Wagner: Die Walküre (MIF – Manchester)

Venue: Bridgewater Hall
Where: Manchester

Opera can be daunting; identifying embarrassing gaps in education and taste. Perhaps to help fill gaps in knowledge The Halle orchestra precede their new production of Richard Wagner’s Die Walkure with a short play. Based on excerpts from the writings of Wagner and others of the period Gerald McBurney’s script gives an overview of Wagner’s ambitions for his opera and some not very flattering biographical detail on the man himself.
 
So grandiose is Wagner’s prose that only the rich rolling tones of Richard Allam can do it justice. Allam conveys not only Wagner’s political beliefs and hopes for his work but also the man’s contradictory need for luxury. A more objective view comes from Sara Kestelman’s chorus who is dryly amused at Wagner’s excesses.   
 
The stage at the Bridgewater Hall is so full that members of the orchestra are almost spilling into the corridor. Despite the limited space director Neil Bartlett succeeds in catching the atmosphere of Wagner’s household and even gets a few laughs with Deborah Findley’s perplexed and submissive wife.
 
The play features excerpts from Wagner’s operas which, as well as being a good way of easing novices into the genre, provide astonishing backing for the action. McBurney imaginatively (or opportunistically) uses the apocalyptic music to create the atmosphere for Engels’ description of Manchester during the industrial revolution. Bells tuned to a pitch so shrill as to be almost painful achieve an industrial cacophony.
 
Act One of Die Walkure is surprisingly pastoral. Gentle music sets the scene for a meeting between brother and sister separated at birth and whose reunion sets in play a series of cataclysmic events. Mark Elder takes an organic approach to conducting the Halle allowing the violins to ebb and flow and the volume of the music to build gradually, constantly teasing the audience, before reaching a violent climax.
 
Clive Bayley adds to the feeling of encroaching doom with deep foreboding vocals and Stig Andersen somehow manages to rise above the volume of the orchestra at the climax hitting notes that seem scarcely human.
 
The audience was ecstatic but, despite the clarity of the introduction and although I could recognise the impressive quality, I found it hard to relate to the tales of Gods and heroes. But that’s just me. Or perhaps its just opera.
 
– Dave Cunningham