Monday 29 October 2007

The London Warner/Pappano Ring: Walküre revisited

Walküre. October 28th 2007, Royal Opera House Covent Garden. Production: Keith Warner. Cast: Eva-Maria Westbroek (Sieglinde), Plácido Domingo (Siegmund), John Tomlinson (Wotan), Lisa Gasteen (Brünnhilde), Stephen Milling (Hunding). Conductor: Antonio Pappano.

As I reported on this Walküre production with a virtually identical cast last week I will be brief:

Plácido Domingo is still the best Siegmund around. Stephen Milling is still the best Hunding around and Eva-Maria Westbroek is still a wonderful Sieglinde. Sir John Tomlinsons still performs Wotans monologue as the true highlight of Walküre it should be.

This time the Brünnhilde was Lisa Gasteen, who generally hits (almost all) the notes, but didn´t make any particular impression apart from that.

Antonio Pappano continued his brisk Keilberth-style conducting from Rheingold and fully deserved the thunderous applause he got.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You can have Tomlinson and I'll take Terfel. For me, Bryn is the very best of singers.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for that review. I was present for that performance (as well as Rheingold two days earlier). At the end of Walkure Act I, the stranger sitting next to me turned my direction and said, "It doesn't get any better than this." And I agreed. I second your glowing remarks about the singer who played Hunding. However, the staging of these productions (especially Rheingold) didn't appeal to me. In general, I don't find Wagner's music much to my taste -- but really, Walkure is a admirable score. Guess it was my good luck that it was the opera that just happened to be playing at the ROH during my visit to London. I'd never have gone to see it back home.

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