From Terminal City Express, January, 1973
This article appeared in the January, 1973 issue of Terminal City Express, a newspaper which started up with some connection to Simon Fraser University. This was a couple of months after I had left the country for Japan. Obviously I had written this article before I left, and I think I gave it to Rick McGrath (who ended up writing for TCE) to get it published somewhere. The Grape went through a lot of soul-searching from this time on, evolving into more of a political paper than it had been, under names like Western Voice.
Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung is a pretty heavy work. One critic, in fact, called it "the greatest musical creation of the human mind."
The Ring, which occupied Wagner for over twenty years of his life in both conception and composition, consists of four operas — Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried, and Gotterdammerung — which all together relate a continuous story of how the power of the ancient Norse gods is overthrown first by greed for material wealth and then by the redemption of love. It was given its first integral performance in a festival theatre especially designed by Wagner, in Bayreuth, Germany, in 1876.
To adequately relate the plot of the Ring would take several pages. Rather than do that, I'd suggest those unfamiliar with the complicated story check out any number of books such as opera guides for the plot. This won't be difficult, for more has been written on Wagner, his theories and works, than possibly on any other composer.
In 1953, the Italian Radio decided to produce and broadcast the complete Ring under the leadership of the famous Wagner conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler (1886-1954) and a cast of Wagnerian singers who were very prominent at the time.
Except for Das Rheingold, which occupies a continuous two and a half hours, each of the three acts of the other operas was recorded separately on different days, live before a small audience, to ensure that the singers wouldn't get tired.
In spite of this fact, the continuity in the performances is very good, though changes in voice quality from one act to another as well as differences in sound are both noticeable.
The sound itself is very good, in spite of its mono recording. The tracks were assembled from old masters found in the Italian Radio Archives. The quality of the pressing was also very good — the only exception in my copy was the badly-flawed final side of Die Walkure.
The real star of the new Seraphim Ring is the conductor. Furtwangler takes a fundamentally musical approach to the work as opposed to Georg Solti in his later-made Ring on London, who often stresses the dramatic as well as the musical elements of the operas (which is a completely valid and very effective interpretation, however). Furtwangler's approach to The Ring is similar to Karajan's on DGG, but even more musical.
In Rheingold, the "prelude" to the Ring, Furtwangler takes punctilious care with the woodwind details and draws out the tremendous flowing brass and string lines in a manner which seems more natural, less forced than either Solti or Karajan.
From the conductor's viewpoint, Rheingold is brilliantly successful. Die Walkure, the best-known of the four, containing the popular Ride of the Valkyries, doesn't create such an impression, maybe because it's my least favorite of the four, maybe because the sonic and vocal consistencies are the least continuous of any of the four of the Seraphim Ring operas.
Siegfried, the third opera, is all right, especially considering the different atmospheres — forest cave, dragon's lair, magic fire mountain — which have to be established and also considering the fact that there are usually only two or three characters on stage throughout its 4¼ hour length.
The crusher finale, (Gotterdammerung (Twilight of the Gods), is superb except for the beginning of the third act, which drags. It's amazing how much atmosphere Furtwangler conjures up in this work even without the electronic gimmickry and phenomenal sound of Solti's reading.
As for the singers — well, if one can accept the premise that the "dream cast" for The Ring is an impossibility to achieve, though there have been previous recordings, both complete, and of individual acts, which have come close, then the Seraphim set is quite approachable. The talents assembled for the Italian Radio performance represent some of the best Wagner singers from the German opera houses of the early 50s. Though there's no single performer who could be singled out as outstanding, there are still some fine portrayals.
Wotan, the head god who appears in the first three operas, is baritone Ferdinand Frantz. He's not the actor that Hans Hotter on London was in the part for Walkure and Siegfried, but Frantz' voice is at least listenable (Hotter's was very shaky). Brunnhilde, Wotan's Valkyrie daughter who appears in the last three operas, is sung by soprano Martha Modl, whose voice occasionally sounds pushed and lacks brilliance in the upper ranges. Siegfried, the "hero" of the last two operas is Ludwig Suthaus, whose not-so-youthful tenor voice is better suited to his role in Gotterdammerung than that in Siegfried. Suthaus makes it through to the end, though, despite occasional breathiness and not very much in the way of dramatic insight.
The lesser characters are mostly well sung, though several of the women's voices have varying degrees of tremulousness. Tenor Julius Patzak as the dwarf Mime sings well, but has very little dramatic sense — he's much too pleasant instead of evil. The same could be said of Alois Pernerstorfer as the villain Alberich, whose voice is too clean and light. Bass Josef Greindl, as the dragon Fafner, is appropriately growly, and tenor Wolfgang Windgassen (the Siegfried on the later London recording) as Siegmund in Die Walkure starts out weakly, but pulls up his socks. Soprano Sena Jurinac is an exceptionally brilliant, light-sounding Gutrune in Gotterdammerung.
And finally, the orchestra. The Rome Symphony Orchestra is hardly a Wagnerian orchestra in the sense that the Berlin Philharmonic (DGG) or Vienna Philharmonic (London) are. But, perhaps inspired by Furtwangler, the Rome Orchestra turns in an amazingly good job. Especially good are the brass, vital to any adequate realization of the Ring operas. The number of mistakes, considering the live recording situation, is astonishingly few. The only real weakness in the whole orchestra, in fact, is the bass clarinet, which has a quavery, saxophonish sound. (The RAI Chorus, featured in the second act of Gotterdammerung, is also very good.)
The only major problem with the Seraphim Ring is its packaging in relation to its price. The four operas are only available complete in a box for a cost of around $50 (about $35 in discount stores), rather than individually. Since it would appear more logical to offer the individual operas to people hesitant about making a large initial investment, perhaps Seraphim will be making such a move soon.
In any event, it's not a bad bargain — 15 hours, 19 minutes and 57 seconds of music in a whopper big case, complete with German-English librettos and an added album, The Seraphim Guide to the Ring.
This Guide, incidentally, will be released separately on Seraphim NP-60200 for $1.35 suggested list price. It sums up the plot of the Ring pretty well in about 48 minutes. Musical examples, often including Wagner's "leading motifs,” in which characters, objects and ideas are represented by musical themes, are interwoven with the narration.
Michael Quigley, known as one of Vancouver's most perceptive and innovative classical music critics, is presently residing in Japan.