Gloriana at ROH

22/06/13

What an amazing show. Having seen it twice now, I think this may turn out to be the revelation of Britten's centenary year - not just this great production, but that Gloriana is a viable, and actually exceptionally beautiful opera. One hopes on the strength of this showing it will get more outings in the other productions on offer in the other companies and at the very least a revival of this one. (It seems to get revived approximately every decade in the UK: ENO 1984, WNO 1992, ON 2002, ROH 2013)

Gloriana's rarity in the opera house makes one suspicious that it is going to be distinctly second rate, but an actual encounter with the work constantly confounds expectations; in fact there are delights and surprises at every turn. It was not successful during its première in 1953 and famously Queen Elizabeth II was not very taken with it (it was written for her coronation), but now with the benefit of 60 years distance in time the reasons for its original failure seems uninteresting and unimportant. Instead, in the context of his entire career, we see that it comes at the centre of Britten's most fertile period, and also that he does so many things here that he chose not to do again in his operas. It emerges not as a homage to Elizabeth, but as a homage and love letter to England and it's people, via the music of this country. A bewilderingly wide array of English music is touched upon - we get references to mediaeval music, Tudor/Elizabethan music including Tallis and Byrd, Dowland, Purcell, and there are even Holstian and Vaughan Williamsesque resonances, although perhaps only because of their debts to the aforementioned early masters. It's not just "Brittenised" pastiches either - this music seems to be infused in every bar of the score, such that the whole edifice seems to grow out of and is saturated with this old music. Orchestral colours are bright, light, tinkling, layered, open, sonorous. The music has a genuine grandeur without irony or bombast, humour without bitterness, lyrical sweetness without darkness. It's as exuberant and generous as Britten ever got, and it's surprising that it's so convincing given what fruits self denial and Apollonian restraint also brought him and suggests a path not travelled. After this opera, only A Midsummer Night's Dream (1960) touches on similar ground, though is already much more restrained.

Richard Jones sets the production in the 1950's but as a stage within a stage which is in Elizabethan era dress, presumably intended as some fictional early performance of the work at Aldeburgh or somewhere slightly provincial like that. I can hear the groans already - that's two opera clichés in one go: 1950's, and a stage within a stage. BUT(!) it never interferes with the dramatic content of the music, and simultaneously makes us reflect on what Britten was trying to do here. At first you wonder what it's actually adding, but soon we realise that Jones is not taking the piss out of the piece, and actually is rendering Britten's stylisation more understandable - we're not seeing echt Elizabethan drama, we're seeing Elizabethan drama filtered  through the eyes of 1950's England. This is of course true of any opera not set contemporaneously to the period in which it was written (e.g. Donizetti is "Elizabethan" through the eyes of the 1830s) but it's particularly meaningful to draw attention to this in this opera, because Britten is actively doing this in the music (in a way that say Donizetti just isn't attempting at all) - we're seeing Elizabethan music through the eyes of a 1950's composer, and the libretto too is "1950's Elizabethan". What I like about this staging is that it constantly leads us back to Britten's music, highlighting its beauty, its place in history, its purpose in being written, and intended effect, while giving it air to breathe in its originally intended context. It's done with a lot of love, and for once Jones' obsession with the 1950's is a poignant and entirely apt addition to the opera at hand.

Additionally, we're given beautiful vignettes of England in 1953 - the sets and costumes for once actually capture the era's drabness without caricature or cartoonishness. The Elizabethan costumes really look like the ones from films and stage of that time, the harpist plays a harp that looks like its from the era. (Incidentally it's a lovely touch having the harp on stage for the harp/lute song - the instrument is so often central to Britten's sonority and even compositional method - no one in the 20th century understood or wrote for it better.) Britten's obsession with pre-pubescent boys manifests itself in this opera by Britten's inclusion of boy-pages with spoken lines (well you knew he was going to include them somewhere, and there's only the tiniest bit for treble choir this time!). Happily Jones doesn't dwell on the perversity of this aspect of Britten's life - we know about that already, it's been done to death, and it's not relevant to this opera. Jones has the boys (all of identical height as a reflection of Britten's ultra stringent requirements) prominently holding up the name of the place where every scene takes place. It's enough, and actually genuinely helpful on a dramatic level.

The portrait of Elizabeth I as a real woman, powerful, loving, yet flawed, is fascinating. She has fun at the dance, flirts with Essex, and cruelly humiliates Essex's wife Frances, but you also see that she cares deeply for her subjects and is a woman of great standing who is very aware of her duty and largely sacrifices herself to it. She has a heart shaped headpiece during the masque when she says that she is a sovereign of love, and you believe her, so don't judge her later actions.

This is Susan Bullock's show, and she is magnetic. The identification with and commitment to the character is palpable in every phrase and motion- you see her living through Elizabeth's conflicts, joys, pains, with nothing half baked or overdone. Vocally she's in control, and extremely expressive within the range that her sometimes harsh vocalising allows - there's the occasional wonderful piano, but mainly what's impressive is that the intention is always so clear. Her spoken declamation and singing in the final scene is electrifying, poignant, sad, dignified, and very moving.

Toby Spence takes on the "Pears" role of Essex very well, singing his lovely harp/lute aria with great beauty - very pleasing to hear him on such good form after his recent throat surgeries. Other than the central role, this really is an ensemble opera and there are no weak links - Benjamin Bevan, Mark Stone, Clive Bayley, Jeremy Carpenter, Kate Royal, Patricia Bardon, Brindley Sherratt all are obviously committed dramatically and in very good voice.

Conductor Paul Daniel and the ROH orchestra conspire together to give a revelatory and very loving reading of this score that brings to light the extraordinary wealth of Britten's aural imagination at this stage in his career. Textures are precise and sensitive, the humour is rib-tickling, the score's understated lyricism and grandeur beautifully rendered. The ROH chorus play a huge role in this opera and are in their element here - you can't imagine any other opera chorus being able to do it better.

Well worth going to see, one of the best things the ROH have done this season.

Die Walküre at the Royal Opera House

18/10/2012

Due to extreme busyness I am really behind with reviews - but I'll write about this Walkure for completeness sake. This was the last opera of Keith Warner's Ring that I saw, and I have to say that of the four operas, I found this staging the most disappointing. In theory, Walkure should be the easiest to stage - fewer special effects than the others, the emotional drama is the most direct and immediate, the music is consistently thrilling - all in all the most obviously likeable of the Ring operas. So what went wrong?

This production is relentlessly dark, even more so than Warner's other instalments and the poor lighting made it very dull visually I thought. The subtlety is all in the characterisation and there were many wonderful moments. Bryn Terfel's Wotan was involved in the lion's share of these, and though I had seen him do some wonderful work in the dire Met production broadcasts, it was in this production with this director that he first essayed the role, and surely established his interpretation. (He also said in a recent interview that he preferred working in the ROH production to the Met one because here he was given direction, and at the Met everyone was left to their own devices). The way he cradled Siegmund's head after his son's fatal battle was exceptionally moving, and his two big scenes with Brunnhilde also provided a brilliant wealth of psychological and emotional riches. When Brunnhilde asks him what is wrong, he draws himself up, holds her face in his handswith a fearful intensity, but then looks away, lost inconsolable - he cannot face up to the reality, and Brunnhilde's face itself is a reminder of his failings. Later, before he lays his daughter on the rock, there is a wonderful intimacy to their final moments together. Wotan marches off into the uncertain future in another with a resignation and sadness that is palpable: simple things that have a huge effect. I also really liked the way that Brunnhilde bounded off stage after her first entry, and almost runs into the imperious Fricka, which reveals an interraction between them which is only implicit and in the "background" of the libretto. (Fricka doesn't like Brunnhilde, but she does respect her, even although they are very different women.)

There is clumsyness too however, and it's not infrequent - when Wotan actually puts Brunnhilde into her sleep, making her a woman, it is done behind a screen, just as at the end of Siegfried when the eponymous hero wakes her up. This emotional and dramatic climax, the midpoint of the Ring, the inexorable result of all the events already witnessed, and with consequences for every subsequent event, is too important to get wrong like this. What was Warner thinking? The ride of Valkyries we see them all onstage at the beginning, they perform some resurrection ceremony (with a horribly naff projection) then run offstage, then arrive onstage again one by one, greeting each other. The hell? In Act 1, Hunding's house and the place where Fricka and Wotan meet occur on virtually identical sets - the tables and chairs and chaise longue are the same, and in both, husband and wife argue across a table. Is Warner suggesting that their fight is fundamentally the same? Or just that both marriages are unhappy? Either way, neither is particularly illuminating or insightful. Why also does it take Brunnhilde five minutes to cross the stage to reach Siegmund? I understand that there might be a hesitancy, but that surely needs to expressed in body language as well as the speed of approach!

As well as his superb acting, Bryn was vocally on top form, by far the best of his three portrayals in the Ring operas. Although the Walkure Wotan seems superficially to be the most taxing in terms of length and intensity it fits Terfel like a glove, and the range of vocal and textual nuance he brought to it, as well as his impressively stentorian climaxes, were a real treat. Timbrally he seemed just right here too - I had complained of him sounding overly baritonal and metallic in Siegfried, which is a lower and much louder part, especially in Act 3, as the intervening 12 years meant Wagner's orchestration had thickened due to his discoveries in Tristan and Mesitersinger. The Walkure Wotan might turn out to be Terfel's finest Wagner role, and I would travel to see it again.

Fricka can either be played as a woman wronged by Wotan's philandering, or as a force of reason and logic. I prefer the latter as it's more revealing of the themes of the Ring, and allows for a more interesting portrayal - not least because the music tells us that she is more than just the nag that she is commonly described as. Somehow Connolly had it both ways, producing a rounded portrait, though I have to say, she really is at least one size category too small vocally to do this small but majestic role full justice. When not hard pressed by the dramatic writing, her phrasing was very beautiful indeed, but Fricka is meant to be a force of nature capable of standing up to Wotan, King of the gods, and I just wasn't quite convinced. Acting wise she was excellent though.

Eva Maria Westbrook's career is currently going from strength to strength, singing the biggest roles in many big houses. ROH audiences seem to love her but I have to say that I think she is already past her prime - though she remains very much in control of her voice, the vibrato and basic sound has become unattractive and rather hard in the past few years. Interpretively I also find her bland, with rather little variation in approach to any role that she sings and too little attention to textual subtleties. This is a very critical appraisal, but I always feel I should be enjoying her performances more than I actually do - the good things are that she's mostly very committed on stage, and can sing every note that she is supposed to sing. There was one moment of pure electricity: as she ecstatically thanks Brunnhilde at the beginning of Act 3 ("O hehrstes Wunder!") she revealed more mettle and heft than I thought she could muster, and with a thrilling sheen in the sound. She is scheduled to do Isolde in Bayreuth in a few seasons time, and though I've never seen her as a hoch dramatisch soprano, this one moment may point the way to what she might be capable of.

Simon O'Neill started out as an OK Siegmund though hardly of the first rank - his top is famously pinched and strident, but this role lies rather low in the tenor range so we didn't get to see much of this this time. Sadly the bottom is underpowered, and by the end of Act I he was barely projecting above the orchestra. He wasn't announced as ill, but he wasn't a match for his Sieglinde.

John Tomlinson sang a good Hunding, sounding more comfortable vocally than with his superb Hagen, though Hunding is of course a far less interesting character, and doesn't allow for the wonderful wealth of characterisation that Tomlinson imbued Hagen with. There was a particularly lovely moment when Wotan kills Hunding and there was a (perhaps frivolous to mention) sense of some sort of transferral of power between Tomlinson and Terfel, surely Britain's next great Wotan.

The Valkyries made a magnificent noise, each clearly trying to outdo the others with volume, excitement and energy, which made for a thrilling Act 3 opening. Unfortunately Susan Bullock seemed to be struggling even more here than in the other operas, and didn't once match transcend her vocal failings to produce the intensity that she had mustered in Gotterdammerung.

I was very disappointed by Pappano's contribution in the pit - he resigned himself to the role of an accompanist, only coming fully alive in Act 3, but it was too late - Act 1 and 2 had given us too little to care about musically - too little was at stake. The orchestra, which had been sounding so magnificent in Siegfried and Gotterdammerung sounded tired and bored, with truly awful playing from the brass section, particularly principal trumpet. As I say I can only imagine that it was fatigue as they were sounding so great in the previous cycle, but this was a very disappointing showing and a real embarrassment for what is supposedly one of the finest opera house orchestras in the world.

Götterdämmerung at the Royal Opera House

09/10/2012

And so, on to the conclusion of Wagner's colossal cycle, perhaps the most daunting to approach for directors and opera goers and surely for Wagner himself who had to logically and coherently conclude the massive musico-dramatic construct that he had set in motion. The stakes are stupendously high: he must succeed in order to vindicate his project and vision, rout the suspicion that what he is trying to achieve is too big, too grand, that he has gone too far beyond what music can reasonably express, prove that all this elevated talk of sublimity is not just posturing and an act of supreme self aggrandisement and ego. That he is not found wanting in this task is almost unimaginable, but there it is before us, unmistakable in its greatness; proclaiming itself clearly and unarguably as one of the greatest pieces of art that has ever been attempted.

The Prologue started promisingly, the ancient Norns practising extispicy on themselves, pulling the strands of fate from their own bowels. Their call to Erda seemed even more desperate and desolate than usual, as in this staging Wotan kills Erda in Seigfried. Unfortunately, Brunnhilde and Siegfried again failed to register properly in terms of their devotional, almost obsessional passion towards one another. Part of the problem was surely Vinke's lack of dramatic commitment (here no longer an interesting "take", but a real impediment to the story telling), but the staging also failed to convey any intimacy between the two. This has major repercussions later in the opera, because it makes Brunnhilde's wrath and supreme heart break hard to make sense of. With regard to the relationship, never was the simple phrase "Show, don't tell" more apposite. That phrase is surely the touchstone of any truly moving dramatic scene or piece of writing, and I'm always amazed at how callously it is ignored in much opera direction.

Once again what really did work were the more domestic scenes - Hagen's encouragement of Gutrune and Gunther worked brilliantly in the coldly palatial setting of Act 1. Hagen's debonair appearance and elegant manner makes him an easy charmer, but he then absent mindedly proceeds to strangle Gutrune as he muses about Brunnhilde downfall - these unexpected moments were disturbing and horrifying: we see that Hagen is just a shell of normalcy about a core of pure emptyness and loathing. He is an archetypal psychopath - that is he is exceptionally intelligent and socially adept, able to learn effective patterns of social interaction, but in reality completely devoid of feeling and empathy. He cannot feel. John Tomlinson understands the psychology of this role better than anyone, and gave a truly outstanding portrayal of this part that it would be difficult to imagine being bettered dramatically. Vocally he took a while to warm up (for the first ten minutes I was worried that the voice was completely gone), and although he struggles greatly with the top, the middle is still focussed and stentorian, and just like his acting, he makes every vocal gesture count and add to the characterisation. Exceptional stuff.

In this scene, the back wall is a huge set of windows hinged in two places such that at the crucial moment they can form a sort of box, a large version of the Tarnhelm (which is a mirrored cube in this production). The scene where Siegfried (transformed via the Tarnhelm into an image of Gunther) tries to seduce Brunnhilde happens inside a larger version of the helmet, by this point in the cycle a symbol not just of transformation, but deception. In the previous scene, director Keith Warner also cleverly reflects what is happening in the score as Siegfried drinks the love potion - Hagen holds the Tarnhelm, whose motive is going on in the orchestra, again with its new connotation of deception. For Wagner mavens who already know the score inside out and blow by blow, it might be too much, but for the rest of us, it was a telling visual and dramatic clue to the aural mechanics.

The quartet in Act 2 was a particular low point staging wise - it all seemed vaguely ludicrous, and the sense of burgeoning catastrophe with the myriad repercussions at every level of the plot seemed far away. Gradually it dawns on one that this is a fairly small scale reading of the Ring, one that seems to be basically about normal people in extreme situations, and while it entertains, never bores, and sometimes moves, the massive architectonics of the plot, drama and philosophical underpinnings often feel undernourished. Thankfully Keith Warner never does anything to abuse or undermine Wagner's fundamental conception, though occasionally things become a little muddled, and by the end, the strands of the plot seem not quite wound up clearly enough. At the same time, he doesn't get in the way: the Immolation scene made its colossal impact and I left the theatre profoundly moved. Though I loved the ride, in the end this production seemed like it told the right story, but at the wrong scale.

As ever, ultimately it was the music made the thing live. Pappano is perhaps not the most natural Wagner conductor, and though singers and orchestra were wonderfully rehearsed, some may have wished that his sensitive shepherding of the singers had been sacrificed occasionally for the larger musical picture. That said, he got everyone involved making a magnificent sound, and there were more than occasional moments of transcendent beauty. I have to say that I have left this Ring cycle (my first live in the theatre, and with Walkure still to go) considering myself a Wagnerian, rather than just a staunch admirer of Wagner as I had previously seen myself - I now fully understand and am completely convinced of the appeal and for the first time in a Wagner opera never felt that time was moving slowly for a single second. I could happily do another cycle in this run, but sadly won't have the time.

Susan Bullock has consistently been referred to as the weak link in this Ring cast, and even though I am hyper critical about voices, I have to say I completely forgave her all her vocal shortcomings by the end, not least because of her wonderful performance of the Immolation scene. Physically, she hardly looks like a statueque Nordic goddess, and vocally, the upper reaches of her voice are in tatters, the rest only just on the edge of acceptable - but still, in that moment, on that stage, she was giving everything that she had, and simply communicating with an extraordinary intensity and level of commitment that went way beyond what one usually witnesses in the opera house. For me she redeemed herself, and I'm not merely taking the will for the deed - there was the strong feeling that something special was occurring for her. I would even call this performance a success. I'm not sure how many will agree with me.

At the other end of the spectrum, when Gutrune started singing, I was shocked to hear a perfect Strauss soprano voice emerge - a soprano of radiant, shimmering beauty, with the sort of technique that is so solid that it conceals itself such that the voice has the added attraction of seeming effortless. It is so rare to hear singing like this in Wagner these days, where it would not have been uncommon 50 years ago. Unbeknownst to me, this was Rachel Willis-Sorensen, who I already very much admired as the Countess in Figaro last February, and I fell in love with her voice again here before realising who she was. The legato is seamless, the timbre juicy though always silvery, with a rich chest register, and size wise she is surely a lyric spinto. She would be absolutely ideal as Arabella, the Capriccio Countess, the Marschallin and Ariadne, and also as Elsa or Elisabeth, and I really would travel some distance to see her in any of these roles. Amazingly she's only 28, which partially makes me worried that she is singing Wagner at this age, but someone who is this technically sorted probably knows what they are doing in that respect too. It's not just the technique and sound that are beautiful though - she is able to use the technique to great expressive effect. I'm a real fan already. Check out the clips on her website: http://rachelwillis-sorensen.com/live/

In general the small parts were all very well taken actually - the three Norns revealed three very diffierent young dramatic voices, all three with great potential. Maria Radner who had sung Erda on previous nights, seemed much more comfortable here, and didn't once seem underpowered either - it's a very lovely true contralto voice. Carin Cargill is similarly beautifully timbre-wise and possibly even more even and controlled technically - certainly there is greater ease in higher registers and a feeling of greater flexibility. Elisabeth Meister has a very large top and is wilder than either of these two, but there is something quite viscerally exciting about the sound. A pleasure to hear all three.

As Gunther, Peter Coleman-Wright was having a terrible night. The voice had no vibrancy, and though occasionally at the beginning of a phrase it seemed like some body was returning to the sound, he didn't manage to convincingly sing a single line all evening. Quite shockingly bad considering the stage he was standing on, but I guess it's hard to sack people these days. Whether he was having an off night, or whether the voice is now entirely wrecked remains to be seen, but it was sad to witness.

Waltraute's scene, like Fricka's in Walkure, is an absolute gift to a talented singer, and a perfect opportunity to upstage any and all comers with music of wonderful sweep and contour, not to mention dramatic impact. Mihoko Fujimura delivered some very powerful and precise singing, the lower half of her voice possessing the most wonderfully richly colour. In some ways she's close to ideal, though I unfairly, I had in my memory Waltraud Meier's Waltraute who is obviously superlative, so I wasn't as overwhelmed with Fujimura as some other seemed to be. Still she was very impressive.

Die Walkure remains as a treat for next week, and among other things I really cannot wait to see Sarah Connolly as Fricka. It's the most generous and likable of the Ring operas and the one that gives me most pleasure in isolation from the others. As I say, I would happily watch the entire cycle again, but sadly won't find the time. What a wonderful experience it has been.

Siegfried at the ROH

08/10/2012

I have tickets to all the Ring operas! Annoyingly I'm seeing them out of order (Rheingold, Siegfried, Gotterdammerung, Walkure), so it will be difficult to appraise the cycle properly as a piece of story telling, but better this than nothing!

On the whole I really enjoyed Siegfried. I usually find that Act I drags until the forging song, because up until then it might uncharitably be described as an argument between a malevolent midget and an angry simpleton, but here I was completely captivated throughout, both by the dramatics and the music. In the opening minutes of the opera we are shown chronological slices of Siegfried's youth from pram to adolescence with Mime's increasingly desperate attempts to forge him a sword. Gerhard Siegel offers a Mime that combines his humorous patheticness with a genuine pathos and sadness. He is disturbing not because he is evil, but because his normality is just a shell: he has many of the familiar drives that we have, but at his core there is a vacuum, where something very fundamental is missing (In this he is a much like Hagen). There is no doubt, for instance, that his scheming for the ring is only half the story - there is a genuine desire towards parenthood, even if he can only be a terrible parent. We question what Mime's own awful upbringing might have been like with Alberich, and what psychological scars is he trying to heal with his "own" son. Siegel put this all across in a rather understated way and vocally his truly perfect diction, power and sensitivity are a model for the other singers.

Siegfried's own inarticulate longing for his mother are ravishingly captured in the music of Act II, and one wonders even whether there is not some erotic tension present in the music as well, what with his already sexually confused heredity, and him sharing direct lineage with Brunnhilde in the form of Wotan; indeed he confuses her for his mother in Act III. (As an aside, because of the incestuous genetics, both Brunnhilde and Siegfried have half of Wotan's genes. Second aside: It has been noted by feminist writers that the physical between a mother and her child is an erotic one, centred on the breast, and that intense pleasure is often derived from both parties.) Staging wise, this bit is the best thing about Act II: Siegfried disappears down a hole in the middle of the stage, the roof of which then rises to reveal a star lit sky and green paddock: apart from anything it's just a rather beautiful, if typically quirky image. I heard grumbles in the interval about the deer on wheels that appear, but Keith Warner's slightly light hearted aesthetic is very firmly established by this point, so I didn't find it jarring. The difficult to stage dragon scene is acceptably presented - the dragon head is quite scary, and moves with a threatening air, though the fight is rather perfunctory as usual, and though Siegfried is meant to see the whole thing as a sort of joke, at one point he just runs round the stage to make the scene last longer it seems, which is clumsy and undramatic.

Stefan Vinke's Siegfried is a very different matter from Siegel's articulate, needy Mime - Vinke never once genuinely connects with another person on stage, and although I don't think this is an intentional acting choice, it works as an interpretation: the only human contact that Siegfried has had has been from his emotional cripple of a parent, and so he would clearly be a rather underdeveloped or even damaged young man, incapable of the normal range of human emotions. He feels closer to the animals he sees, and what saves him is his radiant energy, love of freedom and instinctive feeling that Mime's actions are wrong. I like this almost autistic interpretation - but if this was the intention it could have been more precise, definite and troubled. Vocally it's not exactly the most exciting voice, but this is an impossible role, and he sings all the notes, largely in tune, and can even sing quietly when needed. He was clearly saving himself for the final duet in which he truly erupted volume wise, and I don't think I've ever heard an ovation so loud at the ROH.

Wagner of course broke off after Act II, as he felt he couldn't yet compose the music he needed to for the close of Siegfried, and so honed his skill with two little compositional exercises commonly referred to Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nuremberg. The abrupt and inevitable change in style between Act II and Act III is hard to complain about when the later music is of such manifest inspiration and consistent beauty and power: Act III combines the ecstatic erotics of Tristan, with the magnificent grandeur of Meistersinger, making it one of the most sheerly pleasurable Act of any of Wagner's operas in terms of aural beauty. What also changes though is the pacing - Wagner slows things right down, and suddenly psychology and philosophy are meant to do the heavy lifting drama wise. I liked Wotan's casting aside of his books and objects of power as he prepares to reject the Will, though the scene with Erda is slightly underwhelming. He does hurry along his desire to end the gods' power by goring her which was rather strong. Vinke's goonishly smiling Siegfried is well contrasted to Terfel's wracked Wanderer though again the scene didn't quite resonate with the energy it needed. Then the fated meeting of Siegfried and Brunnhilde: this is where Warner's staging begins to falter, and he finds it difficult to consummate the eroticism that is in the text and music. First is the botched scene when Siegfried awakens Brunnhilde - it all occurs behind a large wall, which Siegfried pops out from behind occasionally to tel the audience about what he's thinking/doing. When Brunnhilde has actually woken up and the duet occurs they are barely touching, let alone interracting - often they are stationed at opposite sides of the stage singing about the feel of warm breath and bodies. Does Warner not believe in their genuine attraction? At one point we see them either side of a table: Brunnhilde's domestication - the transformation from goddess to woman, but still there's no intimacy. Strangely her horse is dead, and only the head remains - are they both delusional about this? Is it a clue to the rest? (This doesn't resolve itself in Gotterdammerung either...) The ending then is unsatisfactory and a disappointment after the compelling first two acts.

Terfel's Wanderer is quite interesting - subtly acted and with a lot of vocal nuance - but also problematic. He doesn't quite register with the quiet import that he should, and though he can more than sing all the notes, the timbre is very bright and metallic for a bass baritone - not quite what we have come to expect in this role. Having missed Susan Bullock's Brunnhilde in Walkure (I'm seeing it 18th Oct), my first experience of her was much less bad than the reports I had been hearing. She certainly wasn't too quiet as so many have claimed, at least from where I was sitting, though she is clearly working quite hard, and can't truly "ride" the orchestra in the fashion of the truly great Brunnhildes. It's not a very beautiful sound and there is significant wobble on the high notes which are squally and metallic, but she can sing quite beautifully in the quiet moments, and anything below about a g above the staff is basically OK. Her diction is good and she manages to get the text across quite well. (I liked her more in Gotterdammerung, so will talk more of her there.) Similarly to Rheingold, I thought Maria Radner had the right colour, but not enough weight for Erda. I really don't think Sophie Bevan is cast well when doing these light, high lyric coloratura roles (as here with the Woodbird)- she can sing the notes, but the voice is heavier and darker than is ideal. Wolfgang Koch and Eric Halfvarson both more than did the job as Alberich and Fafner.

Pappano takes an almost Straussian delight in the wonderful orchestral effects of the first two acts and makes them exciting and surging, while sensitively accompanying the cast. The orchestra are sounding magnificent under him at the moment, and the warmth and beauty of Act 3 was quite wonderful. It's not the grandest or deepest Wagner you've ever heard in terms of long range structure or shape, but that possibly wouldn't play ideally to the slightly fragile cast. In the purely orchestral sections he really lets the orchestra go, and the momentum and power is infectious - I couldn't wait for the conclusion in Gotterdammerung (which I have now seen).