Word: wagnerism
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Richard Wagner conceived his Ring des Nibelungen as combining voice, orchestra, acting and settings into a perfect expressive unity, a "total artwork." That phrase could very nearly describe Austrian-born Herbert von Karajan. At 59, Von Karajan not only is the world's foremost conductor but concerns himself with every aspect of his epic productions, including direction, stage design, lighting. Head of the Berlin Philharmonic, director of the Easter and summer festivals at Salzburg, Von Karajan last week added the Metropolitan Opera to his realm by conducting and staging Die Walküre, first item in a new Ring...
...Black. Von Karajan's Walküre was hardly a love feast for the traditionalist who prefers bombast in Wagner. The five-hour morality saga of human love in conflict with divine power-and of divinity in conflict with itself-has hardly ever sounded so subdued and lyrical. Without the need to outshout torrents of sound from the pit, the singers often performed at little above normal conversational tones...
...relief that old-fashioned literalness could never achieve. The orchestra, which Von Karajan subdued to the point of regretfulness during the love scene between Siegmund and his twin sister Sieglinde in Act I, later blared and crackled as Wotan and Fricka haggled about the implications of incest, thus highlighting Wagner's philosophical meditations on the Ring rather than the story itself...
Operatic impresarios have attributed the drop in Wagner's popularity to the absence of full-blast singers, but Von Karajan's achievement suggests a happy solution to the problem. His low-keyed approach encourages performers to sing Wagner without strain. And why not? After all, he says, "what is forte? There is no absolute value. We try to make music-drama, not opera...
Certainly the approach worked in Walküre. From Tenor Jon Vickers (Siegmund) and Newcomer Gundula Janowitz (Sieglinde), listeners heard the creamy lyricism of Wagner's love music as only unforced vocalism can produce it. American Baritone Thomas Stewart's Wotan had the slight reediness of a singer not fully matured but promising. Nilsson, the Brunnhilde, who can outshout half a dozen Wagnerian orchestras at once, concentrated instead on the compellingly human qualities of the role...