CHAN 3054 book cover.qxd 25/7/08 11:22 am Page 1 CHANDOS O PERA IN ENGLISH CHAN 3054(3) PETE MOOES FOUNDATION CHAN 3054 BOOK.qxd 25/7/08 11:30 am Page 2 (1813–1883) AKG Richard Wagner The Rhinegold Preliminary Evening to the Festival Play The Ring of the Nibelung Music drama in four scenes Poem by Richard Wagner English translation by Andrew Porter Gods Wotan ............................................................................................Norman Bailey bass-baritone Donner................................................................................................Norman Welsby baritone Froh ........................................................................................................Robert Ferguson tenor Loge ..........................................................................................................Emile Belcourt tenor Giants Fasolt..............................................................................................................Robert Lloyd bass Fafner ..........................................................................................................Clifford Grant bass Richard Wagner 3 CHAN 3054 BOOK.qxd 25/7/08 11:30 am Page 4 Nibelungs Alberich ................................................................................Derek Hammond-Stroud baritone Mime ....................................................................................................Gregory Dempsey tenor Goddesses Fricka..........................................................................................Katherine Pring mezzo-soprano Freia ......................................................................................................Lois McDonall soprano V&A Museum, Anthony Crickmay/Theatre Erda ........................................................................................................Anne Collins contralto Rhinemaidens Woglinde............................................................................................Valerie Masterson soprano Wellgunde ..................................................................................Shelagh Squires mezzo-soprano Flosshilde ..............................................................................................Helen Attfield contralto Nibelungs English National Opera Orchestra English National Opera Movement Group Reginald Goodall Alberich and the Rhinemaidens, Scene 1 4 5 CHAN 3054 BOOK.qxd 25/7/08 11:30 am Page 6 COMPACT DISC ONE Time Page Time Page Scene 1 13 ‘God of light, light of spirit!’ 5:09 [p. 146] 1 Orchestral prelude 5:01 [p. 134] Fasolt, Wotan, Fafner, Freia 2 ‘Weia! Waga! Wandering waters’ 1:33 [p. 134] 14 ‘To me, Freia! Back from her, giant!’ 1:17 [p. 147] Woglinde, Wellgunde, Flosshilde Froh, Donner, Fafner, Fasolt, Wotan 3 ‘He, he! You nixies!’ 1:40 [p. 135] TT 52:57 [p. 00] Alberich, Woglinde, Wellgunde, Flosshilde 4 ‘Slimy, slippery, slithery smoothness!’ 9:57 [p. 136] Alberich, Woglinde, Wellgunde, Flosshilde COMPACT DISC TWO 5 ‘Look, sisters! The sunlight is greeting the gold’ 2:41 [p. 140] Woglinde, Wellgunde, Flosshilde 1 ‘This bond is graved on my spear’s strong shaft’ 0:58 [p. 148] 6 ‘What’s that, you nixies…?’ 5:01 [p. 140] Wotan, Freia, Fricka Alberich, Woglinde, Wellgunde, Flosshilde 2 ‘What? How am I concerned in a contract?’ 4:15 [p. 148] 7 ‘The world’s wealth can be mine…?’ 1:01 [p. 142] Loge, Wotan, Fricka, Froh, Donner, Fafner, Fasolt Alberich, Woglinde, Wellgunde, Flosshilde 3 ‘Never one word of praise or thanks!’ 2:52 [p. 150] 8 ‘Still not afraid?’ 4:39 [p. 142] Loge Alberich, Flosshilde,Wellgunde, Woglinde 4 ‘But one I found then’ 2:02 [p. 150] Orchestral interlude Loge 5 ‘So I promised I’d tell you the story’ 1:05 [p. 150] Scene 2 Loge, Wotan, Fasolt, Fafner 9 ‘Wotan, my lord! Awaken!’ 6:12 [p. 143] 6 ‘A toy, while it was in the waters’ 2:01 [p. 151] Fricka, Wotan Loge, Wotan, Fricka 10 ‘For I wished you faithful and true’ 2:59 [p. 144] 7 ‘And I should possess it!’ 4:38 [p. 151] Fricka, Wotan Wotan, Loge, Donner, Froh, Fricka, Fafner 11 ‘Then shelter her now’ 2:24 [p. 145] 8 ‘Hear, Wotan, I’ll speak my last word!’ 2:29 [p. 152] Fricka, Freia, Wotan Fafner, Wotan, Fasolt, Freia, Froh, Donner 12 ‘Soft sleep closed your eyes’ 3:20 [p. 145] 9 ‘Over rock and stone they stride’ 3:07 [p. 153] Fasolt, Wotan, Fafner Loge, Fricka, Donner, Froh 6 7 CHAN 3054 BOOK.qxd 25/7/08 11:30 am Page 8 Time Page COMPACT DISC THREE Time Page 10 ‘I see now! Hear what is wrong!’ 3:13 [p. 154] 1 ‘Ohe! Ohe! Terrible dragon’ 3:20 [p. 163] Loge, Fricka Loge, Wotan, Alberich 11 ‘Come, Loge, descend with me!’ 5:11 [p. 155] 2 ‘Now swiftly up!’ 4:46 [p. 164] Wotan, Loge, Donner, Froh, Fricka Loge Orchestral interlude Orchestral interlude Scene 3 Scene 4 12 ‘Hehe! Hehe! Come here! Come here!’ 0:56 [p. 156] 3 ‘There, Alberich, sit on your throne!’ 2:53 [p. 165] Alberich, Mime Loge, Alberich, Wotan 13 ‘Ha, you rogue!’ 2:25 [p. 156] 4 ‘And now the Niblungs will come to my call’ 3:12 [p. 166] Alberich, Mime Alberich, Wotan 14 ‘Nibelheim here’ 1:45 [p. 157] 5 ‘The gold lies there; now let me go’ 6:38 [p. 166] Loge, Mime, Wotan Alberich, Loge, Wotan 15 ‘What help for me?’ 5:06 [p. 158] 6 ‘Am I now free?’ (Alberich’s curse) 4:27 [p. 168] Mime, Loge, Wotan Alberich, Loge, Wotan 16 ‘Better take care! Alberich’s near’ 2:56 [p. 159] 7 ‘Fasolt and Fafner come this way’ 3:08 [p. 169] Mime, Wotan, Alberich Loge, Froh, Donner, Fricka 17 ‘What brought you here?’ 3:32 [p. 160] 8 ‘Wait! Don’t touch her yet!’ 3:12 [p. 170] Alberich, Wotan, Loge Fasolt, Wotan, Fafner, Loge, Froh 18 ‘In the clouds, you great ones’ 3:23 [p. 162] 9 ‘Far too loose you’re piling the gold’ 2:44 [p. 170] Alberich, Wotan, Loge Fafner, Loge, Wotan, Fricka, Donner 19 ‘All must stand in amazement’ 4:58 [p. 162] 10 ‘Freia, the fair one, see I no more’ 3:07 [p. 171] Loge, Alberich Fasolt, Fafner, Loge, Wotan, Freia, Fricka, Froh, Donner TT 56:54 [p. 00] 11 ‘Yield it, Wotan, yield it!’ (Erda’s warning) 5:44 [p. 173] Erda, Wotan, Fricka, Froh 8 9 CHAN 3054 BOOK.qxd 25/7/08 11:30 am Page 10 Time Page 12 ‘Hear, you giants!’ 2:13 [p. 174] Donner, Freia, Wotan Reg Wilson Reg 13 ‘Stop, you greedy one!’ 2:25 [p. 174] Fasolt, Fafner, Loge, Wotan 14 ‘Your luck, Wotan, what could surpass it?’ 2:25 [p. 175] Loge, Wotan, Fricka 15 ‘Sweltering mists hang in the air… Heda! Heda! Hedo!’ 2:47 [p. 175] Donner 16 ‘The bridge leads you homeward’ 1:52 [p. 176] Froh 17 ‘Evening rays flood the sky with splendour’ 4:21 [p. 176] Wotan, Fricka, Loge 18 ‘Rhinegold! Rhinegold!’ (Entry of the Gods into Valhalla) 4:53 [p. 177] Woglinde, Wellgunde, Flosshilde, Wotan, Loge Orchestral postlude TT 64:08 [p. 00] Wotan and Fricka, Scene 2 10 11 CHAN 3054 BOOK.qxd 25/7/08 11:30 am Page 12 An Introduction to ‘The Ring of the several years, starting with a résumé of the Richard Wagner: The Rhinegold Nibelung’ story in prose before embarking on the text of Wagner conceived the idea of a musical drama what he called The Death of Siegfried Foreword by Lord Harewood unique evidence of the singing of a past age. on the subject of the Nibelung myth in 1848, (‘Siegfrieds Tod’). By December 1856, The English National Opera, and before it Others will know HMV’s recordings, at around the time he completed the last of his however, he informed a friend that ‘the Sadler’s Wells, aims at Music Theatre, not published and unpublished, made at Covent traditional operas, Lohengrin. The Ring of the Nibelungs are beginning to bore me’; indeed grand opera. To some degree our repertory is Garden about the start of electrical recording, Nibelung can be enjoyed on many levels: as a he abandoned the Ring the following summer chosen with this in mind; to some degree, too, in 1926 and 1927: Melba’s Farewell, bits of a fairy story, political allegory or philosophical and did not resume its composition until this is a situation created by our habit of performance of Otello with Zenatello, and tract, for instance. In essence it deals with the 1869, by which time he had written Tristan bringing opera close to the audience, because excerpts from Boris and Mefistofele with timeless struggle between good and evil and and Isolde and The Mastersingers of Nuremberg. it is in the audience’s own language, rather Chaliapin. Many of us find them uniquely the contrast between the love of power and the From conception to completion the gigantic than holding it at arm’s length, as can happen valuable as providing not only audible proof of power of love. Wotan, chief of the gods, wants project took him twenty-six years: years of when it is heard in a foreign language, a style and standard of performance from power for ultimately benign purposes; turmoil both in his personal life and on the however well understood. We aim for the nearly fifty years ago but also as possessing a Alberich, chief of the Nibelungs, dwarfs who political stage of Europe. ‘immediacies’ of a theatrical experience, rather ‘live’ impact which is absent from the studio live underground, wants it for his own evil It was not just boredom that led him, as he than the cerebral process which results from recordings made at the same sort of time – ends. From Monteverdi’s Orfeo to Mozart’s put it, to leave his young Siegfried under the long study – each admirable but quite Chaliapin’s are a prime example of this. The Magic Flute, from Rameau’s Hippolyte et linden tree, where he ‘bade him farewell with different, as different as being out in a shower So there is an element of consistency in an Aricie to Weber’s Der Freischütz, the heartfelt tears’. Having fled Dresden to avoid of rain is from a description of it. opera company, which attempts the juxtaposition of light and darkness has being arrested for his involvement in the For years there has been controversy among immediacy of Music Theatre, being associated fascinated composers of opera. Wagner revolution of 1848, he was living as an exile in record-buyers (I write as a heavy consumer of with the ‘reality’ of live recorded performance. recognised that all is not black and white but Zürich with scant prospect of ever seeing the gramophone records) about the merits of very largely shades of grey.