Conductor...............James Levine
Production..............Otto Schenk
Brünnhilde..............Hildegard Behrens
Siegmund, brother.....Gary Lakes
Sieglinde, sister.........Jessye Norman
Wotan......................James Morris
Fricka, Wotan's wife.....Christa Ludwig
Hunding.................Kurt Moll
This performance of Wagner's Die Walküre streamed today from the Metropolitan Opera, played at the Met on April 8, 1989. One forgets. James Morris is the most intensely emotional Wotan that ever existed. Everyone is wonderful. Hildegard Behrens indeed seems like a goddess. Gary Lakes has that true Heldentenor sound and pairs well with the ever great Jessye Norman. Who could top Christa Ludwig, and I actually recognized Kurt Moll under all that makeup.
I liked the set for not distracting from these magnificent singing actors. All was as it should be.
One forgets. One forgets that in his prime James Levine was truly a great conductor. Why he wanted to go on past even merely competent we will never know.
One forgets that this is the greatest Wagner performance ever assembled, that James Morris towers over Wotan like a true god. Thank you for the reminder.
1 comment:
Barbara,
I just saw your post about the Met Walkure from 1989….Margaret & I may have (probably did?) see that production, live…at least, we saw a Walkure at the Met with Ms. Norman…and it would have been in that date-range….
I had just started playing trombone again, and got curious about a weird-looking instrument in the brass section (dunno if you pay attention to this sort of thing) so took myself down to the pit at one of the intermissions and asked….bass trumpet I was told. Oh (new one on me), did you guys rewrite the parts for that horn? No, I was told, all the Wagner brass is written in four parts, this is the original instrumentation…..Bruce kinda slunk away….
Decades later—when SFS played Walkure a season or two ago—I learned a bit more about all this. Bass trumpet is usually played by a trombone player (similar bore & mouthpiece sizes, not to mention range)…the bass part of the trombone section is played on contrabass trombone (I once tried to lift one up; no easy task, nevermind getting sound out of it), while the tuba (bass tuba) is the bass voice for the French horn/Wagner tuba section.
Anyway…that Walkure was beyond wonderful—and I was delighted to read your comments on James Morris….
That’s it for a Monday with Gabrieli on the sound system….
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