Friday, May 27, 2016

Carnegie Hall: James Levine Conducts Wagner

Yesterday evening, the Met Orchestra, once again led by James Levine, performed the final concert of their Carnegie Hall series.  With the assistance of soloists Christine Goerke, soprano, and Stefan Vinke, tenor, the orchestra concluded its season in grand style with excerpts from Wagner's epic tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen.

The Ring Cycle stands firmly apart from the standard opera repertoire.  According to its creator, the four works that comprise it - Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung - are not really operas at all but "dramas."  (Wagner also preferred to categorize the overall structure, in deference to classical Greek tragedy, as a trilogy with a prelude rather than as a tetralogy.)  Premiered in its entirety in 1876 at the first Bayreuth Festival, it was intended as an immersive experience for the audience.  I have attended a complete performance at the Met Opera myself and can attest that over the course of four evenings the listener is pulled ever deeper into The Ring's mythological world so that at its conclusion he or she cannot help but experience an overwhelming sense of catharsis.

There have been many attempts to interpret the "meaning" of The Ring.  This began with Wagner himself who revised the ending to Götterdämmerung several times as he came under the spell of successive philosophers, from Feuerbach to Schopenhauer, and has continued to our time.  I don't believe it's necessary to conduct any such analysis, however, in order to appreciate the music.  Whatever his failures as a human being, Wagner was a superb composer and, like it or not, The Ring stands as one of the great monuments of Western music.  Ironically, though, Wagner's great opus, which was once seen as the standard bearer of modernism, is now regarded as the last flourish of Romanticism.  So successful was it in fulfilling the movement's promise that there was nowhere left to go afterwards.  The Ring was, in Debussy's words, "a magnificent sunset that was mistaken for a sunrise."

Yesterday evening's performance was divided into two parts.  In the first half, the orchestra performed one selection from each of the first three operas - "Entry of the Gods into Valhalla" from Das Rheingold, "Ride of the Valkyries" from Die Walküre, and "Siegfried and Brünnhilde's Love Duet from Siegfried.  In the second half of the program, the three selections performed by the orchestra were all taken from Götterdämmerung - "Dawn, Duet, and Siegfried's Rhine Journey," "Siegfried's Death and Funeral March," and "Brünnhilde's Immolation Scene."

I had seen earlier this season a selection of excerpts from Götterdämmerung performed by the Vienna Philharmonic under the direction of Valery Gergiev.  I thought yesterday evening's performance was, if anything, even more powerful.  James Levine demonstrated once again that he has no peer as a conductor as he tirelessly led the orchestra through the long program (two and a half hours including one intermission).  Stefan Vinke, who replaced Johan Botha who was forced to withdraw due to illness, gave a strong performance; but it paled beside that of Christine Goerke.  I had seen the soprano earlier this season in the title role of Struass's Elektra in a concert performance given by the Boston Symphony under the direction of Andris Nelson and thought her excellent.  Yesterday evening, however, she reached new heights as she gave one of the finest renditions of Brünnhilde I have ever heard.  All in all, this was a magnificent performance by everyone involved and a fine way for Carnegie Hall to end its season.  I also thought it highly appropriate that after all the drama surrounding James Levine's retirement as Music Director he should choose to conclude the Met Orchestra's season with selections from Götterdämmerung.

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