Haitink / Der Ring des Nibelungen

Friday, March 7th 2008

Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen
Haitink / Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks

“Like it, hate it but you cannot ignore it!” is a statement that can certainly be applied to Wagner’s tetralogy “The Ring of the Nibelung”. It contains four operas, took him thirty years to write (with a gap of about eleven years in the middle) and all performances last at least fourteen hours with the longest act longer than many full operas. Such statistics have been used to support Wagner as a serious composer who gave us so much and to his detractors as self-aggrandisement or worse!

If one believes the truth that all grand art can be interpreted differently and inspire cultured debate then “The Ring” undoubtedly qualifies for that epithet.

Richard Wagner started writing the book of prose, entitled “Siegfried’s Death” in which the heroine Brunnhilde would take the body of Siegfried back to Walhalla, much of what is now the final opera Götterdämmerung (The Twilight of the Gods).

He then worked the story backwards to show how Siegfried lived his life and then to explain how Siegfried came to be he wrote what we now know as Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) centred around Brunnhilde and how she disobeyed the head of the Gods and her father, Wotan, and became a mortal. Finally he took the story back to the beginning before Alberich, the dwarf or Nibelung of the title, steals the gold from the Rhinemaidens and fashions a ring through whose power he plans to rule the world,

Productions have treated it as a great adventure story with the perpetual battle of “The love of Power against the power of Love”, a political allegory based, it seems, at any time in the history of the world it seems with the major players wearing as many personae as the directors who have produced the opera. As often is the case the best production is in one’s imagination as there dwarves, giants, humans, dragons, magic helmets and rings can truly come alive. Wagner helps us in this respect as he carefully selects and blends certain tunes or motives which represent an animate or inanimate object, an emotion or feeling. So when these are sounded the listener has this signpost which informs him, for example, which character is around or being talked about or even what a character is thinking even though he may be saying something else.

To do justice to such an enterprise much hard work needs to be expended with the involvement of a huge cast including singers in all vocal ranges with prodigious powers of expression, a chorus of great strength and a superb orchestra all under the guidance of a conductor who must be fully experienced in the ways of the theatre and music. Backing them up, a first rate technical and musical team of producers and engineers to create the ambience that is demanded by the score. EMI Classics were fortunate to secure all of these in this recording.

Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen
Das Rheingold
James Morris, Marjana Lipovsek, Heinz Zednik, Theo Adam, Peter Haage

Die Walkure
Reiner Goldberg, Matti Salminen, James Morris, Cheryl Studer, Eva Marton

Siegfried
Siegfried Jerusalem; Eva Marton; James Morris; Peter Haage; Theo Adam; Kurt Rydl; Jadwiga Rappe; Kiri Te Kanawa

Gotterdammerung
Eva Marton; Siegfried Jerusalem; Theo Adam; Marjana Lipovsek; Thomas Hampson; Eva Maria Bundschuh; John Tomlinson

Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Bernard Haitink

Recording: 1988-1991