Wagner
Siegfried
Simon O’Neill, Michael Volle,Peter Hoare, Anja Kampe et al; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Simon Rattle
BR Klassik 900211 233:09 mins (3 discs)
Recorded live in Munich in two concert performances in May 2023, Rattle’s Siegfried has as its greatest asset the Bavarian orchestra. Some 25 of the musicians, apparently, play at Bayreuth, so their acquaintance with the score is scarcely in doubt.
Despite having the orchestra on stage rather than in a pit (let alone the Bayreuth pit, which makes life unusually easy for singers), textures have been carefully balanced. Rattle shows a keen awareness of orchestral colour and brings an impressive dynamism to the music.
His tendency is to be quite speedy – and there is certainly virtue in such an approach.
Yet despite the conductor believing that he has at his disposal ‘the best cast of singers you can get in the whole world right now’, things are less accomplished vocally, with a largely mature cast, some of whom might have done better with their roles a few years back.
The two tenors – Simon O’Neill’s protagonist and Peter Hoare’s characterful Mime – are too similar, with the former’s solid but occasionally nasal vocalism not consistently providing a voice of the ideal size or tonal beauty.
With Michael Volle’s baritone a little rough these days, his punchy but potent Wotan is not always entirely centred. Anja Kampe’s Brünnhilde possesses the necessary weight, though her lyricism falters towards the end.
Georg Nigl’s Alberich is firm and saturnine – one of the best assumptions on the set. Franz-Josef Selig is a dignified Fafner, but Danae Kontora’s Forest Bird Woodbird is brittle and not always perfectly pitched while Gerhild Romberger’s Erda is rather dull.
Clean sound, despite the live context. George Hall