5196105771

CLASSICAL Record Reviews

Most of these “smaller" roles. I am

sorry to say. are not well taken in the new

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recording. Popp isa delight as Woglinde. but her sisters cannot match her steadi-ness of tonę. and the trio does not blend well. Roland Bracht (Fasolt) has some tonął clout. but his wobble eventually becomes wearisome: we can*t help pre-ferring his nastier brother. whom Matti Salminen characteriz.es aptly with sol-ider. blacker tonę and smearier legato. Christian Vogel is a competent. not espe-cially artful Mime. Ortrun WenkePs tremolo. sagging pitch. and poorly man-aged register break completely under-mine Rrda*s warning. For Froh and

Donner. instead of major voices. we have an unsweet tenorino and a hollow. tremulous baritone. Yvonne Minton makes Fricka a very droopy lady indeed. who drags the tempo and doesn*t keep up to pitch. Marita Napier is hard put to project Freia's words and pitches in the upper register, sounding distraught in the wrong sense (vocally. rather than dramatically).

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AM these weak spots put a terrific load on the major roles. and here. at least. there is some good news. Adam. in his midfifties. brings experience and au-thority to the figurę ofWotan. True. the voice. never a beautiful instrument, has

Don’t get ca

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t in the herd.

Shop eariy. Mail earty.

Ali IIiom* Merry C*hri>tinas rani* and uifts you mmiiI w(»n‘t inean a tlnni* unloss they iirrivt* 011 tinu*.

Thaf.s why ifs s<> important to shop and mail eariy. And i 11 s I as important to iim* riijlit ZIP i'o«k*s. standard sizc ni \rlopi*s. return addressesand write clearly. And when you sond i»ilfs. packano thom properly.

Ple.ise. don I prani e aronnd and wail till the łasi minuto. becaiiM* Clirislmas won i wail fot vou.

Make Christmas merrier. Mail eariy this year.

J

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not become smoother or suaver with time; the gravelly sound can make for a testy effect, and in sustained musie the pitch. though elear, is not particularly steady. His big apostrophes to Vałhalla. in Scenes 2 and 4, do not match vocally the standard of amplitudę and tonal splendor impiicit in Wagneris orchestral writing. Still. in this context. his vigor-ous and well-thought-out readings of his lines are very welcome. and so is his

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ability to take charge of things—I like such moments as the decision to go down to Nibelung (“A uf Loge! hinah mit mir.^r').

There are two traditions for the casting of l.oge. The role has often been sung by a Heldentenor (e g.. Svanholm in the Solti set. Windgassen for Furt-wangler and Bbhm). but a lighter voice—a Davidorevena Mime-canalso encompass it (e.g.. Stolze in the Karajan set: as I write. Heinz Zednik and Ragnar Ulfung are in fact alternating as Loge and Mime in the Metropiditan Opera’s demi-Ring). Naturally. the two vocal types will yield rather different ranges of characterization. Peter Schreier. ob-viously. belongs to the lighter category. and he also brings to Loge's narrative all his art as a singer of songs—and. thus. as a teller of tales. The firm sweet tonę. springy rhythm. lively and aptly varied deliverv of lines. the thrust of the phrases loward climaxes- these add up to a mas-terful piece of singing and vocal acting. At the end of Scene 2. his description of the aging gods is sharply etched. and he is a potent foi! for Alberich in the third and fourth scenes.

That Alberich is Siegmund Nims-gem. and he. too. is a positive factor. at least in Scenes I and 3: the voice is sturdy. and he woos and boasts with con-siderable gusto. Later. the big scene cli-maxing in the curse makes less effect: no tension or excitement builds up here. and the strength the performance has ac-cumulated sińce Loge‘s entrance in Scene 2 is allowed to dissipate completely. never again to return.

Basically. such a problem must be laid at the feet of conductor Marek Janowski, whose mastery of Wagnerian tempos and transitions is less than com-plete and convincing. To take a local ex-ample: At the beginning of Scene 2. he allows Minton to drag not only her re-citative. but also the subsequent arioso Cllerrliche Wohnung. wonniger Ił ans-rnth")-and then. a few bars later. when Wotan repeats the same musie, we are back to tempo again. Even granting that husband and wife are not on the same wavelength at this moment, the effect is of two people spliced together from en-tirely different performances.

On a larger scalę, there is the conti-nuity of Scene I, which Wagner com-

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