It's not as if Wagner's opera Die Walküre lacks for drama. It's got a promiscuous god caught up in his own fraudulent schemes, an abusive husband, a backdrop of clan warfare, incestuous twins and a bunch of warrior maidens who raise a tremendous din.
But the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's concert performance Friday night had an extra helping of drama. Six hours beforehand, baritone Matthias Goerne, who was to sing the hugely demanding central role of top god Wotan, announced he was sick and couldn't perform.
In record time, the DSO scrambled to engage bass-baritone Kyle Albertson, covering the role at San Francisco Opera. Rushed to a flight, he arrived at the Meyerson Symphony Center seven minutes before going onstage for Act 2, in which Wotan has a long explanatory monologue. No warmup, no rehearsal, hardly time to say hello to music director Jaap van Zweden.
Though richly textured, his voice was smaller than the role really needs. But, even relying more than the other singers on a score, Albertson gave his considerable all, even dramatizing his performance to gripping effect. Between him and Heidi Melton's Brünnhilde, I can't recall the opera's final parting of father and daughter so emotionally intense.
Considering all the big-voiced singers required, not to mention extra instruments including six harps (!), four Wagner tubas, a bass trumpet and two steerhorns (long, straight horns), this must have been the most expensive DSO classical concert in history. But it was a spectacular farewell for van Zweden, who after a final weekend of Beethoven Ninth Symphonies (and a new violin concerto by American composer Jonathan Leshnoff), will end 10 transformational years with the DSO and head to the New York Philharmonic. This high-intensity performance will surely rank as a legend in Dallas musical history.
Wagner makes the orchestra integral to the story, recurrent themes associated with characters, betraying motivations, recalling the past and foretelling the future. If it was occasionally a bit loud for voices — the music was conceived for an orchestra in a pit, not onstage — it was forgivable under the circumstances.
Full-out playing, brasses blazing, made the desperation of Siegmund's initial flight and the violent end of Act 2 genuinely hair-raising. But van Zweden also made the performance a marvel of organic give-and-take, the orchestra surging and receding, telling lines eloquently highlighted and shaped. He has this music in his blood.
Melton had just the voice one wants for Brünnhilde, effortlessly heroic, clear but powerful, and she sang to dramatic effect. Christa Mayer, as Wotan's betrayed wife Fricka, had a gorgeous and commanding mezzo, utterly seamless top to bottom, and she played the mix of righteous indignation and mockery to the hilt.
Simon O'Neill's tenor is keener than I'd like ideally for Siegmund, but he's got the decibels — a little too unrelievedly, in fact — and vivid delivery. Michelle DeYoung's Sieglinde reached her full, and considerable, vocal power and integration only in Act 3. Her big grins on meeting Siegmund didn't ring true for what's surely meant to be an awkward encounter. Bass Jongmin Park boomed imposingly as a sinister Hunding.
Karen Foster, Elaine McKrill, Catherine Martin, Nicole Piccolomini, Erika Wueschner, Blythe Gaissert, Krysty Swann and Edyta Kulczak were the powerhouse Valkyries.
Formerly classical music critic of The Dallas Morning News, Scott Cantrell continues covering the beat as a freelance writer. Classical music coverage at The News is supported in part by a grant from the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. The News makes all editorial decisions.
Details
Repeats at 2 p.m. Sunday at Meyerson Symphony Center, 2301 Flora. $20 to $176. 214-849-4376, mydso.com.
