Jurowski raises the bar again
The much-delayed conclusion to his ring cycle with the London Philharmonic was well worth the wait
Despite feeling like another age, the effects of COVID-19 continue slowly to unwind. No mention was made in the programme for last night’s concert as to why, more than four years after Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic gave an almost perfect account of Siegfried, the third opera in Wagner’s Ring Cycle, last night’s concluding opera had taken quite so long to deliver. The answer of course, is Covid, along with the fact that these things have to be planned so far in advance, you can’t just programme a new date as soon as lockdown is lifted.
The great Russian conductor (I’ll leave adjectives like ‘superstar’ to the more reserved Daily Telegraph) began this ring cycle in January 2018. After 14 years as Principal Conductor, he wanted to leave London with a Ring to remember. If only he’d started a year earlier. As it is, the planned full-cycle, which was scheduled during the January 2021 lockdown, is probably lost forever. But at least we now have a conclusion. And what a treat yesterday’s performance of Götterdämmerung proved to be.
As a lover of opera (if I could take one art form to my desert island, it would have to be opera) I find the world divides into three types of people: those that either don’t like or don’t get opera; those that enjoy it, but struggle with Wagner; and those who won’t hear a word said against the German ‘master’, at least in respect of the operas he created. And within the pro-Wagner cohort, there is a keen debate on whether the art form itself gets in the way of what Wagner achieves musically.
I can see both sides of the argument. Perhaps more than any other opera composer (though Verdi and Mozart give him a run for his money) Wagner’s music stands up exceptionally well on it’s own. Given the critical furore that surrounds virtually every artistic director’s efforts to stage a Wagner opera, perhaps it’s just easier to let the music and singing speak for themselves. This is why the semi-staged form, where the singers may dress for the part, but otherwise make use what remains of the stage after the orchestra is in place, and are under minimal direction in terms of movement and interaction with one another, lends itself so well to Wagner, and especially The Ring Cycle. Opera North’s critically acclaimed 2016 cycle employed the form perfectly. And Jurowski’s, with minimal but perfect stage direction from P.J. Harris, was just as good.
Wagner had little success outside opera, though it must be said that most of his non-operatic work - for example, his American Centennial March commissioned in 1876, and described by Tom Service as ‘dire’ - he only took on for the cash he needed to support himself while working on his operas. He chose opera because he wanted to do more with music than he felt traditional symphonic composition permitted. In later years he mellowed, and after his final opera, Parsifal, he ‘retired’ in order to devote himself to ‘straight’ classical music. Alas, those pesky gods intervened and he died in Venice only eight months after Parsifal was premiered at the second Bayreuth Festival in 1882.
Wagner completed the music for Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) in 1874, and it had its premiere at the very first Bayreuth Festival in 1876. I have plans to write about the story of the Ring Cycle at some point. I’ve never been seduced by legend and myth (Greek, Norse or whatever) as many people are, but there’s something about the heroic German legend which Wagner chose as the subject for his greatest work, that not only fascinates me, but also works perfectly in operatic form. Is it just the music? Is it the libretto, which Wagner wrote himself? Is it the content of this particular legend? When I’ve worked out the answer, I’ll let you know on these pages.
There was a palpable sense of history, and immense anticipation, arriving at the Royal Festival Hall yesterday afternoon to see whether Jurowski would be able to repeat his pre-pandemic successes with the first three operas in the cycle: Das Rheingold, Die Walküre and Siegfried. As Tim Ashley wrote in his review of Siegfried for The Guardian, with each instalment, he had raised the bar. Could it be lifted any higher?
In a word: yes. The level was exceptional. You could be picky and point to a couple of moments when the voice of Burkhard Fritz as Siegfried didn’t quite match the absurdly high levels of the orchestra, but he more than redeemed himself with his fabulous acting. Fritz did as much story telling with his face and body as he did with his voice. I’m always surprised at how little attention critics pay to singers’ acting ability. For me it can make or break an opera. P.J.Harris brought the best out of all the singers here, with Fritz at the fore.
And although Svetlana Sozdateleva struggled for a few a fleetingly brief moments as Brünnhilde (is there a more demanding female role in Opera?), for the most part her voice was breathtakingly beautiful. Albert Dohmen as Hagan effortlessly asserted the cool control his character demands, every syllable crystal clear. Robert Hayward, one of my favourite bass-baritones, reprised his menacing Alberich from Das Rheingold, perfectly. And the Estonian Mezzo Kai Rüütel-Pajula as Waultraute was the pick of the ‘minor’ parts for me. I look forward to seeing more of her.
But if the singing was generally excellent, the orchestral playing was beyond words. In his review today for the Guardian, Martin Kettle asks (and answers):
Was it all occasionally just a little too perfectly sculpted and beautifully played at the expense of the dramatic experience? Perhaps.
I think that’s just a (very good) critic stretching to find fault because it’s his job. Jurowski’s control over this massive music-making collective (I counted 118 musicians on stage, including eight double bases and six harps) was remarkable. He’s such an entertaining conductor to watch because it’s absolutely clear to a non-musician like me, exactly what he’s trying to communicate to his musicians, and because you can hear them respond. I can’t remember ever hearing an opera where the singers’ voices were so perfectly integrated with the music. It was almost as if some some advanced bit of AI had been employed to generate the perfect outcome. Except, of course, that no algorithm could ever achieve such splendour, because AI will never come close to replicating the feeling, sensitivity and sheer artistic prowess that more than two hundred (including the chorus) human beings, under the supervision of a genius in Jurowski, can produce when they all pull together in pursuit of near perfection. The ten minute standing ovation was, for once, richly deserved.
Wagner first had the idea for an opera based on the Niebelung myth in 1848. His initial draft includes an optimistic ending in which the sacrifice of Siegfried prompts a reconciliation between factions that have warred for generations over the power granted by the titular ring. By 1874, when his original idea for a single opera about Siegfried had morphed into probably the most ambitious artistic project ever undertaken, his world view had changed considerably. There is no longer any future for either the gods nor the equally despicable, though rather less hypocritical, Niebelungen. The gods, their sense of invincibility barely dented, go down in flames anyway. It has to happen for us mortals to have a future of our own.
Which brings us, inevitably with Wagner, to politics. As the protagonists got their comeuppance last night, I couldn’t help seeing the parallels with our current world political situation, especially in respect of the sense of entitlement exhibited by many of those who end up in positions of power, whether we elect them or not. Britain, at least, seems due a change of ruling party at the general election later this year. But things are less clear in the USA. And there are other countries, notably France, where things could go from not very good really, to extremely bad. And it’s not just political leadership: politics is failing and populism is a growing threat precisely because our elected representatives have ceded economic power to a tiny cabal and the financial markets. These days, I struggle to think of Alberich, King of the Niebelugen, without seeing Elon Musk.
It would be a stretch to say that Vladimir Jurowski is so skilled an artist as to be able to deliberately tease out comparisons between what Wagner intended with his epic opera cycle and our current political reality, but after reading his recent interview in The Daily Telegraph, I began to wonder. Who else in his position would halt a performance (of Bruckner!) half way through to grant the climate change protesters glueing themselves to his podium two minutes to explain their views to the audience?
Like Daniel Barenboim before him, Jurowski is beginning to embody some of the ideals Wagner attempted to outline in his 1849 essay Art and Revolution. Many people are unaware, but before he jumped on the desperate bandwagon of anti-Semitism - pretty much seizing the reins - Wagner had been an idealist revolutionary.
Perhaps his legacy proves that the 19th century world just wasn’t ready for The Artist as Leader. Dare we hope that in the 21st century, people like Vladimir Jurowski might help finally to bring about the twilight of the gods of political and economic entitlement.