Word: wotan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...abstractions at Bayreuth in the early 1950s, the imitators began falling into line. Says London: "Soon everyone was in a culdesac, with no place to go. That is when the gimmicks started popping up. In one Ring in Germany, for example, the Valkyries came in on motorcycles. In France, Wotan wore a top hat and tails. Enough. It's poisonous. We have to go back to the source...
...cast is strong. At 6 ft. 10 in., Harvard Graduate Noel Tyl, 38, is easily the most imposing Wotan in the business. Since there are few good Wotans around now and since Tyl has a rich Heldenbariton, he seems to have a bright future. As Brünnhilde, Norway's Ingrid Bjoner sings the music with yearning and power. Germany's Herbert Becker (Siegmund and Siegfried) is not the most passionate Heldentenor around, but he sings all the music-and that in itself is no small achievement-with taste and control. The character parts are well cast, particularly...
...piano and sings, her hilarious analysis of the Ring is based on the reasonable premise that the way to solve the crime (operatic especially) is to learn the motif. "The scene opens," she chirps, "in the River Rhine. IN IT!" The Rhine Maidens? "A sort of aquatic Andrew Sisters." Wotan? "The head god, and a crashing bore, too." The incestuous relationship between Sigmund and Sieglinde? "That's the beauty of grand opera, you can do anything as long as you sing it." The beauty of Russell is that the more you know about the Ring, the funnier the record...
...Grammophon). This recording unites the husband-and-wife team in a sedate but romantic hoedown. Evelyn Lear, most noted for her flamboyant version of Berg's violently atonal Lulu, becomes a demure turtledove in Schumann's Fair Little Flower. Thomas Stewart, memorable for his dour and doomed Wotan, pours out Stephen Foster's Hard Times Come Again No More with as much authority as any cotton-pick-in' baritone in the business...
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...