Proms 2013: Wagner – Siegfried, review

It was day three of Wagner’s four-part drama The Ring of the Nibelungs, and the question was bound to be – would Daniel Barenboim and his stellar cast and orchestra rise to the sublime heights of Die Walküre, which had enraptured everyone the previous Tuesday?

It was bound to be a challenge, because Siegfried is not much given to sublimity. There’s an awful lot of sinister tuba and dark string tremolandos, accompanying the vengeful broodings of various dwarfs. There’s comedy, when Siegfried drives in a bear and scares Mime out of his wits (not seen in this modest “semi-staging”, alas). There’s a dragon, whom Siegfried kills (somewhere out in the wings on this occasion), there’s a bird who guides him to the sleeping heroine that he will awaken in the final scene.

It’s a fairy tale, in short, and needs maximum vividness of characterisation to come off. This performance certainly provided it, both on the platform and in the pit. Peter Bronder as Mime was exuberantly wingy and whiny, and his passive-aggressive shouts at the Wanderer (played with wonderful sleeping-volcano quietness by Terje Stensvold) were actually the funniest moments of the evening. Eric Halfvarson was so granitic and mighty as the dragon Fafner it was hard to believe the immense sound really issued from that tiny figure way up near the organ console.

Meanwhile Barenboim was conjuring marvels from his orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin. The sound was fascinatingly layered, with Barenboim often coaxing one instrument forth with his left hand, while calming another with his right. One felt the push and pull of contradictory impulses underneath the music’s brooding surface, especially in the wonderful scene between the Wanderer and the earth-goddess Erda, where her desire to sink into unconsciousness fought with his overmastering desire to know her secrets.

All this was tremendous, but the evening’s power was sapped by the vocally unfocused and peculiarly characterised performance of Lance Ryan as Siegfried. He teased Mime like a bored smart-alec undergraduate faced with a nagging parent, and forged the sword with ostentatious casualness, one hand in his pocket. The director Justin Way wanted to give him a knowing quality, which ducked the essential challenge of Siegfried - how to make this essentially unknowing creature seem sympathetic. The final scene with the vocally radiant Nina Stemme as Brunnhilde redeemed things, but it wasn’t quite the transcendent evening many of us were hoping for.

Hear this Prom on the BBC iPlayer until Thursday: bbc.co.uk/proms