patrikpen: Much Awaited in Music & Vision 28 February

lunedì 8 aprile 2013

Much Awaited in Music & Vision 28 February

Much Awaited

Bayreuth's 'Das Rheingold' previewed in Rome,
as experienced by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

These are the weeks when the 'perfect Wagnerians' -- as G B Shaw called them in a pamphlet full of irony -- scramble to get seats for the Summer Bayreuth Festival. The waiting list is seven years long but it is possible to short-cut this, either by means of the Wagner societies -- in many countries they buy books of tickets in advance -- or through specialized travel agencies, which normally charge a fifty per cent mark-up and require lodging in highly priced hotels.

In this small town in Northern Bavaria, next July and August, there will be a very special feast of music and memories because it is the apex of the worldwide celebrations of two hundred years since the composer's birth. A new production of the Ring will be staged and is planned to be revived for four years. Dramaturgy is entrusted to a very reputable German stage director, Frank Castorf, and the project is being kept 'top secret'. The musical direction is entrusted to the forty-year-old Siberian conductor Kirill Petrenko who became internationally known when he was twenty-seven as he conducted the full Ring in four days with four different orchestras. Also, between 2002 and 2007, he transformed what was considered a secondary opera house (Komische Oper Berlin) into one of the most important musical theatres in Germany. In September 2013, Petrenko will succeed Kent Nagano as Generalmusikdirektor of Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich.

Kirill Petrenko conducting Wagner's 'Das Rheingold' at Rome's Parco della Musica. Photo © 2013 Musacchio & Ianniello

On 23-27 February 2013, he offered a preview of Bayreuth's forthcoming Ring in three much awaited concert performances of Das Rheingold in the main auditorium of the Parco della Musica in Rome as a part of the subscription series of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. I was in the audience on 23 February. After being silent for the two-and-a-half-hour performance, the nearly 2,800 audience members exploded first in applause, then in accolades and finally in standing ovations.

Wolfgang Koch as Wotan and Hurlike Helzel as Fricka with Kirill Petrenko conducting Wagner's 'Das Rheingold' in Rome. Photo © 2013 Musacchio & Ianniello

The singers were, by and large, those who will be seen and heard in Bayreuth: Wolfgang Koch (Wotan), Martin Tzonev (Donner), Endrik Wottrich (Froh), Peter Galliard (Loge), Andreas Scheibner (Alberich), Kurt Azesberger (Mime), Roman Astakhov (Fasolt), Dirk Aleschus (Fafner), Ulrike Helzel (Fricka), Nina Bernsteiner (Freia), Andrea Bönig (Erda), Talia Or (Woglinde), Dagmar Peckova (Wellgunde), and Hermine Haselböck (Flosshilde). The orchestra was that of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with all the elements required in Wagner's score.

From left to right: Peter Galliard as Loge, Wolfgang Koch as Wotan, Hurlike Helzel as Fricka, Kirill Petrenko conducting, Hendrik Wottrich as Froh, Martin Tznev as Donner, Nina Bernsteiner as Freia, Roman Atakhov as Fasolt and Dirk Aleschus as Fafner at one of the concert performances of Wagner's 'Das Rheingold' in Rome. Photo © 2013 Musacchio & Ianniello. Click on the image for higher resolution

From the initial sixteen bars, Petrenko's approach appeared clear. It reminded me of Georg Solti's style in conducting the Ring both in the masterly 1958-62 studio recording (a technological milestone in stereophony) and in Bayreuth in 2003-7: a very amply-resounding space and yet manicured, nearly chamber music details. Solti made a difference from the then standard heroic style (Furtwängler, Knappertsbush, Kempe). Many tried to imitate him but I feel that only Petrenko fully learned his lesson and can be considered as his heir.

Members of the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in the concert performances of Wagner's 'Das Rheingold' in Rome. Photo © 2013 Musacchio & Ianniello. Click on the image for higher resolution

A final word. After a few disappointing stagings of the Ring designed to shock the audience, a concert performance of Das Rheingold was excellent medicine. This was a really visionary Rheingold where we could hear, see and feel the depth of the Rhine, the heights of the Gods' world and the abyss of the Nibelung kingdom.