Germany Dresden Music Pageant 2023 [15] – 14.6.2023, Kulturpalast, Dresden: Soloists, Dresden Pageant Orchestra and Concerto Köln / Kent Nagano (conductor). (LV)

Wagner – Das Rheingold

Manufacturing:
Inventive administrators – Kent Nagano and Jan Vogler
Analysis director – Volker Krafft
Musicological curator – Kai Hinrich Müller

Solid:
Wotan – Derek Welton
Donner – Dominik Köninger
Loge – Mauro Peter
Froh – Tansel Akzeybek
Fricka – Katrin Wundsam
Freia – Nadja Mchantaf
Erda – Gerhild Romberger
Alberich – Daniel Schmutzhard
Mime – Thomas Ebenstein
Fasolt – Tijl Faveyts
Fafner – Tilmann Rönnebeck
Woglinde – Ania Vegry
Wellgunde – Ida Aldrian
Flosshilde – Eva Vogel

I first heard the period-instrument Dresden Pageant Orchestra rework standard notions of what German Romantic music was about in two concert events on the 2019 Worldwide Classical Music Pageant in Bogotá. It was like listening to the Dutch early music pioneers play the good Bach Passions for the primary time. The way in which their presumably genuine tempos, nuances, colours, dynamics and pulse had been so intently associated to the sounds of the devices themselves gave the music a pure, natural movement. It wasn’t till this yr that I heard them once more, first at their 7 June live performance of Schubert and Brahms performed by Ivor Bolton, after which on 14 June in Das Rheingold performed by Kent Nagano. The Schubert was magnificent, the Brahms was saddled with an insufficient interval piano, and the Rheingold sparkled and shone with musical gold.

Devoid of costumes and restricted to minimal stage actions, exits and entrances, the singers had been capable of create extra finely etched if much less entertaining characterizations than they could have achieved if all dressed up and able to kill. The singing was extra finely drawn and appropriately matched to related qualities within the orchestral forces. Derek Welton’s commanding Wotan and, particularly, Mauro Peter’s dynamic Loge dominated the proceedings. Daniel Schmutzhard’s Alberich made it clear that he was no mere dwarf, musically talking, whereas Thomas Ebenstein’s Mime struggled to be included within the dialog. Tijl Faveyts and Tilmann Rönnebeck had been engagingly human and bodily highly effective giants, whereas Dominik Köninger’s Donner and Tansel Akzeybek’s Froh held their very own.

Katrin Wundsam’s Fricka was by far essentially the most engagingly human of the gods in each her singing and appearing, though she was made to face behind Wotan all through the entire night which can have had symbolic significance however gave the efficiency an oddly anti-feminist solid. From the rear balcony, Gerhild Romberger’s stentorian Erda virtually stole the present, whereas Nadja Mchantaf’s Freia sang as fantastically as she might whereas seeming slightly too deeply depressed. The trio of Rhinemaidens had been much less distinctive of their characterizations than they could have been, however they sang with wholesome abandon and labored effectively as a workforce.

The Dresden Pageant Orchestra was joined on this bold enterprise by Concerto Köln; their mixed 54 strings had been led by such stars of the interval instrument scene as concertmaster Alexander Janiczek and principal cellist Werner Matzke. Three of the seven double basses had been arrayed on the precise, 4 on the left, and the sense of luxurious readability within the low strings, particularly from the ten virtuoso cellos, was unusually wealthy and detailed, When the brass with 5 Wagner tubas and the low strings received it collectively, they created an superior darkish drive, whereas the seven harpists had been significantly delicate and clear. Being introduced up on Decca’s groundbreaking Ring underneath Georg Solti by which Donner’s hammer summoning the thunderstorm was an anvil strike that was used to check – and generally destroy – sound methods of the time, the presumably genuine and big picket mallet wielded by the percussionist regarded extra like the type used for ring-the-bell carnival video games, nevertheless it produced an excellent thumping noise that received the job achieved.

Kent Nagano, on the helm of this extremely literate manufacturing, listened to the great orchestral forces as a lot as he performed them, which appeared to make the singers snug and compensated, to a big extent, for its not being staged, though the story and motion are usually much less persuasive this manner. Rheingold will tour to the Lucerne Pageant and Cologne this August; subsequent yr it is going to be Die Walküre. And when the cycle is accomplished, presumably as quickly as 2026, it is going to be toured, presumably to New York.

‘Think about’, Jan Vogler had mentioned to me earlier this yr, ‘taking part in the entire Ring on unique devices!’ And after I requested about the opportunity of a interval staging, Vogler admitted: ‘I don’t know the place we’ll find yourself. It’s a journey. For now, it’s not going to be interval staged, however sooner or later we’ll take into consideration that too’. That will be one thing!

Laurence Vittes