The Vladimir Jurowski Ring came full circle on Saturday night. Six years in the making, the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s adventure with its former maestro has been a long ride in a slow machine; yet, strange to say, the cycle closed as it began, a gleaming, golden ring with a black hole at its core.
Back in 2018 the culprit was the Wotan of Matthias Goerne, a luxury singer who didn't learn the part. This year the problem artist was Svetlana Sozdateleva, albeit for different reasons. The Russian soprano had sung Brünnhilde in this cycle when Jurowski conducted Die Walküre (although not his Siegfried) at which time I described her – briefly – as adequate. Now, a singer can just about get away with “adequate” in that earlier opera, provided there’s excellence around her, but in Götterdämmerung her character is out front and centre. An ungrateful timbre, tuning issues when she tired during the long first act and a stiff stage presence throughout made Sozdateleva stand out from an otherwise strong cast for all the wrong reasons. An attempt at grief was pasted onto her face; her Immolation Scene failed to catch fire.
The newly dignified Vladimir Jurowski KBE dedicated his performance to the memory of Sir Andrew Davis, who died last week. It was a salutary reminder that both conductors had long experience conducting the LPO in opera during their respective tenures at Glyndebourne, so it should come as no surprise that music’s latest honorary Knight coaxed a performance of subtlety and, yes, sweetness from his former orchestra. It feels odd to be writing such descriptors about Wagner, but Jurowski’s concern for mellow texture and legato only served to throw the opera’s bombastic passages into sharper relief. His authority oozed from every gesture and he barely broke sweat.
Burkhard Fritz is a tenor we rarely hear sing on these shores but he proved to be a firm-voiced, reliable Siegfried. His characterisation was rudimentary but he carried the part with assurance. For a more complete role assumption, baritone Günter Papendell showed just what can be achieved in a semi-staging by inhabiting his near-namesake Gunther as a wracked, complex man who heard each toll of fate’s cruel bell. What the baritone lacked in vocal splendour he made up for in conviction. The trio of native German principals was completed by bass-baritone Albert Dohmen, who imbued the sinister Hagen with style and a vocal panache that bespoke his long experience in Wagnerian roles.
Elsewhere, the further down the cast list we went, the finer the performances. Robert Hayward is the only principal to have featured in the same role across all six years and his Alberich dripped poison into Hagen’s fevered dreams. Equally impressive was Sinéad Campbell Wallace as Gutrune, her voice potentially better suited to Brünnhilde than Sozdateleva. Kai Rüütel-Pajula was another star on the night: her dramatic and vocal skills gripped the audience almost palpably during Waltraute’s confrontation with her errant sister.
Three fabulous Norns – Claudia Huckle, Claire Barnett-Jones and Evelina Dobračeva – knitted and nattered their way through the opening half hour while a trio of equally splendid Rhinemaidens (Alina Adamski, Alexandra Lowe, Angharad Lyddon) made free with their blandishments to secure the return of the golden ring to the river’s depths.
PJ Harris continued his good work from Siegfried in 2020 by directing this semi-staging with a sure hand and a light touch, abetted by discreet but effective contributions from Pierre Martin Oriol (video projections) and Mark Jonathan (lighting). The icing on the cake, though, was the trenchant choral sound of the London Philharmonic Choir and London Voices. So many voices raised in harmony! Too many? Surely not. Wagner thought big, wrote big, and Götterdämmerung is his Leviathan.
