Richard Wagner (1813-83)
Siegfried (1876)
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle
rec. live, 3-5 May 2023, Isarphilharmonie, Munich
BR Klassik 900211 [3 CDs: 233]

Reviewing Sir Simon Rattle’s recording of Die Walküre back in May 2020, I observed then that he and his Bavarian Radio forces were taking their time over their progress through Wagner’s Ring cycle; Das Rheingold had appeared as long ago as 2016 (review). It is now a further three years until he has reached Siegfried, although perhaps the pandemic has had something to do with the delay. As before, he has ensured that he has access to some of the best Wagnerian singers in the world today. But it is a surprise to see that the casting of both Wotan and Brünnhilde has been changed in the intervening period. But then Siegfried in incontestably the most difficult of the Ring operas to cast satisfactorily, with the title role in particular forming a real challenge to any generation.

Here indeed we find Simon O’Neill, whom I had first encountered in the role when reviewing the Naxos concert recording conducted by van Zweden back in 2018 and again in a live Hallé issue in 2019 where I had described him as “a tower of strength in the title role, managing to encompass the most heroic elements of the score without any signs of apparent strain and still retaining freshness through to the end of the long evening in his love duet with Brünnhilde”. He remains a formidable force of nature, tireless and energetic, and although some critics have complained about his voice sounding too similar to that of Mime. I find the occasional harshness of his tone not inappropriate to the unsympathetic nature of his character. Indeed, reviewing his Hong Kong performance, I hailed the performance there of Act One as one of the best on record, despite the many difficulties of obtaining accuracy during any live rendition of the score. Again here the sheer verve of the forging scene comes across ideally. It is aided with the perfect precision of the hammering entrusted to a professional percussionist, rather than delivered by a singer inevitably distracted by the sheer difficulty of getting his notes in place. If the performance here falls slightly short of the effect of the van Zweden set, that may be laid at the door of Peter Hoare. He is a very effective Mime, without quite achieving the difficult combination of comedy and pathos which Cangelossi so convincingly portrayed there. Even so, Hoare is certainly an improvement in terms of skill and accuracy over Gerhard Stolze’s renditions of the part for Karajan and Solti back in the 1960s.

Michael Volle takes over from James Rutherford as Wotan/Wanderer from the earlier Rattle Walküre, and I must admit that I regret this. Here he re-assumes his role as the King of the Gods which he had formerly given in Rheingold. He lacks the heroic ring of his British counterpart and seems to find insufficient force for the stratospheric writing at the end of his riddle scene with Mime when he triumphs over the abject dwarf. Nor does he have the sense of faltering majesty that we really want during his scenes with Erda and Siegfried in Act Three; and in the opening of Act Two he is comprehensively out-performed by Georg Nigl as Alberich. The latter gives one of the most startlingly malevolent of performances since Gustav Neidlinger, not without some waywardness of pitch but with venom and violence to spare. He is similarly brusque in his later scene with his brother, reducing Hoare to quivering abjectness with apparently little effort other than sheer self-will. Gerhild Romberger, taking over as Erda from her predecessor in Rattle’s Rheingold, is mild-mannered and reticent by comparison, no match for Wotan in their war of destinies; and she is not favoured either by the microphones, with no attempt being made to match Culshaw’s production for Solti as she rises from the depths of the earth.

But there again, even in the circumstances of a concert performance, there are elements here where one might have welcomed a more interventionist approach in the manner of a studio recording. The voice of the woodbird, cheerfully delivered by Danae Kontora is clear and crisp enough; but Franz-Josef Selig as Fafner is done no favours by the decidedly dry acoustic, even though the booklet photographs show him – as Wagner instructs – delivering his words through a “sprachrohr” (a primitive acoustic megaphone). In his confrontation with Siegfried, this means that his voice is insufficiently dominating – and the effect after he is wounded, when Wagner specifically prescribes that he should employ a smaller instrument, goes for almost nothing. Even more seriously in his opening scene with Wotan and Alberich, when his voice should sound from deep within his cavern, he is self-evidently in exactly the same acoustic as his interlocutors. He is obviously standing right next to them on stage. Surely it would have been relatively easy to simulate stage balances here; the careful atmosphere conjured by Wagner goes for almost nothing as a result. Perhaps indicative of a similar lack of directorial imagination, the sounds as Siegfried attempts to imitate the woodbird on a reed pipe are feebly attempted, and don’t match the notes that Wagner specifically writes in the score either.

Rattle himself clearly takes considerable care over balances and pacing of the score. There is no sense of undue haste that can so easily take over during the many passages of febrile excitement. Such passages as the prelude to Act Three are magnificently controlled, leading to a stupendous appearance by the “Donnermaschine” that Wagner marks at the climax (it returns to equal effect as Siegfried breaks Wotan’s spear). The offstage horns playing Siegfried’s horncall during the orchestral interlude describing his ascent of the mountain, often reduced to near-inaudibility, ring out triumphantly as they rise to high C; and the stillness of the unaccompanied violins during the extraordinary passage as Siegfried emerges onto the mountain top are magnificently lyrical. And at the end of the opera, Anja Kampe rises from her sleep in resplendent voice to match O’Neill decibel for decibel in their rapturous duet. The fact that the set was recorded over three days may help to explain the freshness of the responses here, where in many live performances Siegfried in particular can sound close to exhaustion after a strenuous evening; but it is nonetheless welcome.

The set is excellently laid out over three CDs, with each Act complete on a single disc, although this means that the third disc extends to 81.33. The substantial booklet in English and German gives us the complete texts and translations, although for some totally unfathomable reason the stage directions are omitted in Lionel Salter’s English version. There are also some highly amusing caricatures of the singers, including one of Franz-Josef Selig half-transformed into a Wurm and blasting out “Let me sleep, Goddamit” through his megaphone at a costumed Wotan. This presumably owes as much to the artist’s imagination as the actual events in the hall during the recording.

Despite my reservations, this is a welcome addition to the Wagner discography in what bids fair to be an exceptionally good performance of Wagner’s massive masterpiece. With the major changes in casting between instalments, it is perhaps unfair to expect consistency of approach between each of the music dramas; but nonetheless one looks forward to Rattle’s Götterdämmerung. Hopefully we will not have to wait another three years.

Paul Corfield Godfrey

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Cast and credits
Simon O’Neill (tenor) – Siegfried
Anja Kampe (soprano) – Brünnhilde
Peter Hoare (tenor) – Mime
Michael Volle (baritone) – Wanderer
Georg Nigl (baritone) – Alberich
Franz-Josef Selig (bass) – Fafner
Danae Kontora (soprano) – Woodbird
Gerhild Romberger (mezzo-soprano) – Erda