Regular readers may remember this piece from last year: having seen The Blue Aeroplanes at the Electric Ball Room and Wagner’s Das Rheingold at the Royal Opera House in the same week, I wondered if anyone else had been at both events and then attempted to compare the creative processes of these two giants of the art world. (Okay, I accept that Wagner is the better known, but The Blue Aeroplanes have far less baggage.)
The same thought struck me last week when on Saturday evening I saw Bruce Springsteen at Wembley Stadium, and the following Friday made the trip to Glyndebourne for Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. Given there were 50,000 souls at Wembley that evening, I reckon there’s a fair chance that I wasn’t the only person to attend both events this time.
Both performances were exceptional, and inevitably got me thinking again about the difference between popular and classical music (and culture) and whether we’ll still be listening to the Boss a century and half after his death, as we do the Master.
I first saw Springsteen at (the old) Wembley Stadium on 4th July 1985. It was a very hot day. We got there early to get as close to the front as we could. There was the usual (for those days) absence of crown control and numerous fans had to be pulled unconscious over the railings by bouncers long before the band came on stage, victims either of the heat, the crush or both. At one point those same security guys appeared at the edge of the stage with plant spray bottles of water which they directed at the crowd to absolutely no effect. Shortly before the concert started, as the sun dipped behind the old west stand, they turned a fire hose on us.
By the time the E-Street Band struck up Born in the USA to open the set (this being the tour to promote that great album) we were soggy and cold, not that we minded as Springsteen rattled his way through an already extensive back catalogue.
Fast forward 39 years: this time the stage is at the east end of the new stadium, and I’ve splashed out on front pitch standing tickets. Best money I’ve ever spent. There’s even room to dance.
At 74, Springsteen is five years older than Wagner was when he died. He sang and played for three hours without a break. At around 9:15 the band joined him at the front of the stage to soak up the wild applause. At last I thought, he’ll have a five minute rest before the encore. But then the stage went dark and not 20 seconds later, musicians and singers all back at their stations, there was an explosion of light and sound as, once again, the mighty opening chords of Born in the USA soared across the stadium.
The energy, the musicianship, the brilliant sax playing of Jake Clemons (nephew of Clarence Clemons, the band’s original horn man who died in 2011), the beautiful duet between Bruce and Patti Scialfa on Tougher than the Rest, Steven Van Zandt’s trademark snarl (and just to be in the same room as the man who created Silvio Dante in The Sopranos); and the fact that they played my favourite Springsteen song: Candy’s Room; all made for an evening to remember.
Apparently, Springsteen was reluctant to accept the nickname ‘the Boss’ when his bandmates started using it in the early days of the E-Street Band. It was only when Van Zandt started using it too (they’ve been friends since they were 15) that he capitulated.
I don’t imagine Richard Wagner would have had any qualms about being called the Master during his lifetime. Which is partly why I find the epithet rather difficult to stomach. I’ve never been to Bayreuth - the town in Germany where Wagner built an opera house and where a festival of his operas is still held every summer - but a friend who has tells me it’s a very peculiar affair, with assembled Wagnerians referring in hushed tones to ‘the Master’, almost as if to speak his name would constitute some kind of blasphemy. It sounds like the worst kind of cult to me.
That said, as I’ve written here before, his impact on the world of opera is unrivalled, and he is responsible for some of the loveliest music ever written. Much of that sublime music features in his spellbinding opera Tristan und Isolde, and Glyndebourne’s revival of Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s fabulous production delivers the operatic goods quite as well as Bruce Springsteen delivers the best rock and roll.
Roland Aeschlimann’s minimalist set is perfect for an opera in which nearly all the drama occurs between the two protagonists, here sung beautifully by Stuart Skelton and the Finnish soprano, Miina-Liisa Värelä. It was my first time seeing her, and, having listened all week to the live Karl Böhm Bayreuth recording from 1966, she sang the role as well as the legendary Birgit Nilsson.
The supporting cast were all exceptional: Shenyang as Kurwenal, Franz-Josef Selig as King Marke, and especially Marlene Lichtenberg as Brangäne, a last minute stand in for the indisposed Karen Cargill. But topping them all was the superb London Philharmonic Orchestra under Robin Ticciati. Four hours of perfectly paced, beautifully played music. From my perch high up in the Glyndebourne’s gorgeous auditorium, it sounded heavenly.
Which, of course, got me pondering that old question on the train back from Lewes to London: how are we to compare the ultimate exhibition of blues- and folk-infused rock and roll, with a near-perfect operatic interpretation of a 12th century chivalric legend?
Perhaps we can’t. Will people still be listening to Bruce Springsteen 140 years after his death? I suspect our great-great-great-grandchildren may well be, yes, but perhaps only in numbers similar to those who attend Wagner’s operas today.
There is a difference, of course: in popular music, the acts of creation and performance go hand in hand. Nobody would choose a tribute band over the original, if the original were available and affordable. But the musicianship of the E-Street Band is certainly on a par with the players of the LPO; Springsteen’s untrained voice is just as effective as Stuart Skelton’s exceptional refined tenor; Springsteen’s lyrics speak to the same life struggles as the ancient legends that inspire Wagner’s operas. And both experiences elicit from their audiences a huge emotional response, and offer clear evidence of the human capacity to transcend the banality of everyday life through the creation of great art.