The year of 2016, that has seen the deaths of so many musically talented individuals, has now claimed the life of tenor Johan Botha. The South African singer, who was mounting a comeback following a battle with cancer and a seven-month hiatus from the stage, died yesterday. He was 51.
Caught between two worlds, two women and two versions of the same opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen
The medieval knight Heinrich von Ofterdingen, known to all as "Tannhäuser."
Photo re-coloring by the author.
Wagner planned Tannhäuser to be a grand opera, not a grand, sweeping statement on the nature of duality and the divided self. But it is. On one level, this is the story of a medieval minstrel knight (the title character, pronounced "TAHN-hoy-zer") who tries to win a song contest. However, the hero is doomed from the start, trapped between his lust for the goddess Venus and his chaste love for the pure, saintly Elisabeth. This opera is an examination of the artist in a divided state of ones self, destroyed by the effort to meet all of one's needs at once.
The Metropolitan Opera announced on Wednesday night that Mr. Morris, an up-and-coming heldentenor, will be singing the title role in the Oct. 27th premiere of the company's new production of Siegfried. In an update, Mr. Morris will also sing the remainder of the fall performances, including the Nov. 5 Met Live in HD telecast.
Mr. Morris replaces Gary Lehman, who cancelled all his fall performances of the role. Mr. Lehman's manager, Brian Jauhiainen, told Daniel J. Wakin in the New York Times that the culprit was a year-long virus contracted from eating shellfish in Oct. 2010. Mr. Jauhiainen said that the tenor was prepared to sing the role but was "physically exhausted." However, he is expected to sing in the Jan. 27 premiere of Götterdämmerung. Next spring, Mr. Lehman will platoon the role in both operas with Stephen Gould.
The late change poses problems with marketing Siegfried, a tough sell even to the most hardened Wagnerian. Mr. Lehman's blonde-wigged profile has dominated much of the company's promotional material for the production. As of this writing, the tenor is expected to sing the part in three spring performances, as part of the complete Ring. Those shows are being sold on a subscription-only basis.
Mr. Lehman was originally added to the Ring cast last year as a replacement for Ben Heppner. Mr. Heppner, who had sung every major Wagner role except Siegfried, was originally under contract to sing in this new production. In February of this year, the Canadian tenor announced that he had cancelled his plans to appear, and withdrawn the role from his repertory.
What's interesting about this cancellation and casting change is that Jonas Kaufmann is in town for a recital at the Met on Oct. 30. Mr. Kaufmann made a stir as Siegmund, the hero of Die Walküre, the previous opera in the Ring. The tenor has sung other Wagner roles such as Lohengrin, but has yet to tackle Siegfried. Then again, it might be weird for Siegmund to play his own son.
The title role in this opera is the summit of the German tenor repertory. The character wrestles a bear, beats up a dwarf, forges a sword, kills a dragon, kills the dwarf, beats up Wotan and then sings a 37-minute long duet with the soprano after having been onstage for about four hours. The role is so demanding that on occasion, each of the three acts have been taken by a different heldentenor.
Mr. Morris, whose other Wagner roles include Erik in Der fliegende Holländer, sang the role in this year's San Francisco Opera production of the Ring. However, he only played the character in Siegfried. Another tenor, Ian Storey, sang the role in Götterdämmerung.
This is the second Met production this month to lose its leading man in the week before the premiere. Earlier this month, Peter Mattei replaced Mariusz Kwiecien in Don Giovanni after the Polish baritone suffered a back injury in rehearsal. Mr. Kwiecien is due to return Oct. 25. Both productions are conducted by new Met principal conductor Fabio Luisi, himself a replacement for injured music director James Levine.
Watch for the Superconductor review of the Oct 27 performance of Siegfried.
German heroic tenor Peter Hofmann died Tuesday in Bavaria. He was 66.
Peter Hofmann as Siegmund in Die Walküre.
The rugged, blond singer became a star in the 1970s and '80s, singing mainly the major roles in Wagner operas.
Peter Hofmann was born in Marienbad in 1944. He joined the German army and began singing rock music before taking voice lessons and learning he could sing opera. He made his operatic debut in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, singing the role of Tamino. Four years later, he sang Siegmund in the Patrice Chereau production of Die Walküre at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus.
His leonine mane of blond hair, imposing stage presence and powerful tenor voice made him a Bayreuth regular. In addition to Siegmund and Tristan, he sang the title roles in Lohengrin and Parsifal, starring in a controversial 1983 production designed by Götz Friedrich. He also sang Lohengrin at the Metropolitan Opera.
In 1986, Mr. Hofmann sang Siegmund in the Metropolitan Opera in the company's new production of the Ring Cycle, a part he would reprise at the Met for the next three years. However, Mr. Hofmann never tackled the demanding role of Siegfried, long considered the toughest role in the Wagner repertory. When it came time to film and record the cycle, the role of Siegmund was sung by Gary Lakes.
After a disastrous 1989 performance at Bayreuth, Mr. Hofmann moved away from the operatic stage and went back to his pop roots, even recording an album of country music. He also had a successful run of 300 performances in the title role of a German-language production of Andrew Lloyd-Webber's The Phantom of the Opera. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1994 and retired from the stage in 1999
His recorded legacy includes Die Walküre with Pierre Boulez, two recordings of Parsifal with James Levine and Herbert von Karajan conducting, and recordings of Lohengrin and Tristan. This last, which paired the singer with Hildegard Behrens as Isolde, was conducted by Leonard Bernstein. It is currently out of print.
Peter Hoffmann singing 'In Fernem Land' from Act III of Lohengrin
A minor chapter in the history of Wagner Ring cycles at Bayreuth has finally arrived on DVD: a performance of Götterdämmerung from the infamous 1995 production of the Ring cycle directed by Alfred Kirchner and designed by German fashionista Rosalie. (That's "Roh-zal-yah" by the way, not "Rosalie")
I had read about this strange production over a decade ago, and like most Wagnerians, was curious to see if it was actually as bad as I had heard it was. Happily, the verdict, at least as far as this 2-DVD Götterdämmerung is concerned, is that the production is less than a total disaster. That is to say, musically speaking, it's pretty good, with one glaring exception.
Luckily, this is Deborah Polaski's Brunnhilde at a vocal peak, before her big soprano voice began to suffer from a regular wobble. She sings beautifully in comparison to her Siegfried, (considering that it's Wolfgang Schmidt, that's not difficult) and tries to act through the onstage silliness. Her apotheosis won't make anyone forget Nilsson (or even Anne Evans) but she sings well enough.
Vocally, Schmidt is the primary culprit here, although compared to a 1997 performance at the Met he is in passable voice. (That's not a compliment.) His is a tight, compressed instrument, given to stentorian shouts and squally notes, with very little legato and no room for the voice to expand and blossom. It's interesting that after he drinks the love potion in Act I, his singing gets worse! This is one of those performances where the audience feels pretty good about Siegfried getting speared in the back.
With a bad tenor and worse designer, Hagen becomes the hero of the evening, ('cos he gets to kill Siegfried!) I am happy to say that Icelandic bass Erik Halfvarson gives an iconic performance as the spear-wielding party-loving Son-of-a-Nibelung. His resonant tones and rolled deep notes are a welcome distraction--almost enough to make you forget that he is wearing roller-derby shoulder-pads and a fetching half-leather full-length black skirt.
Unfortunately, no one thought to hire Hagen to put a hit on Rosalie. Her strange costume ideas include:
A metallic "fake muscle" chestpiece for Siegfried, worn under an electric-blue vest with paper pants. (Little Lord Fauntelroy in disposable clothing?) I'm not even going to mention the sword which looks like a gigantic delta-vee cheese-grater. Mangia parmagiana!
Brunnhilde, decked out in four-foot-wide silver "diet pants" topped by a blue and white plasticized, fake-nippled corset. (This accentuates Deborah Polaski's considerable physical assets, inspiring the title of this review--I couldn't stop laughing.)
A quilted nylon mattress pad/cloak for Gutrune, which predicts the exact shade of Christo and Jean Claude's "The Gates," ten years before that project launched.
A single bright orange accordion sleeve for Gunther that looks like it will zip out at any moment like an Extend-O-Glove and pop Hagen on the nose.
The three Norns, looking like the inspiration for the forest critters in M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. However, these costumes appear to be made from brightly-tinted bubble-wrap with over-long sleeves. Eek!
Falk Struckmann (who has since graduated to singing Wotan) is an excellent baritone and a solid actor when not encumbered by his costume. Anna Linden's Gutrune is more erratic than erotic (blame the quilt) and Waltraute is the ever-reliable Hanna Schwarz. The Bayreuth choral forces are able and willing, no matter how silly the production.
One wonders if the rest of this cycle is slated to be released on DVD, or if this was the only one of the four operas staged that summer to be deemed worthy of posterity. It's worth hearing for Halfvarson, Polaski, and James Levine's superb, if slow reading in the famous Bayreuth pit. Given some of the strange fashion choices made by designer Rosalie, the other three operas might be worth seeing, if only on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
On Monday night at the Met, Deborah Voigt gave an incandescent performance in the title role of Richard Strauss’ Die Ägyptische Helena. Her supple soprano sailed through this supremely difficult part with ease, navigating a score that is so difficult that it is either cut heavily or simply not performed. To his credit, Fabio Luisi led a completely uncut version of the score.
Ms. Voigt, who recorded this work in concert with Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra, sliced through the rich orchestral fabric, ably conducted by Fabio Luisi, with ease and grace. This might be the soprano's greatest triumph in a long Met career that has included Aida, Sieglinde, and will soon lead to Minnie and Brunnhilde.
In this opera, Strauss wrote not one, but two killer soprano parts. The other is that of the sorceress Aithra, wife of Poseidon and Queen of the Sea. German soprano Diana Damrau proved an able foil to Ms. Voigt, matching her note for note. The two voiced blended in the duets, producing that trademark Strauss sound of divas in full flight over an ocean of strings and brass. Ms. Damrau acted this challenging part with humor--her Aithra is a cross between all-powerful sorceress and spoiled trophy wife. Interestingly, her husband Poseidon was added to the action as a mute part, an effective dramatic device.
As Menelaus, tenor Michael Hendrick (replacing an indisposed Torsten Kerl for yet another performance) coped well with one of the most unlovable parts in opera. If Strauss wrote lovely, if difficult parts for his soprano leads, he was downright sadistic to his tenors. Menelaus is cursed with a difficult high range, and a generally unlovable role in the drama.
Hendrick struggled to get over the orchestra in the second act. But for the most part, he proved a serviceable heldentenor, and his acting proved that the Metropolitan Opera believes in thorough coaching for its backups. The tenor star of the evening was Garrett Sorenson as Da-ud, who made his character's all-too-brief scene an exercise in melodic singing.
David Fielding’s new production of Helena solves many of the opera’s problems. Intelligent decisions can be seen in this staging, imported to the Met from the Garsington Opera. He created fresh ideas and solved many of the opera’s problems, including the chorus of elves and the giant singing seashell in Act One. That latter character, described in the libretto as The Omniscient Musseland usually voiced by an offstage actress, is this work's biggest dramatic liability.
Instead of some large, ugly prop out of “Little Chip Shop of Horrors” or an undersea version of Fafner from Siegfried, this staging presented the singing shellfish as contralto Jill Groves. Wearing a black body-stocking, she stalked the stage like a Greco-German ninja: a walking shadow carrying a conch shell. That shell was a crucial prop--at the climax of the opera Menelaus and Helen drank the magic potion from it to resove their marital woes.
The entire setting was on a raked stage with two massive doors that opened and closed to reveal Menelaus and Helen's wedding bed as well as various aspects of the natural world--the oceans under Poseidon's sway and the deserts of North Africa. Combining those visuals with a study in the use of gels and colored lighting, Mr. Fielding created a rich visual palette that sustained the dramatic interest without succumbing to the unfortunate baggage (i.e. the mollusc) that has dragged down this opera since its 1928 premiere. One only hopes that the success of Strauss' Helena in this production will lead New York's biggest opera houses to blow the dust off other ignored Strauss masterpieces: Daphne, Die Schweigsame Frau and Die Liebe der Danae.
