Word: alberich
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Budgeted at $3 million and cast largely with Americans, the Seattle Ring is not in the vocal class of Bayreuth, the Met or San Francisco. Yet Sooter gives a strong, noble account of himself, as does Baritone Julian Patrick as a robust, crafty Alberich. Soprano Johanna Meier makes a touching, feminine Sieglinde and Tenor Emile Belcourt a slick Loge. In the crucial role of Brunnhilde, Soprano Linda Kelm displays a huge voice and an enviable ease of vocal production, but she needs more refinement and a better stage presence before the part will belong to her. Presiding musically...
Vocal quality was high throughout: Tenor Rene Kollo's sturdy Siegfried, Bass- Baritone Walter Berry's crafty Alberich, the ripe Fricka of Mezzo-Soprano Hanna Schwarz in Das Rheingold. A delightful bonus was the Walkure Fricka and Gotterdammerung Waltraute of Vienna-born Mezzo Helga Dernesch, who some years ago was an important Isolde and Brunnhilde. Combining her still considerable power with a riveting dramatic presence, Dernesch gave a lesson in Wagnerian artistry. Conductor Edo de Waart was too often cautious when he should have been impetuous, but he roused himself in Gotterdammerung to deliver a reading of surge and sweep...
Still, there were a few bright spots amid the prevailing gloom. Tenor Siegfried Jerusalem (Siegmund) and American Soprano Jeannine Altmeyer (Sieglinde) made a hot-blooded pair of incestuous lovers in Die Walküre, and Baritone Hermann Becht's Alberich was powerfully sung. Hildegard Behrens unleashed her blazing, radiant soprano as Brünnhilde, the fallen Valkyrie whose ultimate sacrifice defeats Alberich's evil and purifies the world for the coming new order...