# Ring Challenge Part 2 - Walkure



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Continuing my Ring (un-)challenge, I will shortly be sending a link to a streamable copy of _Die Walkure_ for your edification and enlightenment  As before, I will not release the identity of the performance until all participants have had a chance to listen and comment.

- This is a live performance, either concert or staged, done since 1980.
- This thread is where you can offer comments, analysis and, if you wish, speculate on the origin, although the last part is not that important, the idea is for participants to be able to listen with no preconceptions.
- I ask that if you are certain that you recognize the performance, please just PM me with the information so as not to spoil the fun for everyone else. Beyond that, speculate away!

One other comment, by choosing these performances I am not implicitly giving any personal opinion that they are something exceptional but I do feel that they are definitely worth listening to. (Woodduck: sorry, no new Melchiors :lol

If anyone would like to join in, please let me know, either here or via PM, and I will send you the links to the performances. I am not posting the links here in order not to overload my server!

Enjoy!


----------



## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

I’m sorry to say that most of the singers in this recording display voices that have a very wide vibrato (or tremolo) on sustained notes, especially the Brunhilde. I found them unlistenable. Back to Solti (yeah, even with Hotter)!


----------



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Do you have any comments about any performance aspects other than the vibrato voices?


----------



## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Oof, this is a rough one Becca. If this is the recording you listen to for Walkure, I'm not surprised that you think much of the opera is boring, this is really poor.

About halfway through Act 2 now. The Du bist der Lenz through ending of Act 1 was ok, not great, but otherwise, it's been a quite a snooze. Extremely plodding tempos--even slower than Goodall and Levine for good chunks of it, but it's not epic like Kna or extremely beautiful and polished like Levine. It's just slow. And there are these pauses between segments that just kills the momentum. 

The singers seem to have wandered in from a performance of Martha or something, something very much pitched at a completely different emotional register. Sieglinde and Siegmund sound like they're describing a pleasant walk or some pretty flowers instead of the killing of strangers, the flight from their kins' revenge, the abduction and forced marriage to a monstrous Hunding, and their mutual ecstatic recognition and love.

Fricka and Wotan's confrontation was completely devoid of impact. They both have pleasant enough voices, but again, they seem to be discussing maybe chores around the house or something that happened to a mutual acquaintance, rather than necessity, destruction of Wotan's plans, despair and grim acceptance. Do any of these performers know anything about the opera they're performing? 

None of the singers have been that objectionable as singers--although Brunnhilde was pretty awful in her hojotojos in Act 2. I'd be ok with hearing them in other contexts maybe, or with another conductor in a very different performance. They're all pleasant enough voices but the performance overall has been very flat.

Taking a break for now but not too hopeful about the rest. I suspect there will be a few bright spots, like the Todesverkundigung and Leb wohl--the conductor sounds like one who only has a feel for a couple of highlights.

Sorry to be so critical, I'm enjoying this challenge but this recording doesn't suit me at all. I'll see if the second half strikes me any better later today or tomorrow.


----------



## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Becca said:


> Do you have any comments about any performance aspects other than the vibrato voices?


Not at the moment. Thought it was pretty dismal. Hated the Brunhilde. Giving it another listen later on.


----------



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

FWIW - Until this week my only familiarity with this performance has been via reviews. As I said in my cover PM. The goal of this 'challenge' was to fine live performances which are not well known in order that the participants could listen and comment without preconceptions. I expected that (hopefully only) one of the 4 would be panned!


----------



## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Whew! Tough crowd...

I actually enjoyed the first act very much. Yes, it's on the slow side - 71 minutes is about the same as Furtwängler's - but the singers seem comfortable with those tempi and are able to sing phrases with more meaning than they would at faster tempi. No, they're not singing with the sort of passion that howlingfantods seems to want, but there's a lot to be said for singing what Wagner wrote carefully and musically, and all three singers do that. The Siegmund doesn't have a great instrument at his disposal, but he makes do with what he's got, a decent sized lyric voice without much tonal allure, which he doesn't at tempt to puff up to sound bigger than it is. I thought that the Sieglinde was quite good, with a lovely, young-sounding voice of appropriate size, although stretched a bit at the end of the act (and later in Acts 2 and 3). Her diction is superb - perhaps too much so, as it makes her singing sound a little too careful and studied. An excellent Hunding with a fine voice, who avoids sounding like a savage brute.

Unfortunately, the rest isn't quite as good, and it's largely the fault of the conductor, who seems to mistake slow tempi for profundity. The opening of the Act 2 isn't majestic - it's just slow. Ditto for Act 3. Good operatic conductors know when and how to linger, and when and how to keep things moving - this one doesn't. Wotan has a decent voice, certainly better than most who've sung this role the past couple of decades, but he doesn't do a lot with the text. He makes the obvious points, and that's about it. The same goes for Fricka, who has one of the better voices in the performance. Brunnhilde was the weakest singer in the cast, alas. The voice sounds a couple of sizes too small for the role, and the voice develops an unpleasant edge any time she's singing forte. She does better in some of the softer passages; "War es so schmählich" is much better than the rest. Unfortutunately, during the Todesverkundigung, she sounds old and shrewish - I wouldn't follow her to Valhalla, either...

But if I attended this in the opera house, I'd consider it a decent night at the opera - I've heard MUCH worse at the Met over the past couple of decades.


----------



## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

wkasimer said:


> Whew! Tough crowd...
> 
> I actually enjoyed the first act very much. Yes, it's on the slow side - 71 minutes is about the same as Furwangler's - but the singers seem comfortable with those tempi and are able to sing phrases with more meaning than they would at faster tempi. No, they're not singing with the sort of passion that howlingfantods seems to want, but there's a lot to be said for singing what Wagner wrote carefully and musically, and all three singers do that. The Siegmund doesn't have a great instrument at his disposal, but he makes do with what he's got, a decent sized lyric voice without much tonal allure, which he doesn't at tempt to puff up to sound bigger than it is. I thought that the Sieglinde was quite good, with a lovely, young-sounding voice of appropriate size, although stretched a bit at the end of the act (and later in Acts 2 and 3). Her diction is superb - perhaps too much so, as it makes her singing sound a little too careful and studied. An excellent Hunding with a fine voice, who avoids sounding like a savage brute.
> 
> ...


It seems you're more forgiving than I am, or perhaps have more insights into the work. I do agree that the Fricka has a better voice, or perhaps a voice is in better condition than the other singers, but hers is, too, to my ears, lighter than ideal for the role.

As for the conductor, I found him uneven, sometimes nice and swift, sometimes (the Walkürenritt) abysmally slow. But not good.

If these are the voices one must put up with in Wagner in the theaters these days , heaven help us. Notice I refused to call them "Wagnerian" voices. Thanks, but no thanks!


----------



## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

> It seems you're more forgiving than I am, or perhaps have more insights into the work.


Certainly not the latter, but perhaps the former. My approach to listening has changed a lot over the the past 40-plus years. When I started listening and going to performances, I thought that I knew everything and was very finicky about what I listened to, and when I attended performances, tended to nitpick them to death. So going to the opera house wasn't much fun for me, and even less for those who were with me.

A number of things changed over the years. First, I met, online, a much older listener, who'd been collecting and listening since the 40's, and had a collection of 78's that was unbelievable, many of which he shared with me (and this was back in the day of cassette tapes, so it was a lot of effort). I shared items with him, but most of all, he just wanted my opinion. I learned a few things from this. First, every role has many different possibilities, many different approaches. If you listen to singers from the early part of the last century, there are stunning differences between singers of any given role, all of them interesting and valid. There's no such thing as the "right" voice for any role. And I learned that every "golden age" had a few great singers, and a lot more singers who were mediocre or worse.

And I eventually came to the realization that there are no perfect singers. A few of them come pretty close, but even my favorite "sacred cows" have their flaws. Take Melchior, for example. If you only listen to his studio recordings, as I did for many years, he sounds nearly perfect in every respect. But if you spend some time critically listening to his live recordings, you begin to notice the flaws - the frequent tendency to creep ahead of the orchestra in faster music, the often choppy phrasing and failure to give notes their full value. And most, if not all of his recordings feature cuts - Melchior never sang an uncut Tristan in his entire career. So when I hear someone like Ben Heppner struggle a bit with Tristan at the Met, I try to keep that in mind. And when I listen to Alberto Remedios sing Siegfried, I'm grateful for his musicality and the elegance of his phrasing. So what if he's not a "real Heldentenor"?

So now, when I listen to a recordings, or attend a performance, I try my best to find what's good, and "shrug off" what's less than that. The only things that aggravate me now are performances by musicians who are clearly unprepared, are "phoning it in", or are pandering to the audience.


----------



## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

MAS said:


> As for the conductor, I found him uneven, sometimes nice and swift, sometimes (the Walkürenritt) abysmally slow. But not good.
> 
> If these are the voices one must put up with in Wagner in the theaters these days , heaven help us. Notice I refused to call them "Wagnerian" voices. Thanks, but no thanks!


I actually think there is lots of good Wagner being performed these days. I've heard excellent performances from Bayreuth and elsewhere on web radio from Petrenko, Thielemann, Janowski, Jordan and others over the past few years. There's even several decent to good Brunnhildes and Isoldes now. True, there's no totally decent Siegfried that I know of, but that's often the case.


----------



## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

I've just finished the first act. Since I didn't get to _Das Rheingold_, I wanted to make sure to say something on this one.

Siegmund seems a little strained at the outset. He gets better, and has some lovely bits in the quieter passages, but he does not have the heft or power to sound ideal for most of the role. I really like Sieglinde, and as the act continues she has a fantastic pacing to her vocal lines. There's a lot of drama her, even if it tends to be quenched when Siegmund responds to her. Hunding has a nice weight to him, but he comes off as a little anonymous.

I really like the conductor. Everything flows, nice and organically. There is a lot of clarity in the orchestra and it works well with the singers. Their reading is on the slow end, but there are slower versions. The orchestra is fine. There were some off bits in the prelude, but it's mostly good throughout the rest.


----------



## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

The recording quality is excellent. If I had to guess I'd say that this was an in-concert recording. I would almost believe it was a studio recording, except that it is fluid and cohesive.

Brünnhilde sounds familiar. And, yeah, her voice becomes unpleasant as it gets loud. There was some passion to the Todesverkundigung, though it still could be more. Siegmund is sounding a little better, though still not great. I like Wotan's voice, as a voice. There isn't a lot of character to it, though. For example, when he dismisses Hunding, there's nothing of the simmering rage or contempt. The farewell is pretty, but again there's little passion, except in the last few lines.

Der Walkürenritt is played cleanly, and the singers are clear, but it's not particularly interesting (and the singers are not all quite up to this). I would not have called the performance "too slow" until this point.

After completing the opera, I am less sold on the conductor. The approach is good, but there really should be more life to this.


What I like about this recording is that it is beautiful and clear. The slowness and the recording quality both contribute to this, but so does the relatively characterless performances. I also liked Sieglinde.

What I don't like about the recording is that it is insufficiently passionate and has little electricity.


----------



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

mountmccabe said:


> I've just finished the first act. Since I didn't get to _Das Rheingold_, I wanted to make sure to say something on this one.


Rheingold is still available if you want to listen to it.


----------



## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

So, today I listened to Walkuere act two and I am now ready to weigh in with my opinion.

At the start of act one I didn't like the conducting as I found it dull and uninspiring, however it seemed to get better as the act progressed and by the end of the act the conductor whipped up enough passion to make for a decent end to the act. That's not to say that it could have been more exciting! I liked Sieglinde's voice, whilst I would prefer more metal in the voice for this role her softer tones worked vocally. That said, I thought there was something matronly about her sound and dramatically she is very cold. I didn't like Siegmund at all due to his nasal tone. No wonder Sieglinde didn't seem all that loved up with his dreadful honking! Fortunately the Hunding has a wonderful, resonant voice and unlike the other two managed to bring some character to his part.

Act two started with the same dull, turgid conducting that I hadn't liked in act one and that is probably the main drawback with this set. Wotan is ok, but the Bruenhilde and Fricka didn't have the right vocal make up for their roles (unless this is from a Regie production set in a nursing home as Bruenhilde sounds old enough to be Wotan's grandmother!) Fricka brings bite and drama to her part, but is too light a mezzo to really make the low chest tones fully effective.

All in all this is one of the worst recordings of any Wagner I have heard and I was so tired by the time Bruenhilde came out to announce that Siegmund is about to die (presumably from boredom) that I couldn't take any more.

I definitely don't have this recording in my collection as I don't recognise either the Sieglinde or Siegmund so it will be interesting when it is revealed who they are.

Now on to Siegfried!

N.


----------



## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

I definitely recognize the tired Brünnhilde although I am unsure about the Wotan. Alas, her better days were behind her. With so many excellent Walkueres out there, I think I'm done listening to this one. I tend to focus overmuch on the singers, and neither of the leads does much for me.

Addition: I started the third act and was astonished at how plodding the tempo was. And the highest soprano sounded like she was about to launch into orbit on those high Bs and Cs. Very poor performance overall, I don't have much good to say about it other than the orchestra seems to be playing rather well despite the conductor.

Kind regards,

George


----------

