Wagner – Die Walküre
Siegmund – Stuart Skelton
Hunding – Albert Pesendorfer
Wotan – Thomas Johannes Mayer
Sieglinde – Sonja Šarić
Fricka – Atala Schöck
Brünnhilde – Ewa Vesin
Helmwige – Chantal Santon Jeffery
Gerhilde – Yulia Tkachenko
Ortlinde – Lisa Wittig
Waltraute – Egle Wyss
Siegrune – Eleonora Filipponi
Rossweisse – Federica Giansanti
Grimgerde – Marina Ogii
Schwertleite – Maria Cristina Bellantuono
Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna / Oksana Lyniv.
Concert performance.
Teatro Comunale di Bologna – Auditorium Manzoni, Bologna, Italy. Saturday, October 19th, 2024.
And so the Bologna Ring continues. In common with June’s Rheingold, tonight’s Die Walküre, was a concert performance with the Comunale orchestra led by house Music Director, Oksana Lyniv. Both Thomas Johannes Mayer and Atala Schöck returned to incarnate Wotan and Fricka respectively. The orchestra was placed on stage, with the singers singing in front, while a screen at the back displayed the stage instructions in Italian, alongside the German original and Italian and English translations. While several in the cast sang from scores, this was no simple concert performance. Mayer appeared wearing an outfit that could have been a costume from a previous Ring cycle, and there were several moments where the cast made use of the auditorium to add dramatic effect – particularly in the closing pages of Act 2.
Yet what made this evening live more than anything else was in the contribution of the Comunale orchestra. As in Rheingold, Lyniv brought out what felt like an unlimited range of orchestral colour from her musicians. The opening storm was built up with irrepressible force, as each orchestral layer emerged, it seemed to add even more unbearable tension. Act 1, seemed to be taken at relatively slow tempi, and yet the way that the orchestra phrased with forward momentum, meant that it never dragged, but rather soared with irrepressible lyricism. The Todesverkündigung, again taken relatively slowly, seemed to take wing and ring out, giving the music added emotion. It took me a long time to appreciate Wagner, but I wish I had discovered him played by the bolognesi earlier, because tonight Wotan’s farewell finally moved me more than it had ever moved me before. The strings played with such sheer poetry, finding a beauty, pain and longing in this music that I had never previously felt. It was glorious and transcendental. Indeed, there was a sense tonight of the orchestra pushing the cast to find even more poetry and emotion in their singing.
The quality of the orchestral playing was outstanding. I am so happy to report that the brass was much improved on their accident-prone playing in Rheingold. Instead, there was a richness to the lower brass that seemed to fill the auditorium in a glow of sound. Lyniv seems to have an unerring sense of how to bring out the orchestral colour, the flames in the closing measures seemed to take life in a way I’ve never heard them before. The warmth and sheer legato beauty of the strings was utterly captivating, bringing out a cantabile beauty in Wagner’s writing that one never hears, but here felt so right. The winds similarly played with beauty and accuracy, while the four harps tinkled refreshingly under the textures.
This was my first time hearing Ewa Vesin, tonight singing the title role, and having seen some videos online I was very much looking forward to the opportunity. The voice has staggering amplitude, ringing into the hall with ease. Her opening ‘hojotoho’s were absolutely exhilarating, both in volume and in sheer healthiness of tone. Indeed, both the voice and technique are absolutely rock solid. This is a role that, once past those opening war cries, tends to sit quite low. And yet, Vesin’s impeccable bel canto technique meant that she crossed the registers with ease, the voice founded in a rich and strong chestiness, with ample volume in the middle. The downside of having the German text in the surtitles was that it did expose a few passing mispronunciations from Vesin, and her reliance on the score suggested that she’s still learning this iconic role. Hopefully with time, she will learn to make much more of the words, although in the Todesverkündigung she found a determination and strength in the text that brought out so much meaning. Vesin’s is a major voice and I can’t wait to hear her in Götterdämmerung next year.
The Brünnhilde in Siegfried will be Sonja Šarić, who tonight sang Sieglinde. Šarić sang the role with glorious radiance and free, open tone. Perhaps inspired by the orchestra, she phrased her Act 1, with seemingly endless lines, bringing an uplifting impetus to her music that seemed to emerge from and soar over those long orchestral lines. She also sang the role in impeccable German, bringing out so much meaning in the text. Her ‘hehrstes Wunder’ put a huge smile on my face, the voice just taking wing over the surging orchestra with unlimited ease, projecting a silver beam of tone into the auditorium. Most definitely a singer to watch. Similarly, Schöck brought out so much personality in her singing of Fricka. This was a Fricka who used the text to openly mock Wotan and get her way. Her mezzo has claret warmth in the middle, although the top does have a tendency to spread somewhat. Still, she is most certainly a vital and vivid stage presence. We also had a deliciously extrovert and vocally exciting group of Valkyries, even if it felt that some of them could have benefitted from some slightly more intensive language coaching.
Albert Pesendorfer sang Hunding in a resonant if slightly dry bass, the words nicely forward. Stuart Skelton’s Siegmund was sung with professionalism and in good German. He made the words clear and attempted to sing with the long lines that Lyniv was eliciting. That said, his vocal production was problematic, the placement of the voice seemingly achieved through sheer muscle rather than being well supported and integrated. He also came within a whisker of an unfortunate accident in this final phrase of Act 1. Perhaps Skelton was suffering from an unannounced indisposition.
Mayer’s Wotan tonight moved me more than anything I’ve heard him sing before. The truth is the voice is really not in the best shape. The vibrations have loosened, the tone is dry and the tuning is frequently approximate. And yet, he transformed these vocal shortcomings into something that made his character even more vivid, spitting out the text at times, particularly in the closing pages of Act 2, to make Wotan’s frustration even more present. Similarly, the relative weakness of his instrument, compared with Schöck’s rich, glamourous mezzo, made the inevitability of Wotan submitting to Fricka’s will even more apparent. Mayer brought a King Lear-like tragedy to his assumption of the final act tonight. He used the text and his faltering instrument to make his farewell to Brünnhilde so much more potent and emotional, pulling out meaning, placing the words front and centre, while the orchestral lines gave us the emotional context we needed. Vocally it was definitely rough, yet Mayer transcended that, in partnership with this glorious orchestra, to take us deep into his character’s psychology.
I left this beautiful auditorium tonight completely thrilled after what was a deeply satisfying evening of opera, one in which the hours passed by as if seconds. Lyniv led a Comunale orchestra on tremendous form, bringing out a wealth of colour in the band, phrasing this music with soaring generosity in a way that felt revelatory. Vesin and Šarić were both absolutely glorious in their vocalism, ringing over the surging orchestral with fabulous ease. Mayer might have been a world-weary Wotan, but he used those vocal shortcomings to find so much truth in his character. The audience responded at the close of each act and at the end of the evening with generous and uninhibited ovations.
