No: 218 July 2015 Wagner news Number 218 July 2015 CONTENTS

4 Report of the 2015 Wagner Society AGM Andrea Buchanan

5 From the Treasurer Neil King

6 RWVI Dessau Kongress Andrea Buchanan

7 Mythos und Utopie : The 2015 RWVI Kongress in Dessau Tom Empson

10 News of Young Artists Andrea Buchanan

12 Secret Opera: Die Walküre Katie Barnes

14 Die Walküre Act III in Cardiff Roger Lee

15 Die Walküre in Cardiff: A Wealth of Emotions Ann Massey

18 Parsifal in Berlin Peter Simpson

20 David Edwards / Mastersingers Event: Bayreuth or Bust Katie Barnes

22 Masterclasses with Dame Gwyneth Jones Katie Barnes

27 Parsifal in Birmingham Paul Dawson-Bowling

28 A Soprano’s Memories of Dame Gwyneth Jones Richard Hyland

30 A New Opera Guide to Die Meistersinger David Edwards

32 Longborough: Staging the Invisible Carmen Jakobi

34 Neal Cooper: Climbing Mount Tristan Roger Lee

37 Memories Dame Gwyneth Jones

40 Forthcoming Event: Time Becomes Space

41 Forthcoming Event: Wagner’s Shakespeare

42 Maria Radner and Oleg Bryjak Jeremy Rowe

44 Wagner Society Forthcoming Events Gillian Wyn-Thomas

Cover picture: Dame Gwyneth Jones’ masterclass with Andrew Dickinson. Photo: Richard Carter Printed by Rap Spiderweb – www.rapspiderweb.com 0161 947 3700 EDITOR’S NOTE

Our cover story tells of Dame Gwyneth Jones’ masterclasses with Andrew Dickinson and Mae Heydorn, winners of The President’s Award at the 2014 Wagner Society Singing Competition. Following these coaching sessions Dame Gwyneth was prompted to recall some of her own experiences as a young singer on pages 37 to 39.

News on page 10 of five of the young artists who have received support from the Wagner Society / Mastersingers collaboration includes that of the arrival of a contract from Deutsche Opera for the 2014 Competition Winner Andrew Dickinson.

Sir Henry Cooper’s nephew Neal Cooper shares his thoughts on tackling the heldentenor role of Tristan on pages 34 to 36, heralding the reports of the Longborough Festival Opera’s production of Tristan und Isolde which will appear in the October Issue of Wagner News .

Both of the Longborough casts for Tristan are richly populated with more than a dozen artists who are beneficiaries of the career development support which they have received from the Mastersingers, the Wagner Society Goodall Scholars Scheme and from Longborough’s conductor, Anthony Negus.

Pre-eminent among our current group of alumni at Longborough is Rachel Nicholls in the role of Isolde. In the Longborough programme brochure she writes: “My whole journey of transition from early music to doing what I do now has been entirely overseen by Anthony Negus. Without him and everyone at Longborough, as well as Malcolm Rivers and the Mastersingers, I would never have been able to study with Anne Evans with whom I’ve been working since 2011.”

The process of recognising the talent and potential for development of such artists starts with selections made at Mastersingers and Goodall Scholars auditions before panels which for Longborough included Anthony Negus and stage directors Carmen Jakobi and Alan Privett. It is also informed by assiduous observations made by Mastersingers coaches and advisors over the last ten years or so. Candidates are thus identified who are most likely to benefit from the vocal, dramatic and language coaching funded by these organisations.

The faith which the Directors of Longborough Festival Opera Martin and Lizzie Graham continue to demonstrate by casting their Wagner productions so abundantly with artists who have passed through this system is testimony to an outcome of which all of us in the Wagner Society can be proud.

–3– Brief Report on the 61 st Annual General Meeting of the Wagner Society Held in London on 12 th May 2015 Andrea Buchanan, Secretary • The meeting was declared open at 19:30. • 34 members attended, including Dame Gwyneth Jones (President), Richard Miles (Chair), Neil King (Treasurer), Andrea Buchanan (Secretary) and Margaret Murphy, Geoffrey Griffiths, Edward Hewitt and Charlie Furness-Smith (Committee members), Gillian Wyn-Thomas (co-opted Committee member) and Roger Lee (Editor: Wagner News). • The minutes of the 2014 AGM were adopted. • The Chair welcomed Henry Kennedy, present at the meeting, as the Society’s new Webmaster and Social Media Manager. • A discussion was held around declining membership numbers, although it was noted that numbers were now holding steady, due to a number of new joiners via the website. • It was noted that members who had not paid their subscriptions, or who had underpaid would no longer be considered as members from April 2015. All those affected had been contacted several times. • Several members commented about the fact that events were held exclusively in London and wondered whether the Society could consider broadening its scope by holding events in other locations. The practical difficulties of arranging such events that this presented to a Committee that was almost entirely London based, and many of whom worked full-time, were noted. • It was agreed that a survey would be conducted in the near future to ascertain what members wanted in the way of events. • The President suggested that more purely social events could be held. There would be such an event in December, organised by the Treasurer. • The Treasurer noted in his report that the financial position at the end of 2014 had been better than expected, due in no small measure to the claiming of a backlog of Gift Aid. He further noted the strict budget that was now in place for 2015, the simplification of membership fees and the donation given to Mastersingers. The Annual Accounts were adopted unanimously by the meeting. • The current Independent Examiners were re-elected for the current financial year. • The three current members of the Committee standing for re-election and the one new member standing for election were all voted in unanimously. • One of the members suggested that more could be done to educate young people about Wagner. The Chair pointed out initiatives that had already been undertaken in this area, and agreed that this should be prioritised. The Events Manager invited members to submit any suggestions in this regard to her. • The meeting closed at 21:45 and members were invited to stay on for drinks with the Committee You can read the full draft of the minutes on our website www.wagnersociety.org Please note you will need to log in to access this document.

–4– FROM THE TREASURER Neil King

Those of you attending the AGM in May will have heard me refer to changes to the subscription levels for overseas members as well as some comments on unpaid and underpaid subscriptions. These issues were discussed and agreed by the Committee at meetings during the spring and so I wanted to take this opportunity to summarise the changes for all members.

SUBSCRIPTIONS

With so many communications now being sent by email, we have decided to abolish the subscriptions levels for overseas members. Therefore, the Society now has only the following three membership categories and subscriptions: Individual members: £30 per annum Joint members: £40 per annum Students: £15 per annum

UNPAID SUBSCRIPTIONS

We quite appreciate that it is easy to overlook paying the annual subscription. In the past we have been lenient with regard to unpaid subscriptions and have effectively continued to assume that members will renew their subscriptions for about six months before removing their name from the membership list. If a member then did not renew, this practice means that they might have received two or even three copies of Wagner News without paying for them and this does not seem fair on other members.

We have therefore agreed that, in future, no mailings will be sent to any member who has not paid their subscription by the due date and we will not undertake to issue individual reminders to members.

UNDERPAID SUBSCRIPTIONS

Despite repeated reminders, some members have not amended their standing orders to reflect the new subscription levels that were introduced in 2012. In practice this means a number of members are underpaying by £5 per annum. We have tried to contact all members individually about this issue and many have made the necessary changes but we now feel it is time to take firm action in the interests of all members.

In future therefore we have agreed that any amount received that does not cover the current subscription level will be treated as a donation only and that membership will immediately lapse. (Subsequent payment of the shortfall will, of course, reinstate membership.)

–5– REPORT ON THE AGM OF THE RICHARD WAGNER VERBAND INTERNATIONAL Dessau, May 16 2015 Andrea Buchanan, Member of the Board, RWVI There were 70 voting delegates present, along with a number of non-voting attendees and guests. The Wagner Society was represented by Andrea Buchanan, who attended both as the voting delegate for our Wagner Society and a member of the Board of the RWVI. Simon Empson and Tom Empson, members of the WS, also attended as guests. The meeting was contentious from the outset, as 10 out of 14 members of the Board had signed a letter of no confidence in the President, Thomas Krakow from Leipzig, elected for a five-year term in Graz in 2014 along with the rest of the Board. This had given rise to a slew of motions from member societies, the most pertinent of which were the following: 1. From the WS of Bremen that all speeches be limited to 3 minutes. This did not get considered until it was far too late for it to have any relevance. 2. From the WS of Graz – that the Constitution of the RWVI be amended to reduce the size of the Board from 15 to 8 and that the current quota of German and non-German members of the Board be abolished. 3. From the WS of Linz – that following adoption of the prior motion, the entire Board be sacked and new elections held. 4. From the WS Iceland – that new elections to the Board be held. In addition, and relatively non-contentious was an important motion to change the Constitution to permit proxy voting. This was something that the overseas societies had pushed for over the past few years and the proposed process and revised wording of the relevant clauses of the Constitution had been drawn up for ratification. The meeting began by conducting the normal business of the AGM, as follows: Greeting by the honorary guest, the Mayor of Bayreuth, who hinted strongly that there may be some good news on ticket allocations for the Festival to follow. She also informed the meeting that Wahnfried would re-open this year (hooray!) The President noted the new Chairs of Wagner Societies and awarded the Golden W to a couple of Presidents who had been in post for more than 10 years. There followed the report of the President, at the end of which he unexpectedly asked for a vote of confidence from the meeting (in order, he hoped, to circumvent the issue of elections). This gave rise to a long and heated debate with testimonials for and against the President. The vote was carried out by secret ballot and resulted in a narrow margin against (35 to 31 with abstentions). The President therefore resigned and the First Vice-President took over the Chair. The Treasurer’s report followed, indicating a more than healthy surplus of funds and demonstrating an urgent need to use these on the charitable purposes for which they were designed (the conflict having stalled much of the normal activity of the Board). The accounts were approved, as was the Auditor’s report. The MD of the Scholarship Foundation then gave his report to the meeting. The motions above were then presented, debated and voted upon. The Graz motion was soundly defeated (41 against to 17 for), the Linz motion was no longer valid, nor was the Iceland one. Proxy voting was accepted by a large majority (55 for, 7 against). The meeting then elected the only candidate for President, Horst Eggers from Bayreuth. A new Secretary, Günther Cisek from Würzburg, was also elected. The meeting finally drew to a close after an exhausting 7 hours. Our AGM was a picnic by comparison.

–6– MYTHOS UND UTOPIE International Richard Wagner Congress 2015, Dessau, Germany Tom Empson This year, the RWVI’s annual congress took place in the fascinating but currently rather sad town of Dessau in the German federal state of Sachsen-Anhalt. Fascinating because the Bauhaus school of design was based there for most of its short lifetime, and remains the principal reason why most tourists visit the place. Sad because the town is steadily declining in population as young people make the relatively short journey westwards to the Alte Bundesländer, i.e. the German states that were formerly part of West Germany. The population today is 30% smaller than when the Cold War ended in 1989, and the latest blow was the announcement, two days before the congress opened, that the department store chain Karstadt is to close its branch in Dessau, which occupies a substantial proportion of the city’s main shopping mall, next March. Of the Neue Bundesländer which make up the former DDR, it’s the more southerly states of Thuringia and Saxony that have better survived the arrival of capitalism, by building new high- tech economies based on electronics and microsystems. By contrast, in Sachsen-Anhalt, just as on Tyneside, wealth creation was formerly based on declining industries such as chemicals and mining, and as yet there are few signs of recovery based on growth in other sectors. It is therefore even more surprising and heartening that the town, whose population is now less than that of Bedford, Grimsby or Nuneaton, can still support an opera house that was described to me by one Berlin-based opera fan as “Berlin's fourth opera house”. Maybe it is not too fanciful to hope that a resurgence of artistic life can play a role in the reversal of the town's decline. Certainly the management of the Anhältisches Theater is doing many things right, for example by ensuring that performances finish in time for Berliners to catch the last train home, and, more significantly, by commissioning an enthralling Ring that reflects the modernist spirit of the Bauhaus-stadt. Last year in Graz, a performance of Lohengrin was a pleasant diversion during the RWVI’s congress, but this year the Ring was a much more central and significant part of the proceedings. I have rarely attended a Ring which engendered so much animated discussion before, during and after the performances. Much of that discussion was about the tension between satisfying the cognoscenti and engaging with younger opera goers, without whom there will be no cognoscenti in years to come. This Ring is undoubtedly hugely engaging and entertaining both visually and via a torrent of 20 th and 21 st century cultural references. Whether those elements constitute a faithful and well-thought-out interpretation of the piece is another question, but I’m willing to say that they do.

–7– My impression was that there was a thread running through the four evenings about how we engage with culture, technology, ideas and one another – a thread that ultimately led to oblivion via a regression to autochthonous behaviour and disregard for the sanctity of life. As the cycle drew towards its close, this nihilistic interpretation was both disturbing and convincing, and I would have been happier if director André Bücker had left it at that, rather than introducing a personification of new life after the final conflagration. The strapline of this Ring is the title of this article: “Mythos” is there for sure, but “Utopie” felt like an afterthought. Indeed, one of the reasons for me why this Ring fitted so well into the context of its performance was the element of Brechtian alienation, created for example by the increasingly stylised movements of the characters. Brecht’s collaborator Kurt Weill was born and raised in Dessau, and gives his name to the town’s music school. A visit to the Bauhaus itself provided more insights, in particular via references in the production to the work of stage director and designer Oskar Schlemmer (1888-1943), whose work there in the 1920s focused on the relationships between man, technology and machines. In any strongly-shaped interpretation, there will inevitably be elements that get underplayed, and for me the two things most missing were the evocation of nature and – more seriously – the failure of the director to persuade me that these were real characters with real emotions. There were of course exceptions, most notably the scene between Waltraute and Brünnhilde in Act 1 of Götterdämmerung . This brings me nicely to the singers, and Dessau clearly has a fine ensemble, with some real stars such as the superb Rita Kapfhammer who gave us both Frickas, an Erda, that wonderful Waltraute, a Norn and a Rhinemaiden – what stamina! Also excellent was Iordanka Derilova as Brünnhilde, and the Alberich and Wotan of Stefan Adam and Ulf Paulsen both grew in stature as the cycle progressed. For me, the Volsung twins were less convincing, and I really think Sieglinde needs to look at her lover-brother when she names him Siegmund – alienation again, perhaps, but not appropriate at that point. He had an unfortunate memory lapse in Act 1 but that did not Oskar Schlemmer: Spirale, from justify the boos he received Rita Kapfhammer as Erda in Das Triadische Ballett (1922) during his curtain calls. Siegfried (2015) –8– Street art, Schwabehaus, Dessau, May 2015 As one would expect in this Mecca of cool, the visuals were stunning. Projection was seamlessly integrated with live action throughout the cycle more cogently and convincingly than in the current Bayreuth Ring . Arresting images swept past swiftly and there was a fascinating sub-text about how we capture and display representations of reality. This started with a life-size zoetrope in Scene 1 of Rheingold , and in Scene 3 the Niebelungs were slaving away producing the thousands of drawings needed to make early cartoon films. The gold piled up to hide Freia took the form of cine film cans and by the time we got to Walküre we were in the early heydays of Hollywood, with references to Hitchcock and film noir. Siegfried and the Wanderer both beat Mime in deadly arcade games, and Siegfried then used virtual reality and 3D CAD to reforge Nothung – awesome! This Ring was so engrossing that I’ve not left much room to talk about anything else. As you will see in Andrea’s report, the RWVI restored a more conventional management team which, it is hoped, will bring stability and nurture the relationship between the Verband and Bayreuth. The opening ceremony in the Marienkirche was a well-planned mix of short speeches and musical items, mostly performed by young students from the Musikschule Kurt Weill. Marietta Metzner and Clara Günther, both aged 9, delighted everyone with a quirky piece for violin and piano by Hanno Haag (1939-1985), and the ubiquitous Rita Kapfhammer brought the house down with a visceral performance of two Kurt Weill songs. Next year the RWVI will rock up in Strasbourg, France from 5 to 8 May, where the musical programme includes a staged performance of Das Liebesverbot – tempting!

–9– NEWS OF YOUNG ARTISTS Andrea Buchanan

Andrew Dickinson , winner of both the Wagner Society Singing Competition 2014 and the President’s Award has recently been offered a Fest Contract with the Deutsche Oper in Berlin to commence in August 2016. As many of you will know, this is one of the most prestigious opera houses in Germany and this represents a very gratifying recognition of Andrew’s great talent and promise of a wonderful career ahead. He has been assured that he will be singing in some forthcoming Wagner operas at that house.

Some of the prize money that we awarded to him was spent on travelling to Germany, getting advice and coaching and attending auditions. He was also able to see the Dessau Ring and thereby experience a full-blown Wagner production. Andrew will use the remainder of his funds later this year to improve and perfect his German by means of lessons at the Goethe Institute in London.

Additionally, during his stay in Bayreuth this summer as part of the Scholarship Programme, Andrew has been chosen to present his David aria from Die Meistersinger (one of his two winning pieces for our competition) at the annual Scholars’ concert. The competition for this is fierce and we are naturally delighted that he has been chosen. Eva Wagner-Pasquier, with whom I spoke in Dessau, is well aware of Andrew and his talents. There will be many key German Wagnerians present at the concert.

Kirstin Sharpin , runner-up in our competition, has been living and working in Berlin since January. I caught up with her recently and was delighted to hear that she is getting a significant number of auditions in addition to some valuable coaching. We entered her as our candidate for the prestigious International Competition for Wagner Voices, the final of which will be held in Karlsruhe in October. Kirstin has just found out that she has been selected for the next round, to be held in Bayreuth in August. We will provide some financial assistance to enable her to cover her travel and accommodation costs.

Kirstin has also been selected for the London semi-finals of the Elizabeth Connell Prize for aspiring dramatic sopranos. These will be held at the Royal Opera House on July 10th. This is an Australian competition, inaugurated in 2014, and the finals will be held in Sydney in early September.

Erika Mädi Jones , a finalist in last year’s competition has also been selected for the London semi-finals, as have Mari Wyn Williams and Laura Wolk-Lewanowicz , former finalists in the Wagner Society Singing Competition.

We are all very pleased and proud that these talented young artists are reaping the benefits of both the sponsorship and the exposure that we have been able to give them.

– 10 –

SECRET OPERA: DIE WALKÜRE St Anne’s Church, Hoxton, 14 th March 2015 Katie Barnes

Fortunately, Secret Opera didn't quite live up to its own billing, but it was a close thing. I found out about this performance courtesy of the Wagner Society Newsletter, with a mere 48 hours to spare. After reading Richard and Sylvia Lemon's description of the Cardiff performance with an audience of eight, it is gratifying to record that the Hoxton audience was actually larger than expected, to the extent that programmes sold out some time before the start, with a congregation of at least 40 to witness a superbly moving performance of one of Wagner's most intimate operas. David Edwards' production turned it into a chamber piece, building on the hugely promising beginnings in last year's performances of extracts at the Rosemary Branch, which I reviewed in WN 216. The result told the story clearly and straightforwardly, making it ideal for the Wagnerian newcomer, but was full of stylish references to delight the connoisseur. The only place where I found the storytelling less than clear was the ending of Act II, where Siegmund remained standing, frozen, after Hunding stabbed him, and the latter for once obeyed Wotan and slunk away to kneel before Fricka. I was not sure whether he actually died. Siegmund's fate was made clearer in the opening of Act III, when the Valkyries swathed his standing form in the red silk robe which he had earlier rejected when Brünnhilde offered it during the Todesverkündigung , and led him away up the aisle to Valhalla. With Billie Achilleos's stylishly drawn tree, a table, two chairs and a few pieces of church furniture as the only setting, the staging was closely focused on the emotions and relationships of the six leading characters. As before, the chemistry between the Wälsung twins was blisteringly intense, and they fell into a passionate embrace within minutes of first setting eyes on one another, two halves reuniting into a whole. Wotan, carrying the huge lamp which is becoming a trademark of Edwards' productions, led them in blindfolded, and the blindfolds became a visual leitmotif of the production, with the twins exchanging them like love tokens and wearing one another’s blindfolds tied around their wrists until, at the end of Act II the dead Siegmund dropped his bloodstained blindfold into Sieglinde's hands in farewell. In Act III the blindfold motif was replaced by a great rope with which Brünnhilde dragged an unwilling Sieglinde to the Valkyrie Rock. Later Wotan swathed himself in its huge coils, a telling visual metaphor for his powerlessness. If this production were to progress into a cycle, and I hope it does, it will surely become the Norns' rope of destiny, from which Brünnhilde gently freed him as she told him of Sieglinde's survival and pregnancy. Another strong visual motif was the use of paper. Wotan cherished a huge, folded plan containing a drawing of the tree which symbolised his intentions for the Wälsungs, and as Siegmund died, Fricka coolly tore up a piece of paper with the word WÄLSUNG on it. In Act III, each Valkyrie held up a board with her name, with a tally on the reverse, presumably showing their number of ‘kills’. Only Brünnhilde, who saves life instead of destroying it, had a clean sheet.

– 12 – The casting had changed completely since the Rosemary Branch performances. Cecilia Bailey sang Sieglinde's opening phrases in a soft, high, clear soprano which made me wonder how she would manage the rest of the role, but we soon realised how craftily she was using her voice to mirror how the vulnerable, downtrodden wife gradually gained in strength and courage through her love for Siegmund. “Der Männer Sippe”, “Du bist der Lenz” and the end of Act I rang out with increasing power and excitement, her Act II delirium was spine-tingling, and “O hehrstes Wunder” fairly knocked us back in our seats. The church's cavernous acoustic encouraged Brian Smith Walters to push some of Siegmund's high notes a little too hard in Act I, but he relaxed in the more baritonal tessitura of Act II, where the shifting emotions of the Todesverkündigung were overwhelming. His taut acting of the nervous, hunted fugitive who gradually relaxes as he finds the sister who is his other self, was absolutely thrilling. The very special tension generated between the Act I trio at the Rosemary Branch was somewhat dissipated because John Milne's excellently sung Hunding, a more conventional reading of the role than his complex predecessor, stared out into the audience rather than relating to his colleagues. It was an especial joy to renew acquaintance with two stars of Fulham Opera's recent, unforgettable cycle. Once again Ian Wilson-Pope's agonised, intensely moving Wotan brought out all the flaws which make the god so human. He lived the role and sang with wonderful passion. Zoe South's warmly maternal Brünnhilde filled the church to overflowing with a flood of glorious sound as she traced the young goddess's path from heedless girl to future redeemer. The moment when she cradled the weeping Wotan in her arms as he prepared to put her to sleep, as though she were the mother and he the child, tore at the heart. Joanna Gamble's strong-voiced, bitter Fricka, a cold, ruthless businesswoman, relished her victory over Wotan while conveying its hollowness, and Catherine Jones' mellow Siegrune was the pick of a taut team of Valkyries. Andrew Charity, Secret Opera's one man orchestra, clearly enjoyed playing a nobler instrument than the Rosemary Branch's jangly upright piano, and he made the most of it, giving the singers impeccable accompaniment and support and expanding with thrilling effect for the great set pieces, caressing our ears as Brünnhilde fell asleep before galvanising us with the Magic Fire music. At present it is not clear whether this production is destined to stand alone or whether, like Fulham Opera's, it could expand into a small scale cycle. I do hope it will.

WAGNER’S BIRTHPLACE David Woodhead

As there has never been any doubt that Wagner was born in Leipzig (in The Brühl, part of the Jewish quarter of the town) it was surprising to read Robert Mansell’s statement that “he had been born in the Jewish quarter of Dresden” ( Wagner News 217, April 2015).

– 13 – DIE WALKÜRE ACT III IN CARDIFF 26 th March 2015, Wales Millennium Centre Roger Lee Having seen a number of concert performances of this piece, on every such occasion I have been struck by the emotional impact which it is capable of making upon audiences: people leaving in tears (not, I suspect, of sadness alone) being by no means an unusual occurrence. As someone whose life has been turned on its head by personal loss in recent years and, like my friend in the front row who reports her experiences on the next page, I had (as always!) benefited from visiting the relevant section of Paul Dawson-Bowling’s book. Permit me to quote from The Wagner Experience. “Die Walküre illustrates how, after people accept change and let go, everyone can gain, but this does not mean that the sense of loss is not very difficult. The bereavements that we undergo throughout life can be excruciating, but unless we embrace them and make peace with them they will drain us away.” Is this, I wondered, one of the keys to those scenes of audience reaction with which we are so familiar at the end of performances of Die Walküre ? With Bryn Terfel as Wotan and Iréne Theorin as Brünnhilde, with Mastersingers alumna Rachel Nicholls (coached by Dame Anne Evans) as Sieglinde and with Lothar Koenigs conducting the Welsh National Opera expectations on my part were floating somewhere in the stratosphere. On top of all that, what could be better than to find oneself in a front row seat for a concert performance when the artists work at the front of stage and rely purely upon their vocal and acting skills to deliver the composer’s intentions to us in their purest form? As an unalloyed enthusiast of concert performances I find myself almost able to empathise with Stravinsky who in Monte Carlo in 1913 got himself a seat for Parsifal from which he could hear everything and see nothing. (As Stephen Walsh writes at theartsdesk.com: “Sometimes those are the best seats.”) We witnessed however the power of face-acting as Wotan’s rage collapses and he undergoes a complete change of heart under the force of his daughter’s persuasion, turning that anger, as Paul Dawson-Bowling explains, into a blessing for her and an act of self-sacrifice for him. This was all brought to us with the utterly convincing force available to artists of this calibre when they are permitted the simplicity of this type of delivery with which to demonstrate their craft. With Rachel Nicholls’ magnificent performance as Brünnhilde in the Longborough Ring resounding in the memory it was with optimism laced with trepidation that one approached the heart-stopping “O hehrstes Wunder!” climax to her delivery as Sieglinde in this much bigger house. “Oh, holiest wonder, glorious maiden!” she hailed Brünnhilde to presage that soaring motif which becomes the closing music of The Ring in as glorious a manner as one could have wished to hear. And so to Wotan’s “You I love so, you laughing delight of my eyes. Farewell you dauntless, glorious child: you who are the highest pride of my heart; farewell!” The peerless combination of Richard Wagner and Bryn Terfel at work together on this is just devastating. Small wonder then that so many among the audience found themselves to be sharing the tearful experience which such mastery is capable of generating. Please allow me finally to turn to Paul Dawson-Bowling in conclusion concerning the life-affirming power of this composition. “If we embrace change as Die Walküre subliminally commands, we can be happier people living better lives.”

– 14 – DIE WALKÜRE ACT III: A WHOLE WEALTH OF EMOTIONS Wales Millennium Centre, 26 th March 2015 Ann Massey It’s true what they say: we never know what life has in store for us. As a Wagner beginner I attended this concert performance having never previously heard this music but knowing that in his book The Wagner Experience Paul Dawson-Bowling writes: “The third act of Die Walküre has long seemed to me to be the most perfect that Wagner ever created”. So I was expecting only to experience the joys of opera, but as it turned out the evening brought a whole wealth of emotions, some along with the performance, others from outside of it. As well as witnessing the emotional responses of strangers in the audience I found that sadness, grief, love, tears and sorrow were all becoming dredged up from my own distant past. With much of his performance spent motionless and silent, Bryn Terfel portrayed Wotan’s emotional turmoil, his face contorted with pain and glistening with rivulets of sweat as we watched Wotan’s inner strength gradually drain away. The once powerful God was now being reduced to a lost and broken man. This scene was not unfamiliar to me for I had watched my own father’s inner strength fail him, leaving him with only breathless whispers of his love for me as he passed away in my arms. Bryn’s performance had reunited me with those treasured memories and it took all my resolve to fight back the tears. Something caught my eye. It was the posture of a man in a green jumper leaning forward in his seat in the front row. With hands clasped together, his attention was clearly on Wotan who had his back to the man before turning and walking slowly to centre stage whilst expressing his feelings to Brünnhilde. I couldn’t resist another peek at the man along the row, his head now cupped in his hands as he listened to the interchange between father and daughter. I was left to imagine what he may have been experiencing. My guess was that the combination of the haunting music and the touching performances was stirring a host of emotions in him. Was he, I wondered, experiencing something similar to what I was going through, but perhaps from the position of a father? On my way out I shared a few steps with a lady from the audience. We began sharing views on what we had seen. I soon found that she had a heart-rending story to tell. Her husband (a lifelong Wagnerian) had booked tickets well in advance, as Act III of Die Walküre had always been his ultimate Wagner experience. Three weeks before the concert however he suddenly passed away. This brave, grieving lady had sat all evening next to his empty seat. There was no doubt that she had watched the show through his eyes, a widow’s homage to her beloved husband. Resting a frail hand on my arm she said “I cried for Sid as Wotan said goodbye to his daughter. Sid always became emotional at this scene.” Her eyes misting over, she continued: “but he never got a chance to say goodbye to the light of his life, our only child Lucy.” At this point my eyes misted over too. I felt that it would be inappropriate for me to share with her my own experience of sadness during the same part of the performance, for I too had felt the burning of tears as my heart eagerly recalled my father’s last words to me before his passing. Wagner has a way with his music and words of penetrating one’s soul without your being consciously aware of the fact. I couldn’t help but wonder how many of us went home with far more than a spent ticket.

– 15 – WAGNER SOCIETY WEBSITE We are delighted to inform you that we have significantly upgraded our website and we are sure you will agree that the look and feel is now much improved. The site will now also display properly on tablets and mobile devices, thereby increasing access for your convenience. Members are advised that you will need to amend your login details by clicking on the “Password Recovery” button in the “Log In” section. The “Log In” button is on the top right of the Home Page. You will be sent a link to enable you to change your password by email, which you can then arrange to suit yourself.

MASTERSINGERS AT THE COLISEUM David Woodhead

In a review of ENO’s The Mastersingers of Nuremberg at the London Coliseum Hilary Reid Evans makes the extraordinary statement that this was “the first production of the opera at the Coliseum” ( Wagner News No. 217, April 2015). Fortunately, Katie Barnes knows better and, a few pages earlier, refers to Mastersingers being “very deeply written into the company’s DNA” because of “the triumphant 1968 production”. For many of us it was the 1968 Mastersingers which brought Sir Reginald Goodall's genius as a Wagner conductor to the attention of a wider audience, and with a cast including Norman Bailey as Hans Sachs, Derek Hammond- Stroud as Beckmesser and Alberto Remedios as Walther – all of whom were later to star in Goodall’s equally memorable Coliseum Ring cycles.

GESAMTKUNSTWERK, OR NOT? Where do you stand regarding Wagner's propaganda about Gesamtkunstwerk ? This may conflict with the orthodoxy of Wagner's apparent position, but I should “come out” with the view that Richard Wagner did not really believe in Gesamtkunstwerk . Having lobbed this grenade among Wagner News readers I now run for it and leave the discussion to you. [email protected]

Erratum: Wagner News 217

On page 30 of our review: A very British Mastersingers the “youthful, earnest, engaging Kothner, richly sung…” refers to the performance of David Stout rather than David Curry as printed.

– 16 – JEREMY BINES: CHORUS MASTERING A WAGNER OPERA A presentation given at the Swedenborg Hall on 26 th March 2015 Photography by Richard Carter

– 17 – PARSIFAL IN BERLIN Berlin Staatsoper, 31 st March 2015 Peter Simpson Directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov, this new production has already been scheduled again for 2016. I had read the press reviews with some trepidation but was not quite prepared for what was to follow. Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin were magnificent from the first prelude. At times the pace felt a little slow but that could have been more in keeping with the distraction of what was taking place on the stage. The setting for the fairly minimalist staging was what can best be described as a shelter for the homeless where the grail knights made their home roughly dressed and with bobble hats. I could have understood if the intent was to conjure the feeling of an order in decline, but the impression that lasted throughout was not so much faded glory as couldn’t care less and a bleak, soulless interpretation of Wagner’s Parsifal . This came through during the Grail scenes which were flat and the least inspiring I have seen. Rene Pape did his best to inject some energy into the production with his portrayal of Gurnemanz but even here there was a lack of animation in key scenes such as Parsifal’s presence at the grail scene in Act I where Parsifal wandered on and wandered off with the crowd. From the first night reviews, Anja Kampe’s Kundry was acknowledged as an outstanding performance. Sadly, flu kept her from the stage for this second performance and the role was sung by Michaela Schuster who rose to the occasion magnificently. Andreas Schager playing Parsifal was burdened throughout the performance with a large rucsac to accompany his back-packer’s outfit of shorts and teeshirt. His singing had plenty of colour although at times it lacked a little power. The reaction at the end of Act I was far from the enthusiasm I had previously seen with Berlin audiences.

– 18 – Act II offered no comfort. Klingsor, sung ably by Tómas Tómasson, was clearly meant to be portrayed as at best a ‘dirty old man’ at worst a paedophile tending the flower maidens, half of whom were children and the rest dressed like children. How the cardigan and slipper wearing Klingsor could pose any threat to Parsifal let alone triumph over Amfortas was hard to see and, indeed, he pretty much just handed the spear over to Parsifal at the end of Act II.

So far I might have come across as a curmudgeonly traditionalist, but I do not understand how directors get away with inserting additional characters into the performance. We were treated to a dream sequence with Kundry revealing a little of Parsifal’s past with a second Parsifal on stage, Parsifal’s mother and a young lady who preceded to take half her clothes off for the obviously young Parsifal. The power of the emotion in the music in Kundry’s appeal to Parsifal was totally lost. The act closed to an uncomfortable near silence from the audience.

Act III mostly followed the pattern of Act I in the same lacklustre setting. There was no sense of time having passed. The last surprise of the evening was at the very end when Amfortas, healed by Parsifal’s spear, and under the gaze of the shocked Parsifal begins a passionate scene with Kundry. Gurnemanz boldly rushes across the stage to stab Kundry to death. Redemption seemed in short supply. The audience quite rightly showed real discrimination in distinguishing between the production and the effort of the singers and orchestra. – 19 – BAYREUTH OR BUST St Botolph’s Church Hall: 16 th April 2015 Katie Barnes Photography by Richard Carter This event by David Edwards and the Mastersingers was the former's second talk on the relationship between Wagner and King Ludwig. It focused on what Stravinsky has described as Wagner's “ruthless determination to build an opera house to stage his own work”. As Edwards noted, there were times during the 1870s when “bust” seemed the more likely of the two. As always, he kept his audience totally absorbed as he traced the progress of the friendship between king and composer, a relationship as tumultuous as any in Wagner's operas. His talk was lavishly illustrated with quotations and contemporary documents, including the original plans for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus and for the unrealised Munich Festspielhaus, pictures of Ludwig's many sumptuous residences, and two interesting paintings by Anselm Kiefer which were inspired by Die Walküre . It was Die Walküre which provided the evening's generous musical extracts. The originally announced singers were Catrin Aur and Paul Carey-Jones, the joint winners of the 2013 Singing Competition, but as Aur was indisposed, Edwards had the brilliant idea of calling upon Cecilia Bailey and Brian Smith Walters, the Sieglinde and Siegmund from his production for Secret Opera the previous month. Their previous experience in the roles paid dividends as they blazed through three substantial extracts which formed most of the second half of Act I. In the sympathetic, wood-panelled acoustic of St Botolph's, Smith Walters' voice assumed a beautiful, bronzed sheen, with “Wälse! Wälse!” ringing out like a battle cry and “Winterstürme” triumphantly tender. Bailey sounded even more thrilling than she did with Secret Opera, and they created an atmosphere so strong that every nervous flicker of Smith Walters' eyes as the fugitive Siegmund saw enemies in the shadows, every handclasp, every glance they exchanged, heightened the drama. But the greatest moment of the evening came when Paul Carey-Jones stepped forward to perform Wotan's Act II narrative, with Bailey gallantly sight-reading Brünnhilde's interjections from the pianist's score. Goodness knows, he was wonderful when he sang extracts from the Ring with Opera Forge and won the Singing Competition in 2013, but since then he has progressed beyond belief. He wrote eloquently in Wagner News 216 about his work with Sir John Tomlinson, and his performance showed how he has taken the great man's advice to heart, especially in his masterly use of the text. He used a score, which can act as a barrier, but his still, intense portrayal of the god's anguish

– 20 – gripped the audience so completely that it seemed as though he were addressing each one of us individually, and although Bailey necessarily stood some distance from him, he included her in the drama by reaching one hand towards her at “Brünnhilde, dich” . The power he radiated was simply amazing. This could become a very great Wotan indeed, and I felt so privileged to be watching him at this stage of his development of the role. Small wonder that Roger Lee has selected him as this year's winner of the Carole Rees Award for Advanced Musical Studies. We can be confident that he will make the best possible use of it, and I look forward so much to seeing his future progress towards Valhalla. Sonia Ben Santamaria proved herself to be a valuable addition to the roster of Wagnerian accompanists, and she was allowed a small, telling solo moment with Wagner's last composition, the rarely heard Elegy in A flat: a gentle, mournful piece which Edwards suggested may have been written with Ludwig in mind. If it was, then it seems not only to suggest the mystery of Ludwig's personality (as he said, “I want to remain forever an enigma to myself and to others”), but to presage his tragic end, not burning in his own Valhalla but drowning in its lake, possibly dragged to his death like Hagen. This was an enthralling evening. We must hope that David Edwards and the Mastersingers return many more times to fascinate us.

Paul Carey-Jones, Sonia Ben Santamaria, David Edwards, Cecilia Bailey, Brian Smith Walters

– 21 – MASTERCLASSES WITH DAME GWYNETH JONES Royal Overseas League, 11 th May 2015 Katie Barnes Photography by Richard Carter In the palatial surroundings of the Royal Overseas League, a new venue for the Society and one to which we must hope that we can return sometime, our President most splendidly fulfilled her promise to give Masterclasses to two finalists of last November's Singing Competition, winner Andrew Dickinson and finalist Mae Heydorn, on pieces which they sang at the Competition, with Adrian Müller as the invaluable accompanist.

Before the Masterclasses began Andrea Buchanan gave us the exciting news that Andrew Dickinson had just been offered a two-year Ensemble Fest contract by the Deutsche Oper Berlin starting in August 2016, and will sing small roles in a variety of operas, including Parsifal and Lohengrin . He thanked the Society for its support before launching the evening with David's Der Meister Tön . As before, his singing and vivid characterisation captivated us all, but I could not help noticing that the voice sounded a little “tight”, possibly due to nerves. Dame Gwyneth described him as “a wonderful voice and a great artist”, recalling the effect at the Competition of hearing him start his programme by singing the Young Sailor's aria outside the hall. She stressed to him that “the voice is your instrument: the human voice is the most wonderful and beautiful instrument that exists, but you have to focus it. Everything has to be round in order to make a round sound.”

– 22 – She encouraged him to make his mouth round and drop his chin to focus the tone forward and relax the neck muscles which surround the vocal chords, to keep his lips supple and cover the top teeth. To sing vowels, the tongue must lie down and be pushed against the lower teeth, “but it must work like crazy for the consonants.” It was notable how much freer and fuller his voice sounded as soon as he took her advice. Recalling that she has sung both Magdalene and Eva in the course of her career, she placed the aria in context by asking him “why David is singing like this?” His view was that David is teasing and bamboozling Walther, but she observed that, as he is Sachs' pupil and has been studying for a whole year without getting anywhere near becoming a Master, he wants to show off how much he has learned and make it clear to Walter that it is impossible to become a Master in one day. She demonstrated how, by standing with his feet apart and his shoulders back, he not only improved his posture and his voice, but gave himself the swagger that the aria requires. She went on: “Wagner is actually giving us a singing lesson in this scene. The real Sachs who lived in Nuremberg through the first three quarters of the sixteenth century wrote over 4,000 poems which followed the Masters' rules on rhymes, but composed very few of their melodies. Most of the Tons (songs) which David lists are the poems and their melodies, taken by Wagner from Johann Christoph Wagenseil's book which also gives the names of the original Masters. She emphasised the importance of trying to make each Ton sound different, with lots of consonants. If the tongue comes up too high, it blocks the sound.” The singer's mouth is like the Schalldekel on the Bayreuth orchestra pit, where the orchestral sound rises and hits the Schalldekel , which spins it to the stage and sends it out to the audience, mixed with the singer's voice. “Make the sound hit your upper gums and it will then spin around picking up the resonances before leaving your mouth”. Amusingly, she likened the importance of the shape of the mouth to making spaghetti with a round mouth or tagliatelle with a wide, flat mouth. “Make your lips grow to concentrate the tone. The lower you go, the smaller the mouth and the longer the lips. It makes the tone really project. Place the consonants precisely, to bring the voice forward”. And, sure enough, when he repeated a passage in line with her advice, the improvement was obvious. She fairly dissected the aria to demonstrate how to use the vowels and consonants to the greatest effect, stressing that he should not “iron out” the consonants. The ze in Kurze is a sharp consonant which goes through the teeth. The vowels in lang and überlang must be extended, with the mouth kept round. “Try not to move the mouth too much on Linden .” Schwarz , I need to hear more R and drop your chin, otherwise the tone shoots to the back of the throat. “Sing Das sind nur die Namen in a different way – they're only names.” Brummt should be growled like a bear. “Sing Lene tenderly.” She advised him to

– 23 – make the ends of the words clear, otherwise it sounds as though you've dropped them. Wagner said, “take care of the little notes and the big notes will take care of themselves.” She further advised that when he sings in a large theatre such as the Deutsche Oper, he should over-emphasise the consonants. “The voice has to carry so that people understand the text; it can't be like speaking.” Finally, “just for fun, see it you can do the trills. Wagner put them there, and they make it more attractive.” Turning to the Steuermann's aria from Der fliegende Holländer , she stressed that the same rules applied. Once again they worked on his use of the consonants. “On Sturm , put your lips together as though you're humming” – and warned him not to jump between low and high notes, which puts pressure on the vocal chords. “Carry the voice up and keep the voice at all times relaxed.” Feeling his diaphragm, she gave him useful advice on improving his posture and breathing: “legs apart, knees back, and shoulders down. You'll get the resonance from the stage, be rooted and you'll be growing from the stage like a tree. Push your hips forward like a hula hoop. It gives you tremendous support and strength, you can do anything. Stand solidly and clench your buttocks until you can hold a coin between them!” She was passionate about the importance of communicating the text, decrying the practice of taking a translation from the internet without understanding what the words actually mean. “Get a dictionary and look up every word. In doing so, you learn many other words. Because one word can have many meanings, you must get inside the word. You must express every word with meaning. Learn everyone else's text as well as your own, so that you can listen and respond to the other singers as though you'd never heardit before. That is what creates atmosphere and makes the performance come alive.”

At the end of their session, she concluded, “He was fabulous!” And so he was. To begin with, he had been concentrating so much upon fulfilling her advice that his singing lost some of its character, but as he relaxed, especially in the Steuermann's aria, the cheeky personality we know and love came through again. Our loss will be Berlin's gain.

– 24 – Dame Gwyneth worked with Mae Heydorn on Waltraute's great aria, “ Höre mit Sinn ”. She too appeared to be nervous, making stiff hand gestures which detracted from the power of her singing. Dame Gwyneth observed that sometimes her tongue was not steady, which caused a flutter in the voice. “You have to control what the tongue's doing, or it's like having a little wild mouse in your mouth!” She repeated the advice that she had already given to Dickinson, to keep the mouth small to concentrate the tone, keep the lips still with the top lip relaxed over the teeth, and “use the consonants to bring the voice forward”. She stressed that gestures were unnecessary and superficial in this aria, where “you must move us with the text and situation. Express with your face, talk with your eyes, they are the mirrors of your soul.” She missed the “inner feeling” of Waltraute's descriptions of Wotan – “you must bring back the memory of him to Brünnhilde and describe how terrified they all are. Have a picture in your mind of Wotan sitting on his throne holding his broken spear pieces, rejecting Freia’s golden apples, silently ordering the heroes to chop down the Weltesche to destroy Valhalla. You have to picture this: he is totally dejected and downfallen, in your mind. You must listen to what's going on in the orchestra. You have to have a vision of the warriors piling up the logs of wood.” Heydorn suggested that this is a proud moment, that Wotan is showing a bit of strength, but Dame Gwyneth absolutely disagreed. “They're all scared stiff, they're witnessing this great god who has come back broken, his power diminished. They're watching the end of the world. You're painting this picture for Brünnhilde of what's going on back home. Wotan has changed. They're all utterly petrified. He told all of the fearful ones to come and sit here . They're all sitting around, waiting. This is a terrifying moment. They are not proud of him for putting them all to death! Waltraute is wondering what's going on.You have to have this feeling of the wood piling up, you're watching it happening and you're trembling at the thought of Walhall burning down, which means the end.” She advised Heydorn against pushing the voice too much and to “spit out the consonants…use the tip of your tongue, the teeth and the lips. Let einst flow, don't spoil the line by attacking the E. with too much glottal stop. Einmal should be sung dolce .” But Waltraute should hesitate a little before Brünnhilde, dich – should she tell her? She is wondering how Brünnhilde will react, even as she is telling her.

– 25 – Summing up both sessions, Dame Gwyneth observed that “You can see what you have to do in order to be able to sing. Your body is your instrument – you have to have everything under control from the tips of your toes to the top of your head to be able to produce beautiful sounds. If you have a good technique you won't get into trouble... You need power to carry over the orchestra while singing a beautiful legato.”

Adrian Müller Richard Miles aptly described the evening as “greatness delivered with wit and humour.” Andrew Dickinson and Mae Heydorn must feel very fortunate. It is not every singer who receives advice from a goddess who is also a president!

– 26 – PARSIFAL IN BIRMINGHAM City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Andris Nelsons Symphony Hall, 17 th May 2015 Paul and Elizabeth Dawson-Bowling This May-time Parsifal at Birmingham was sublime. Its amazing quality was not so much due to the singers, although their merits were many and great. Particularly meritable was the Gurnemanz of Georg Zeppenfeld, improbably youthful in appearance, but youthfully resplendent in virtue of a timbre of burnished phosphor-bronze. In general the men on the stage, including the conductor, wore black open-necked shirts and black trousers, and so Gurnemanz’s identity stood out because of his sartorial dark suit and red tie. Parsifal himself also stood out, but more oddly because he was resplendent in full evening dress, white tie and tails. Furthermore Burkhard Fritz, who took the role, was fully bearded and moustachioed, and with his portly proportions these features gave a certain strangeness to his first onstage appearance. Once he began to sing, it was a different matter. This was a hard-edged hero who could sweeten in compassionate lyricism when offering salvation to Kundry – and perhaps to the world. The supposedly aged Titurel of Paul Whelan sounded and looked much younger than Parsifal, but would anybody complain at such sternness and strength of focus? James Rutherford presented an unusual portrayal as Amfortas, more musing and contemplative than agonising, reining back his magnificent Grand Canyon voice. The Klingsor was the skinhead Wolfgang Bankl, who erupted as immensely tough and venomous, another magnificent voice of openly stentorian power. The minor parts were also luxury cast. Andrew Greenan, the very special Sachs of Saffron Walden last autumn turned up as first knight, and even the solo flower maidens had pedigree. Erica Eloff, for instance, had just been one of the star leads (Farnaspe) in Classical Opera’s performances of CPE Bach’s Adriano in Siria at the Britten Theatre (RCM). It was only the Kundry of Mihoko Fujimura, familiar from Bayreuth 2009, who provoked mixed reactions – unexpectedly. Her rich mezzo still maintains its seductive allure throughout Kundry’s vast emotional range, and she was brilliant at personifying Kundry’s complex identity without overacting it, without overstepping the bounds of the concert platform. It was therefore bewildering that such an experienced trouper should make the mistake of fiddling around with this and that when not in the limelight. Most distractingly she kept searching around her ankles for an elusive water bottle, and took frequent sips. Otherwise she was terrific; and all in all it was a terrific cast. What a relief to experience their work without the loathsome inanities of any Langridge, that pestilential producer who undermined any impression which Pappano and his cast might have achieved at Covent Garden. For all that it was not the Birmingham cast that made this Wagner occasion so extraordinary. It was because of the extraordinary bond fused between conductor and orchestra, and it was a bittersweet occasion because it was Andris Nelsons’ farewell to Birmingham – but what a farewell it was! How well Nelsons worked the old wizard’s cauldron. From the first arching span of the great prelude, the beauty of the sound wafting off the orchestra was pure enchantment. Even the very purity of the tuning was magical. The various choral bodies too were likewise beyond praise, and in Act I, the voices in the heights and the purity of their intonation, even their spell cast on Parsifal as he sat there

– 27 – on the platform. They brought an unwitting smile of joy to his face that was totally out of character but totally in character with the occasion. The CBSO players all seem musical to the marrow of their bones, and Andris Nelsons, at his astonishing best, seemed to inspire them with the conviction that his was the only possible way with the music of Parsifal, even when his way was markedly unorthodox. The flower maidens’ first music fairly skimmed along at a prestissimo, and in the first transformation music Nelsons rejected the almost universal broadening of the tempo after the voices fall silent. However there was nothing niggardly about the grandeur and the crisis which he drew forth here, and he earned my special gratitude by not dragging back the great C major statements of the Grail theme (how can a musician do this?). The Act III prelude spoke out all Parsifal’s dragging weariness without dragging the tempo, and throughout this act he perfectly managed Wagner’s wondrous, improbable fusion of extreme loveliness and extreme austerity. In his hands much of this music truly breathed an unearthly serenity. The awe and the spirituality were everything. It was not for nothing that at the end, after the last notes had faded into the bliss of eternity, it was a full forty seconds before anybody dared to break the spell with anything so mundane as a handclap. Yes, the performance was over, but the experience will stay forever with those lucky enough to be there.

A FELLOW SOPRANO’S MEMORIES OF DAME GWYNETH JONES Richard Hyland I am a member of U3A (University of the Third Age) in Thatcham where it is my role to find speakers each month. This task is made easier by members’ suggestions. One friend told me to make sure to book Patricia Purcell to give her presentation, Tales from the Opera . Patricia is a very experienced Wagner singer who performed the role of Sieglinde in several German venues despite being a mezzo. In the sixties she sang Erda in Siegfried at the Proms under Alexander Gibson. I was intrigued when she mentioned Dame Gwyneth Jones as being a remarkably kind and generous person. (I gather that this is not always the case in the world of opera!) She said that Dame Gwyneth had treated all the chorus and cast to dinner in the Covent Garden Crush Bar. Patricia first sang with her in 1967 under Georg Solti when Dame Gwyneth was Sieglinde and Patricia was Grimgerde. Three years later Patricia had been promoted to Waltraute. A decade later they were on stage together at Covent Garden when Patricia was Confidante and Dame Gwyneth Elektra. Patricia described Dame Gwyneth as “simply a nice person and an easy colleague to work with”. It was noticeable that she was a warm character who would talk to all her fellow singers, exchanging anecdotes, always being approachable and never aloof or treating herself as the star. Patricia then reminded me of what is self-evident: “Of course, she was a truly great singer!” Patricia’s own career was struck by a devastating throat injury which meant the loss of her solo work. She was ‘rescued’ by the arrival of Bernard Haitink who heard her audition and restored her to her previous position. Patricia lives in Old Chesham, Buckinghamshire and I suggest that anyone who would like to hear her should contact me. She is larger than life, unpretentious, a great entertainer, a superb mimic and a raconteuse who delighted us all in Thatcham. [email protected]

– 28 –

OVERTURE OPERA GUIDE: DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG Editor: Gary Kahn Review by David Edwards “The work is of such inspiration and perfection as no other work of Wagner’s.” These are Harry Kupfer’s words in reference to Die Meistersinger, albeit in a different publication (Wagner’s Meistersinger: Performance, History, Representation ed. Nicholas Vazsonyi) from the one under review here. Kupfer argues persuasively that “we must finally stop apologising for Die Meistersinger ” and instead he demands that we look at and listen carefully to the work itself. It’s time to stop recycling the endless and unresolvable arguments about anti-Semitism and National Socialism which have dogged productions of the opera since the 1950s. More recent stagings by Graham Vick, Katerina Wagner, Richard Jones and Stefan Herheim (and of course by Kupfer himself) have replaced the well-trodden paths of Weimar politics and alleged racism in Wagner’s opera with a more appropriate investigation of its primary concern: the nature and creation of Art. The main subject of Die Meistersinger is neither German nationalism nor a parody of Jewishness, but how to manage the tension between innovation and tradition and the conflicts between young and old. So it was with a welcome blast of interpretative and critical fresh air that the latest in the revamped Overture/ENO Opera Guides series landed on my desk. Yes, some of its contributors address the usual perceived “problems” of Die Meistersinger but they do so with new insight and a gutsy determination not to get distracted by the old political baggage along the way. This guide is almost worth buying for two things alone: firstly the idiomatic, highly readable translation by Peter Branscombe (printed in parallel with the German text) and then for the illuminating, down-to-earth account of the opera’s genesis by John Deathridge. Professor Deathridge charts the development of Wagner’s drafts from the early version of 1845 to the final text of the 1860s and demonstrates how drastically the emphasis shifted in those intervening years. As with so much of Wagner’s work at the time, the major figure who influenced his artistic and compositional choices was Schopenhauer. This philosopher’s creed – that the main goal in life is to deny the desires of the Will through personal sacrifice and empathy for the suffering of others – infiltrated the music of Tristan und Isolde , Die Meistersinger , Götterdämmerung and ultimately Parsifal . In Deathridge’s words: “The Hans Sachs of Die Meistersinger in its final form is the great conduit of the denial of the Will”. Having been a “laconic, even cynical” figure in the early draft, Sachs attains the stature of a Schopenhauerian hero in the final revision. In a memorable image, Deathridge pictures Sachs at the start of Act III turning the pages of The World as Will and Representation itself, as he sits musing on the causes and effects of the previous Midsummer Night’s riotous Wahn . Thus Die Meistersinger emerges as the companion work not so much to Tannhäuser , as originally conceived by Wagner, but to Tristan und Isolde . Sachs takes King Marke’s agonising situation to a deeper level of understanding by conquering his own personal feelings for Eva. Unlike King Marke however, Sachs recognises before it is too late that he must cede his place to that of true love: to Walther, the author of the great poem which will triumph on the Festwiese later that day and unite the two lovers in matrimony.

– 30 – Deathridge also clarifies connections of the opera with Titian’s Assumption of the Virgin (I’d never understood Wagner’s claim for the inspiration of this painting before) with Goethe; with Christianity and the Bible (from the opening Chorale to the baptism of the Prize Song, Christian symbolism pervades the work) and also with the various pagan influences that traditionally surface on the eve of Midsummer’s Day. As ever, Professor Deathridge writes with infectious enthusiasm and a complete absence of academic persiflage. Arnold Whittall gives a thorough survey of the musical structure of Die Meistersinger and reminds us that this is a theatrical composition about verse, music and the act of singing itself – which seems to me to place it in the genre of works such as Orfeo, Ariadne auf Naxos, Palestrina and Capriccio: Strauss’ opera about writing an opera. Tim Blanning usefully points out that Friedrich Schiller (1759 – 1805) was one of Wagner’s literary heroes: Sachs’ often contentious final speech echoes Schiller and Wagner’s personal dissatisfaction with the rule of the German princes in the 19 th century, just as much as it prefigures the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire and the Thirty Years’ War when heard in its historical context of 16 th Century Nürnberg. Only with Hans Vaget’s essay on Jewishness and Beckmesser did I feel that this guide was beginning to protest slightly too much. Vaget is persuasive contra Millington (1991) on the latent Jewish caricature in the town clerk’s music: Vaget proposes that we view Beckmesser as an aesthetic, rather than a racial, “other” amongst the songmakers of Nürnberg. That’s fine by me – but it makes me wonder why this topic has taken on such importance. Should we stop performing Die Meistersinger because Wagner, whose repellent anti-Semitic views are well publicised, may have portrayed Jewish characteristics on stage? I sincerely hope not. Áine Sheil contributes a comprehensive account of the opera’s production history, and the guide concludes with selective discographies. Beautifully produced, and with some wonderful photographs, this volume is excellent value and a useful resource for Wagner’s great work. But is the piece really a comedy, as many commentators suggest? “Comedy” is a description the composer altered by the time of the final revision in favour of Oper in drei Aufzügen : Opera in three Acts. In the light of Schopenhauer’s influence, the depths of human experience explored in the opera would have seemed a little trivial with the label of “comedy”. Die Meistersinger may make us smile at the tangle of human emotions on display but as an opera it is – Kupfer again – “the most utopian and optimistic of Wagner’s works”.

IN THE OCTOBER ISSUE OF WAGNER NEWS Francis Lambert tells the story of how the Saffron Opera Group was formed. In Wagner News 215 Paul Dawson-Bowling wrote “Saffron Hall celebrated its first birthday with the best performance, live, of Die Meistersinger that I have witnessed for 40 years.” The Saffron Opera Ring Cycle starts on 17 th January 2016

– 31 – STAGING THE INVISIBLE Design and Dance Symbolism in Tristan und Isolde at Longborough Carmen Jakobi, Director

Image by Malcolm Ryan for Longborough Festival Opera Richard Wagner called Tristan und Isolde an action, not an opera. Yet there is very little stage action as such. There are long passages in which no action seems to happen. However, there is seismic emotional activity in the music that expresses the characters’ inner turbulence. The few ‘outer’ actions that take place unleash cataclysmic events in the music and in the characters’ lives. The ‘inner drama’ experienced by the protagonists dominates over their ‘outer’ conflicts, Kimie Nakano’s design symbolically represents an outer reality within each act – a ship, a night forest and the desolation of Tristan’s castle. Her design references Japanese theatre aesthetics with its clear lines and uncluttered stage, creating reflections of Tristan and Isolde’s soul world and their ‘Day-Night’ antithesis. Together with the chiaro-scuro (“light-dark”) of Ben Ormerod’s lighting and Didy Veldman’s choreography, the design creates space for a Jungian exploration of the characters’ psychological labyrinth, the inner world, the world of ‘Night’, where their unconscious desires so powerfully expressed by the music, can come to the fore, in conflict with the world of ‘Day’. Using Jungian terminology: in Isolde, Tristan encounters his anima , his inner feminine, while for Isolde, Tristan represents her animus , her inner masculine, especially in Act I.

– 32 – The attraction and challenge of a Jungian approach led me to use the element of dance as a means to represent what the German critic Wapnewski called the ‘choreography of the soul’. The female dancer embodies Tristan’s anima , and the male dancer embodies Isolde’s animus . They are spiritual guides to them both, existing on a different level of ‘reality’, and invisible to the other characters. However, they have another important function. In Act I especially, which really is Isolde’s act, the female dancer also represents Isolde’s alter ego . In the case of Tristan, the male dancer is also his shadow : the dark unconscious aspects of his personality. Tristan’s shadow is never far away throughout the opera, but hovers as a sinister presence particularly in Act III. Each act is a world of its own, requiring a different function for the dancers. Act I is pervaded by Isolde’s brooding thoughts of death. In the first half of the act, we experience her utter emotional turmoil, her anger and pain. Tristan has wooed her not for himself, but as bride for King Marke his uncle. For her, there is only one course open: Tristan’s betrayal must be atoned for by death, both hers and his. During her narration to her maid Brangäne, she relives the past as she remembers it, and we see her back-story enacted by the dancers. In a conversation seething with tension and dark subtext, Isolde challenges Tristan to drink atonement. They believe they are drinking the death potion, but Brangäne has exchanged it for the love potion, unleashing Eros. The music graphically describes the effect of the love potion. In Act II the dancers, expressing Tristan and Isolde’s altered state of mind in their first rapturous encounter, help to analyse their unconscious conflicts in the ‘day-night’ conversation which we present without cut. Still hurt, Isolde reproaches Tristan for having betrayed her to ‘Day’. He realises that they have become devotees of ‘Night’. Having resolved their conflict, the lovers reject the world, becoming themselves the world. This is the scene, in which Schopenhauer’s influence on Wagner is most apparent. The dancers dance a romantic pas de deux which leads to the sublime ‘O sink hernieder’ . Tristan and Isolde’s yearning for ‘Night’ and ‘Death’, in which alone they can fulfil their love, culminates in Wagner’s most ecstatic love duet. In this, they are joined by the dancers’ passionate Kamasutra inspired pas de deux, only to be cruelly interrupted by ‘Day’, with the arrival of King Marke’s hunting party. Marke lays bare his grief and suffering at his betrayal by Tristan, the man he loved above all. The Jungian approach allows us a unique insight into Marke’s soul world to be visually realised as another level of ‘reality’. In contrast, in Act III the dancers as reflected through the prism of Tristan’s pre- birth memories act out his back-story. Here they double up as Tristan’s dead parents. Tristan has to work through his unbearable mental, spiritual and physical suffering; his guilt, his longing for his mother, his desire for a return to the womb. The female dancer vacillates in Tristan’s vision between Isolde the Healer and Isolde the Bringer of Death. However, the male dancer appears as a powerful dark figure that dogs his steps. Tristan must literally confront his own shadow as he realises he is himself the cause of his own suffering. He curses the potion and himself, collapsing in complete exhaustion. When he comes round, he has the most beautiful vision of his anima , Isolde, floating across the waves, an archetypal image that promises healing, atonement, and fulfilment of his longing for ‘Night’. He will finally be reunited with Isolde in death. Reproduced with kind permission of Longborough Festival Opera www.lfo.org.uk – 33 – NEAL COOPER: CLIMBING MOUNT TRISTAN Roger Lee Photography: Matthew Williams-Ellis for Longborough Festival Opera

In conversation with this heldentenor from the Mastersingers stable between rehearsals for Tristan und Isolde at Longborough I was struck as to how, in describing the challenge of tackling the role of Tristan as “a mountain to climb,” Neal Cooper was using exactly the same analogy as Rachel Nicholls had done regarding her role of Isolde in the previous issue of Wagner News . Following some cover jobs at Covent Garden about four years ago, Sir Antonio Pappano told Neal that he should be singing Wagner. “So I learned some Siegfried and some Eric ( Dutchman ) and he introduced me to Anthony Negus who was there when I sang at the Wagner Society Bayreuth Bursary Final in 2013. Siegfried appealed to me, but I think that Anthony could hear the potential for Tristan in my voice as a possibility worth exploring. So Malcolm Rivers and his Mastersingers (supported by the Wagner Society) arranged for me to sing scenes from Tristan with Rachel Nicholls with David Syrus and the Rehearsal Orchestra last October.” What are the particular challenges which singing the role of Tristan involves? When I asked Neal if he was comfortable with the tessitura with its abundance of above-the- stave work he laughed. “I wouldn’t say ‘comfortable’, but there are passages in each act which sit up there quite a lot. Actually I don’t find that...” (here he sounded almost surprised) “…too difficult. There’s nothing above an A natural in the piece. I haven’t actually counted how many there are, but there are a lot, and many of them are very sustained. So I have started to look at the role in terms of where I must be really careful

– 34 – to avoid oversinging. Act I is generally a good warm up, but at the end of the act all hell breaks loose, and you’ve got to be careful not to get sucked in by the temptation to oversing. The whole of Act II is incredibly demanding vocally, both in its dynamic range, long phrases and lots of upper register sustained singing. It gets increasingly intense in the latter part, and then Act III is just relentlessly high and intense in places with almost whole pages above the stave.” And so to the psychological demands of what Neal describes as “climbing this enormous mountain.” In May 2013 at the Mastersingers / Music Club of London Gods and Heroes weekend in Eastbourne he sang as Siegfried for a Sir John Tomlinson masterclass. Katie Barnes wrote: I was fascinated by the look on Sir John’s face as he heard Cooper’s voice for the first time – an instrument which he described as “just right for the part, with great potential.” With regard to subsequent coaching for Tristan Neal recalls: “I asked Sir John if we could do some more sessions and he was up for it very graciously. He told me that it’s really important not to get daunted by it but to do your best to prepare and sing each phrase well so that when you get to the end you’ll still have some voice left. He took me to task over every nut and bolt, which was tremendous because he doesn’t blow smoke, he just tells you how it is. I really got a lot from those sessions with him. (I also received fantastic coaching from David Syrus, Chris Willis and Richard Heatherington.) “I started to underline the role in the score, turning page after page after page and then in Act III I’ve turned 70 pages and he’s still going! I thought: how am I going to learn this and how am I ever going to sing it? Sir John said ‘each step you take, make sure you take it well’. It’s like when you’re playing golf, not thinking about the score you want to get, just dealing with the ball in front of you right now, being in the present and not dwelling on things which may have gone less well. “I started learning the role just after I had covered that of Parsifal at Covent Garden in 2013. I had a learning objective to have come off the book to cover it there from October last year” This he did whilst performing Melot. “I previously thought of myself as an Italianate spinto tenor alone but I feel a great affinity with and love for the Wagner heldentenor roles.”

So, what about the physical demands? “A lot of the strength you need to sing Wagner is not just in the support muscles as everyone thinks, but a lot of it is in the back as well. So I joined a gym to work on my core strength and my back strength. Of course you need support, the sostegno from here” (he indicates his abdomen) “but you also need

– 35 – the appoggio , which is what you’re doing with your ribcage: leaning into the sound with the chest and also the back to sustain the power and the intensity. “There is a mysterious thing about the voice that somehow you gain strength as you get older. There’s something in the vocal apparatus itself and maybe it’s to do with the whole psyche as you mature, but I have found that there is just something about getting a bit older which actually enables you to meet the demands better, whereas if I had tried to do this when I was younger I would have just imploded . “There is also an emotional challenge to this role as I discovered when my father died in the middle of rehearsals. As an artist I want to throw myself into it heart, body and soul. I want to investigate the depths of the character and the emotions of the piece as fully as I can. Sometimes I have to be very careful that my emotions don’t get the better of me. It can be incredibly draining emotionally, and you do have to keep that under control. I’m learning to do that more, but during this production, and with my Dad dying, and the piece being so much about ‘when my father died’ in Act III and so on. It just got the better of me in the sitzprobe . I suddenly broke down as I sang “als einst dem Kind des Vaters Tod verkündet” and I missed a few bars because I was just choked up. I was terrified that it would happen in performance, but it didn’t. I talked to Malcolm Rivers about this. It was just one of the things he was stressing: the importance of being clinical on some level and keeping the head and the heart as equal partners. But it is profoundly moving and overwhelming music.” The conductor at Longborough Anthony Negus is a direct link with Sir Reginald Goodall and the tradition which he established of bringing on young singers in Britain (such as Sir John Tomlinson) to realise their potential. “He is such an expert, and he has been tremendous. He doesn’t get bogged down in minutiae or jump down your throat with every mistake. He allows you to find your own way with the role so as to allow it to evolve. He has a strong nurturing temperament and he works with an interesting blend of rigour and tolerance. Singers like Stuart Skelton and Simon O’Neil (whom I understudied as Parsifal at Covent Garden) have all worked with Anthony. He took an interest in them and helped them progress, and now he’s doing that for me as well.”

Neal Cooper sings the role of Tristan in Kaiserslautern next Spring – 36 – MEMORIES FROM THE PAST Dame Gwyneth Jones I was so glad that we were able to hold my Masterclasses in The Princess Alexandra Hall at the Royal Oversea League because it proved to be an excellent venue in every way. Adrian and I have been members of the ROSL for many years and I had often thought that it would be an ideal venue to have a masterclass. I was also glad that Andrew Dickinson chose to sing the David scene from First Act of Die Meistersinger , which he had sung in the Singing Competition because it made me take a new look at this opera, in which I had sung Magdalena in 1962 when I was only 25 years old in my first engagement in Zürich. I was much younger than the Eva, so the text was changed from “Oh Weh, die Alte ist’s” to “Oh Weh, die Andere ist’s” (From the old one to the other). Then in 1968 I sang the Eva in Wolfgang Wagner’s new production for the Meistersinger centenary celebration in Bayreuth, now available on CD. Karl Böhm was conducting. He had a reputation for picking on people and one morning I was his victim. At the beginning of the Quintet he stopped again and again and accused me of “schlepping” (dragging). After the break the entire chorus was on stage to start the Festwiese scene but Böhm announced that he wished to repeat the Quintet, so the soloists had to step forward to sing it. I realised that he was ready for “the kill” and purposely sang too fast. He stopped and shouted “Jetzt sind Sie zu Schnell!” – “Now you are too fast!” I walked slowly to the front of the stage and with the sweetest smile I could conjure up I said “Lieber Dr Böhm, ich wollte Ihnen nur zeigen, dass ich auch schnell singen kann” (Dear Dr. Böhm, I only wanted to show you that I can also sing fast). He totally melted and a broad smile came over his face because he realised that he had met his match and failed to scare me. From then on we became great friends. The rehearsal period had been especially good, with lovely colleagues: Walter Berry (Hans Sachs), Waldemar Kmentt (Stolzing), Karl Ridderbusch (Pogner), Janis Martin (Magdalene) and Hermin Esser (David); but after the general rehearsal Walter Berry who had just sung an excellent Sachs, announced to everyone’s amazement, that he would never sing the role again. They had to quickly call in Theo Adam to replace him, which meant that we all had to rehearse the next day and then sing the Premier the day after. At the end of each Bayreuth Summer Wolfgang Wagner and I had a meeting when he told me his plans for the coming year. In 1968 he told me how pleased he was with my Eva but unfortunately he could not let me sing Eva the next year, because he needed me for Senta and Kundry. I had already sung Senta in a new production with Solti in Covent Garden and elsewhere, but Kundry would be a new role. When Böhm heard that I would sing Kundry he said to me “I’m sure you know how very difficult and taxing the Third Act is”. As I had not yet had a chance to look at the role I immediately bought a score and realised that he had been making a joke, because in the Third Act Kundry only sings “Dienen, Dienen” . However, to be on the stage as Kundry in this act was an incredibly moving experience. Always in my performances in Bayreuth (in the Wieland Wagner production), the Bat (known fondly as Richard Wagner’s Spirit) came down and flew in circles around us as if to show his approval as I washed Parsifal’s feet (with real tears) and dried them with my hair in the Good Friday scene. – 37 – I had an extremely busy season ahead with many performances in London as Sieglinde, Aida, Desdemona, in Geneva Madam Butterfly, in Vienna Aida, Fidelio, Desdemona, Senta, Amelia Ballo in Maschera, Don Carlos Elisabetta, Butterfly, Leonora Il Trovatore, in Berlin Senta, in Rome Aida with Sir John Barbirolli, plus a recording of Fidelio in Dresden for DGG, a recording of Luonatar Sibelius for EMI and Verdi Requiem with Guilini in the Festival Hall, London. Then Geraint Evans asked me at the last moment to sing a new composition by Alun Hoddinott, together with himself and other well-known Welsh singers, at The Investiture of Prince Charles in Caernarfon Castle on July 1st, which meant travelling specially from the rehearsals for the new production of Der fliegende Holländer and Parsifal in Bayreuth. I was promised that there would be a first class seat reserved for me on the train and a restaurant car; but it all turned out to be quite different. I flew to London and stayed the night in the new apartment, which I had just rented, but had not yet had time to furnish because the building had just been completed. I had bought a bed; but very little else. I arrived very late and, like Old Mother Hubbard, the cupboard was bare, so I had no evening meal or breakfast; but thought “I’ll have breakfast on the train”. However, the train was packed! There was no reserved seat, or dining car and in fact I had to stand in the corridor the entire way. We were like sardines! When I arrived in Caernarfon I discovered that we were sleeping in a school building and I was given some fish and chips wrapped in newspaper for my supper. We were told that; because of the vast crowds we would have to leave for the Castle in a small bus very early the next morning. We were given a paper bag containing a pork pie, an apple and a bottle of water for our lunch. The bus sped through the streets and we arrived at the Castle very quickly; because there was absolutely no traffic whatsoever, so we all sat in the bus in our long evening dresses for hours waiting to enter the Castle. The music arrived at the very last minute through a fax machine. I must admit that I was rather disappointed because we had such fabulous Welsh singers, but there was nothing spectacular to show off our voices. So I asked if it would be possible for us to sing a verse from one of the hymns in addition. The ceremony was very moving and impressive, but when the moment arrived for us to sing there came a rather strong wind and unfortunately Maureen Guy dropped her sheets of music and they went flying in all directions. At the same time came the 20 Gun Salute. We were all singing our hearts out: “Brig Eryri” (The Summit of Snowdonia) but I’m sure that we were not heard! The Queen and Prince Charles started to leave just as the hymn started, but at that moment came the flyover of aeroplanes, so again we were not heard. Afterwards it was sheer hell trying to get out of the Castle and to the railway station because of the massive crowds. Somehow I arrived at the station just in time to catch the train. Again there was no restaurant car and even worse, when we got to Crewe there was an announcement that the train would not continue on to London as scheduled. We passengers complained bitterly and forced the driver to take us to London as planned, for which I was most grateful because I had to rehearse in Bayreuth the following day. The rehearsals for both Dutchman and Parsifal were very long and tiring and then, at eight o’clock in the morning of the open general rehearsal of Der fliegende Holländer I received a telephone call from the Festspielhaus asking me to come immediately because Leonie Rysanek had just rung to say that she was unable to sing. I myself was not feeling well; because I was pregnant and experiencing morning sickness rather badly but nevertheless I went and sang the rehearsal and spent the rest of the day doing my own

– 38 – rehearsals for Senta and Kundry. The following day was my open general rehearsal for Parsifal which proved to be too much and resulted in my having a miscarriage and being in the hospital for the premier performance. I remember so well how the nurses came into my room to sing for me to try to cheer me up and the wardrobe department sent a little Kundry doll which they had specially made for me. It was all very moving and sad. I was able to sing the second performance of Parsifal and a performance of Holländer , then I had to go to Llandudno to sing Fidelio with the Welsh National Opera which had been scheduled long before. On my return journey to Bayreuth I was just about to board the bus to take us to the plane in Nuremberg when I heard my name in an announcement, so I went to the gate to ask why they were paging me. It was Bayreuth asking me to come immediately to the Festspielhaus because Helga Dernesch had started the performance of Meistersinger , but had said that she probably could not finish it. When I arrived at the Festspielhaus they were just at the end of the Church Scene in the First Act and Helga Dernesch came off the stage and said that she couldn’t continue, so I had to go immediately to my dressing room to be made up and have my wig put on. I didn’t really have time to think about anything. I had not looked at the role since the previous summer and did not have my score with me, so I had to borrow one, which causes certain problems because I have a photographic memory and using a score which is not my own with my markings, makes it more difficult. Also, Eva is a role of short, rather fast sentences and no set arias, which also doesn’t make it easier. However, it was a wonderful performance and I was glad that I could save the evening. There remained two more performances of Holländer and one Parsifal and then it was straight to Buenos Aires for a new production of Cherubini’s Medea and from there straight on to San Francisco for Fidelio and Aida . Never a dull moment! A couple of days before my Masterclass, I received an email from Andrea Buchanan, our Secretary, passing on an email from an American woman who said she was an old friend of mine, going back to 1992 in St. Louis on TWA and Concord to Paris. Although this was 23 years ago, I remembered her name. I had been singing in San Francisco and had to get to Paris via St. Louis in order to sing an operetta concert. We arrived in St. Louis and I sat in the first class lounge studying my operetta texts which were mostly new for me. I went several times to the desk to ask when we could go to the gate and told the woman sitting there to be sure to inform me. There was some problem which was causing a long delay and after about three hours, I went again for about the sixth time and was told that my plane had just left, with all my suitcases! There was no other way to get to Paris that day and the airport staff were being most unhelpful. I was unable to make a phone call because my credit card did not work in America and I was in a desperate state when suddenly a very kind air-hostess came and asked me if she could help. She said “Come with me on the TWA to New York and then you can catch the Concord to Paris in the morning.” She then loaned me her credit card so that I could ring Paris to let them know what was happening. I was so grateful and invited her to come to my next performance at the MET with her husband and they came to my dressing-room after the performance. Now, 23 years later, she suddenly re-appears in my life and tells me that I changed her life, by introducing her to opera. I discovered that she has a daughter who is studying singing in London, so I immediately rang her and invited her to come to my Masterclass, which she did, then I met her the following day and gave her a singing lesson at the ROSL. After all these years a friendship has been re-kindled and, who knows, maybe I will be able to help this lovely young lady on her way in her career. I do hope so!

– 39 – – 40 – Thursday 10 September 2015 at 7.30pm The German Historical Institute 17 Bloomsbury Square, London WC1A 2NJ Holborn (The Central Line at Tottenham Court Road is closed)

A TALK BY DR PATRICK CARNEGY

Wagner was a passionately knowledgeable Shakespearean but, as Patrick Carnegy argues, too little attention has been paid to this seminal influence. He will show how Shakespeare crucially shaped Wagner’s ideas for theatrical reform, his conception of music drama and his ideas about how it should be performed. He will also describe how German productions of Die Meistersinger in the 1960s reasserted Wagner’s Shakespearean ancestry and thereby helped exorcise the ghosts of Nazi appropriation. Patrick Carnegy’s book “Wagner and the Art of the Theatre” (2006) won a Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award. From 1998 until 2013 he was Stratford-upon-Avon theatre critic for The Spectator. WAGNER SOCIETY EVENTS FEEDBACK Gillian Wyn-Thomas, Events Manager I’m delighted to now be officially on board after the AGM and have started work on what I hope will be an exciting programme of events going into 2016. There was some discussion at the AGM regarding the low attendance figures at certain evenings, and what we could do to improve this. I did raise the idea of a questionnaire so I could get some feedback from members, but I think, on reflection, it would be more productive if I ask you to tell me the type of events you’ve enjoyed in the past, and if there’s anything we’re NOT doing that you would like to see on the schedule. So if you have any views/suggestions and can spare a moment, do please write to me at [email protected] and let me know your thoughts. Thank you.

Not strictly Events, but Henry Kennedy (our new webmaster) would like to explore the possibility of a monthly book club, using the volumes we have in the Society’s library. Henry would be willing to host this initially, as he lives in central London, and would like to know if anyone is interested in the idea. Please email him at [email protected] if you want to discuss it further with him.

IN MEMORY OF MARIA RADNER AND OLEG BRYJAK Jeremy D Rowe Sitting in the Liceu Opera House on 17 th March, we had little idea we were watching one of the final performances of two outstanding singers. In Robert Carson’s production of Siegfried , Maria Radner was singing Erda and Oleg Bryjak was Alberich. Both gave notable performances: Maria’s calm and controlled voice commanding much attention as she gave a cool and masterful performance; and Oleg’s Alberich a sinister and dark-toned, menacing old man, forcing Mime to cower. Maria was a past winner of a Bayreuth Bursary – from Dusseldorf in 2007 – when she was still a student. She was born and studied in Dusseldorf, but had her early successes as Erda at Leipzig. She made her Met debut in 2012. Despite her youth she gained an early reputation for her Wagnerian work. She was also recognised for performing in Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony, notably with Tony Pappano in Rome. Oleg Bryjak was born in Kazakhstan but moved to Germany in his 30’s, where he studied in Karlsruhe. He was a member of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Company, in Dusseldorf, and was gaining a reputation for a number of Wagner’s darker characters. Maria and Oleg both died in the Airbus crash in France. Maria was travelling with her husband and young child. Both singers are greatly missed not only by their families but also by the international opera world.

– 42 – the Wagner society

President: Dame Gwyneth Jones Vice President: Sir John Tomlinson CONTACTS

Chairman: Richard Miles [email protected] Court Lodge Farm, Blechingley, Surrey RH1 4LP

Secretary and Wagner Andrea Buchanan [email protected] Society Bursary Manager: [email protected]

Treasurer: Neil King [email protected]

Membership Secretary: Margaret Murphy [email protected] 16 Doran Drive, Redhill, Surrey RH1 6AX

Events Manager: Gilly Wyn-Thomas [email protected]

Archivist: Geoffrey Griffiths [email protected]

Ticket Secretary: Mike Morgan [email protected]

Committee Member: Charlie Furness Smith [email protected]

Committee Member: Edward Hewitt [email protected]

Wagner News Editor: Roger Lee [email protected] 155 Llanrwst Road, Colwyn Bay LL28 5YS

Director of Malcolm Rivers www.mastersingers.info The Mastersingers and [email protected] The Goodall Scholars: 44 Merry Hill Mount, Bushey, Herts. WD 23 1DJ

Wagner Society website: www.wagnersociety.org Registered charity number 266383

– 43 – FORTHCOMING WAGNER SOCIETY EVENTS

11am - 5.30pm Saturday 5 September TIME BECOMES SPACE: PARSIFAL ACT III Presented by The Mastersingers and The Music Club of London, featuring a lecture by David Edwards and Masterclasses with Sir John Tomlinson and Mastersingers’ Young Artists Mark Le Brocq, James Platt, Stuart Pendred, Eddie Wade, Brian Smith Walters and Donald Thomson, with Kelvin Lim, piano. Please see inside for further details and booking information. St Botolph’s Church Hall, Bishopsgate, London EC2M 3TL Liverpool St

7.30pm Thursday 10 September WAGNER’S SHAKESPEARE Dr Patrick Carnegy Patrick Carnegy was the first Dramaturg to be appointed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and he was the Stratford-upon-Avon theatre critic for The Spectator from 1998 to 2013. His book “Wagner and the Art of the Theatre” won a Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award. In this lecture Dr Carnegy argues that although Wagner was a passionately knowledgeable Shakespearean, too little attention has been paid to this seminal influence. He will show how Shakespeare crucially shaped Wagner’s ideas for theatrical reform, his conception of music drama and his ideas about how it should be performed. He will also describe how German productions of Die Meistersinger in the 1960s reasserted Wagner’s Shakespearean ancestry and thereby helped exorcise the ghosts of Nazi appropriation. Tickets £15/£7.50 students. The German Historical Institute, 17 Bloomsbury Square, London WC1A 2NJ Holborn (please note the Central Line at Tottenham Court Road is closed)

2.00 - 7.30pm Sunday 18 October THE REHEARSAL ORCHESTRA/MASTERSINGERS – PARSIFAL ACT 3 Sponsored by The Wagner Society Henry Wood Hall, Trinity Church Square, London SE1 4HU Borough Ticket prices to be confirmed.

2.00 - 6.00pm Sunday 22 November THE WAGNER SOCIETY SINGING COMPETITION 2015 Sponsored by The Wagner Society Duke’s Hall, Royal Academy of Music, Marylebone Road, London NW1 5HT Baker Street. Further details to be announced. Ticket prices to be confirmed.

Tickets for the above events (except 5 September) are available from Mike Morgan, 9 West Court, Downley, High Wycombe, Bucks HP13 5TG. Please send cheques payable to The Wagner Society, enclosing an SAE. Tickets, if still available, also sold at the door.

More details of forthcoming events are available at www.wagnersociety.org