CHAN 3038 BOOK COVER.qxd 22/8/07 3:26 pm Page 1 CHANDOS O PERA I N ENGLISH PETE MOOES FOUNDATION CHAN 3038(4) CHAN 3038 BOOK.qxd 22/8/07 3:29 pm Page 2 Richard Wagner (1813–1883) The Valkyrie AKG First Day of the Festival Play The Ring of the Nibelung Music drama in three acts Poem by Richard Wagner English translation by Andrew Porter Siegmund ....................................................................................................................Alberto Remedios tenor Hunding ............................................................................................................................Clifford Grant bass Wotan ..................................................................................................................Norman Bailey bass-baritone Sieglinde..................................................................................................................Margaret Curphey soprano Brünnhilde........................................................................................................................Rita Hunter soprano Fricka ....................................................................................................................Ann Howard mezzo-soprano Valkyries: Gerhilde ......................................................................................................................Katie Clarke soprano Ortlinde ....................................................................................................................Anne Conoley soprano Waltraute ............................................................................................................Elizabeth Connell soprano Schwertleite ..............................................................................................................Helen Attfield soprano Helmwige......................................................................................................................Anne Evans soprano Siegrune............................................................................................................Sarah Walker mezzo-soprano Grimgerde ....................................................................................................Shelagh Squires mezzo-soprano Rossweisse ................................................................................................................Anne Collins contralto Richard Wagner English National Opera Orchestra Reginald Goodall 3 CHAN 3038 BOOK.qxd 22/8/07 3:29 pm Page 4 COMPACT DISC ONE Time Page Time Page Act I Scene 3 1 Prelude 4:20 [p. 110] 11 ‘A sword was pledged by my father’ 6:41 [p. 117] Siegmund Scene 1 12 ‘Are you awake?’ 1:12 [p. 118] 2 ‘The storm drove me here’ 5:36 [p. 110] Sieglinde, Siegmund Siegmund, Sieglinde 13 ‘My husband’s kinsmen’ 4:48 [p. 118] 3 ‘This house and this wife’ 4:11 [p. 111] Sieglinde Sieglinde, Siegmund 14 ‘Yes, loveliest bride’ 1:37 [p. 119] 4 ‘Evil fortune’s never far from me’ 4:17 [p. 112] Siegmund, Sieglinde Siegmund, Sieglinde 15 ‘Winter storms have vanished’ (Siegmund’s Spring Song) 3:41 [p. 119] Siegmund Scene 2 16 ‘You are the Spring’ 2:19 [p. 120] 5 ‘There he lay, feeble and faint’ 3:03 [p. 112] Sieglinde Sieglinde, Hunding, Siegmund 17 ‘Oh sweetest enchantment’ 3:21 [p. 121] 6 ‘Through field and forest’ 2:02 [p. 113] Siegmund, Sieglinde Siegmund, Hunding, Sieglinde 18 ‘The stream has shown my reflected face’ 4:05 [p. 121] 7 ‘Friedmund no one could call me’ 3:35 [p. 113] Sieglinde, Siegmund Siegmund, Hunding, Sieglinde 19 ‘Siegmund call me, and Siegmund am I!’ 1:33 [p. 122] 8 ‘The Neidings raided again’ 3:01 [p. 114] Siegmund Siegmund 20 ‘Siegmund, the Wälsung, here you see!’ 2:36 [p. 123] 9 ‘So the Norn who dealt you this fate’ 4:50 [p. 115] Siegmund, Sieglinde Hunding, Sieglinde, Siegmund TT 73:06 [p. 00] 10 ‘I know a troublesome race’ 6:13 [p. 116] Hunding 4 5 CHAN 3038 BOOK.qxd 22/8/07 3:29 pm Page 6 COMPACT DISC TWO Time Page Time Page Act II Scene 2 10 ‘Fricka has won the fight’ 5:27 [p. 129] Scene 1 Brünnhilde, Wotan 1 ‘Go bridle your horse, warrior maid!’ 2:58 [p. 123] 11 ‘When youth’s delightful pleasures had waned’ 2:33 [p. 130] Wotan Wotan 2 ‘Hoyotoho! Hoyotoho!’ (Brünnhilde’s Battle Cry) 2:33 [p. 123] 12 ‘She refused to reveal more about it’ 2:45 [p. 130] Brünnhilde Wotan, Brünnhilde 3 ‘The usual storm, the usual strife!’ 2:02 [p. 124] 13 ‘There’s more to tell’ 2:25 [p. 131] Wotan, Fricka Wotan 4 ‘Pretend that you don’t understand!’ 1:37 [p. 124] 14 ‘Yet one can accomplish what I may not’ 2:30 [p. 132] Fricka, Wotan Wotan 5 ‘Now it’s come to pass!’ 1:00 [p. 125] 15 ‘But the Wälsung, Siegmund’ 1:18 [p. 132] Wotan Brünnhilde, Wotan 6 ‘So this is the end of the gods and their glory’ 3:36 [p. 125] 16 ‘Then Siegmund must fall in his fight?’ 3:56 [p. 133] Fricka Brünnhilde, Wotan 7 ‘You never learn what I would teach you’ 6:00 [p. 126] 17 ‘I give you my blessing, Nibelung son!’ 1:38 [p. 133] Wotan, Fricka Wotan, Brünnhilde 8 ‘What must I do?’ 2:21 [p. 128] 18 ‘No, have mercy’ 3:43 [p. 134] Wotan, Fricka Brünnhilde, Wotan 9 ‘Hiaha! Hiaha! Hoyotoho!’ 3:45 [p. 128] TT 52:09 [p. 00] Brünnhilde, Fricka, Wotan 6 7 CHAN 3038 BOOK.qxd 22/8/07 3:29 pm Page 8 COMPACT DISC THREE Time Page Time Page 1 ‘So I obey his command’ 4:24 [p. 135] 7 ‘Then greet for me Walhall’ 3:51 [p. 138] Brünnhilde Siegmund, Brünnhilde 8 ‘Woe! Woe! Sister and bride’ 4:42 [p. 139] Scene 3 Siegmund, Brünnhilde 2 ‘Rest here for a while; stay by my side!’ 3:05 [p. 135] 9 ‘Two lives now lie in your power’ 2:37 [p. 140] Siegmund, Sieglinde Siegmund, Brünnhilde 3 ‘Away! Away!’ 4:46 [p. 135] Sieglinde, Siegmund Scene 5 4 ‘Where are you, Siegmund?’ 5:22 [p. 136] 10 ‘Charms of sleep are sent to still’ 3:12 [p. 141] Sieglinde, Siegmund Siegmund 11 ‘I hear your call’ 2:09 [p. 141] Scene 4 Siegmund, Sieglinde 5 ‘Siegmund! Look at me!’ (Announcement of Death) 3:19 [p. 137] 12 ‘Wehwalt! Wehwalt!’ 5:55 [p. 142] Brünnhilde, Siegmund Hunding, Siegmund, Sieglinde, Brünnhilde, Wotan 6 ‘And if I come’ 4:34 [p. 138] TT 47:57 [p. 00] Siegmund, Brünnhilde 8 9 CHAN 3038 BOOK.qxd 22/8/07 3:29 pm Page 10 COMPACT DISC FOUR Time Page Time Page Act III 12 ‘Did you not hear what I decreed?’ 4:56 [p. 154] Wotan, The Eight Valkyries Scene 1 1 ‘Hoyotoho! Hoyotoho!’ (Ride of the Valkyries) 9:00 [p. 143] Scene 3 Gerhilde, Helmwige, Waltraute, Schwerleite, Ortlinde 13 ‘Was it so shameful’ 3:51 [p. 155] Siegrune, Grimgerde, Rossweisse Brünnhilde, Wotan 2 ‘Shield me and help’ 1:25 [p. 147] 14 ‘I know so little’ 4:00 [p. 156] Brünnhilde, The Eight Valkyries Brünnhilde, Wotan 3 ‘Hear while I tell you’ 2:38 [p. 148] 15 ‘You, who this love into my heart revealed’ 4:06 [p. 157] Brünnhilde, The Eight Valkyries Brünnhilde, Wotan 4 ‘Pray suffer no sorrow for me’ 3:59 [p. 149] 16 ‘You indulged your love’ 0:54 [p. 157] Sieglinde, Brünnhilde, The Eight Valkyries Wotan 5 ‘Fly him swiftly, away to the east!’ 1:24 [p. 150] 17 ‘Unworthy of you this foolish maid’ 3:14 [p. 157] Brünnhilde Brünnhilde, Wotan 6 ‘O radiant wonder!’ (Parting Salute) 0:49 [p. 151] 18 ‘You fathered a glorious race’ 2:50 [p. 158] Sieglinde Brünnhilde, Wotan 7 ‘Stay, Brünnhild!’ 1:07 [p. 151] 19 ‘In long, deep sleep’ 3:05 [p. 159] Wotan, The Eight Valkyries, Brünnhilde Wotan, Brünnhilde, Scene 2 20 ‘Farewell, my valiant, glorious child!’ (Wotan’s Farewell) 5:00 [p. 159] 8 ‘Where is Brünnhild?’ 1:39 [p. 152] Wotan Wotan, The Eight Valkyries 21 ‘These eyes so warm and so bright’ 7:48 [p. 160] 9 ‘Weak-spirited, womanish brood!’ 2:59 [p. 152] Wotan Wotan 22 ‘Loge, hear! Come at my call!’ 1:26 [p. 160] 10 ‘Here am I, father’ 2:47 [p. 153] Wotan Brünnhilde, Wotan 23 Magic Fire Music 3:57 [p. 161] 11 ‘No more will you ride from Walhall’ 3:05 [p. 153] Wotan Wotan, The Eight Valkyries, Brünnhilde TT 76:02 [p. 011 10 11 CHAN 3038 BOOK.qxd 22/8/07 3:29 pm Page 12 through, so to speak, with Tristan. That he Wagner could start on the music. At first he Richard Wagner: The Valkyrie should go on to complete the Ring and, was planning just one opera, which would end through his own efforts, have it performed in on a note of optimism with the moral and An Introduction to ‘The Ring of the condition that he renounce love, is invested a purpose-built theatre is nothing short of a physical superiority of the gods firmly Nibelung’ with dignity as well as malignity. miracle. established. The comment by one of his Wagner conceived the idea of a musical drama Wagner worked on the words and music for His sources included five epics, in Icelandic, friends that the story required an unrealistic on the subject of the Nibelung myth in 1848, several years, starting with a résumé of the Middle High German and Old Norse, all amount of background knowledge on the part at around the time he completed the last of his story in prose before embarking on the text of dating from the thirteenth century. As with all of the audience caused him first to expand traditional operas, Lohengrin. The Ring of the what he called The Death of Siegfried his operas, before and after the Ring, Wagner The Death of Siegfried and then to add what Nibelung can be enjoyed on many levels: as a (‘Siegfrieds Tod’). By December 1856, wrote his own words. But, to the alarm of his we would now call a ‘prequel’, Young Siegfried fairy story, political allegory or philosophical however, he informed a friend that ‘the friends, starting with The Death of Siegfried he (‘Der junge Siegfried’). Seeing the need for tract, for instance. In essence it deals with the Nibelungs are beginning to bore me’; indeed revived an old poetic device called ‘Stabreim’ still further expansion backwards, he wrote the timeless struggle between good and evil and he abandoned the Ring the following summer that made use of explosive alliteration rather texts of The Valkyrie and The Rhinegold. Young the contrast between the love of power and the and did not resume composition of it until than scansion and rhyme. This was of a piece Siegfried was eventually renamed Siegfried and power of love. Wotan, chief of the gods, wants 1869, by which time he had written Tristan with his theories, expounded in essays written The Death of Siegfried became Twilight of the power for ultimately benign purposes; and Isolde and The Mastersingers of Nuremberg.