARONE Snarl is actually the word for that minute in "Walküre," the "Ring" musical drama in which he may give his best execution. Be that as it may, I would prefer not to limit his Wotan in "Das Rheingold," the opening of the "Ring," or "Siegfried," the third of the four musical shows — particularly since he so unmistakably occupies each phase of the god's defeat.
There wasn't a ton of subtlety to Mr. Volle's "Rheingold," which I understood was actually what the job calls for at that point: Wotan is lethally certain and cheerful, from start to finish. The cocksure patriarch who supposes he can control his way to a free stronghold is a similar one who, irritated by the Rhinemaidens bemoaning their lost gold, barks at Loge to quietness them as the musical drama finds some conclusion.
In "Siegfried," which he was singing out of the blue, I discovered Mr. Volle perpetually urgent.
COOPER Truly, his baritone — which is on the brilliant side for a Wotan — drew out the god's savor the experience of playing with his adversaries from the get-go. In any case, as the night advanced, the existential fear underneath the surface continued looking through, as the bound god swayed between tolerating his destiny and opposing it. His vocal acting made his last scene — in which Wotan picks a difficult elderly person's fight with the rash grandson he adores and loses his capacity — into a "Lord Lear"- like catastrophe.
BARONE With each note, his portrayal is clear, an attribute he imparts to the magnificent bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny, who is singing Alberich. That is the reason their common scene in Act II of "Siegfried" — as sung by Mr. Volle and Mr. Konieczny, a look into the urgent and various ways two characters hungry for power attempt to recover it — is a feature of that musical drama, matched just by Mr. Volle's goodbye to the adventure, in Act III, in which his Wotan is by turns exasperated, decided and tainted.
However, back to "Walküre": His enthusiastic farewell to Brünnhilde in the last scene was the first occasion when that tragically lovely music made them battle back tears. What's more, what about his stupendous story in Act II?
SETH COLTER Dividers Yes! The Demonstration II story in "Walküre" was a standout amongst the most shocking entries of the night, as both music and dramatization. When I was tuning in to it, I understood I was never again disturbed by the on-the-nose (on-the-eyeball?) nature of this current generation's video projections.
How did Mr. Volle deal with that? For a certain something, his scene accomplice here — the soprano Christine Goerke, as Brünnhilde — is hypnotizing notwithstanding when she's simply tuning in. It additionally helps that Mr. Volle gives her something to respond to all through this long piece of composition, which can appear to be a "Formerly on 'Valhalla'"- type restatement.
Mr. Volle's Wotan has a ton of states of mind. In "Walküre," he comprehends what distresses him, yet he's not surrendered to it, yet. He's as yet handling. What's more, this present Wotan's entrance to a brisk marshaling outrage likewise mirrors a portion of Wagner's stage headings: needing the character to sound curbed amid one little segment, at that point increasingly energized for a few beats, at that point sloped down. (Those bearings are incorporated into an ongoing interpretation of the "Ring" lyrics by Penguin Works of art.) Mr. Volle watches these shifted signs, notwithstanding when the generation is very static.
I was sufficiently fortunate to get one of James Morris' Wotans in the Met's past creation, by Otto Schenk. I can affirm that his voice remained extravagantly rich and smooth in this part as of late as 2008. Be that as it may, he was additionally maybe excessively smooth, as far as sensational portrayal. For me, the estimation of Mr. Volle's execution is the manner in which it opens up new interpretive roads.
[The melodic structure squares of Wagner's "Ring."]
COOPER Those fast changes of voice and mind-set permitted Mr. Volle to epitomize the two sides of Wotan's numerous Catch 22s: his capacity and ineptitude, his vision and corruption, his warring wants for affection and power. I have heard nobler Wotans and progressively timid ones, yet by offering voice to the two angles Mr. Volle demonstrated that they were not fundamentally unrelated, yet personally related.
He is 59, so it is hard to state to what extent Mr. Volle's reign in Valhalla will last. He has another full "Ring" cycle this September at the Berlin State Musical show, under the twirly doo of Daniel Barenboim, and is wanting to sing it in Dresden, Germany, in a future season with Christian Thielemann.
In any case, at the Met, when he took his bow on Thursday night in the wake of singing his initially complete "Ring," flipping up his eye fix to take in the cheering group, a bundle of pink roses was hurled at his feet. There was another Wotan in the Wagnerian atmosphere.
Comments
Post a Comment