[Met Performance] CID:189720
Siegfried {219}
Ring Cycle [83] Uncut. Metropolitan Opera House: 01/2/1962.
(Review)
Metropolitan Opera House
January 2, 1962
SIEGFRIED {219}
Der Ring des Nibelungen: Cycle [83] Uncut
Wagner-Wagner
Siegfried...............Hans Hopf
Brünnhilde..............Birgit Nilsson
Wanderer................George London
Erda....................Jean Madeira
Mime....................Paul Kuen
Alberich................Ralph Herbert
Fafner..................Gottlob Frick
Forest Bird.............Martina Arroyo
Conductor...............Erich Leinsdorf
Director................Nathaniel Merrill
Set designer............Lee Simonson
Costume designer........Mary Percy Schenck
Siegfried received three performances this season.
Review of Robert Sabin in Musical America
This uncut "Siegfried" was full of delightful discoveries. I can offer Erich Leinsdorf no higher praise than to say that the beautiful playing of the orchestra brought back may vivid memories of Fritz Stiedry's inspired interpretation of this score. Nowhere was Wagner's miraculous sense of color and atmosphere more subtly employed than in this music, which stirs the intellect as it intoxicates the senses.
All of the members of the cast were new to their roles at the Metropolitan, except Miss Madeira and Mr. Herbert, and all of them were excellent. Mr. Hopf could not, in the nature of things, look like a young hero, but he sang and acted like one, with a full understanding of his marvelous musical opportunities. The pathos of the orphaned boy, his horror of evil and his need for love were very real to this fine singer and artist.
It needed no more than the awakening to stamp Miss Nilsson's Siegfried Brünnhilde as one of the great ones of all time. The plastique was memorably beautiful and her tones poured forth with a freshness, gleam and abundance that kept one tingling with amazement. Her final high C, instead of an agonized effort, was a rapturous outburst. Like Mr. Hopf, she was aware every second of what she was singing about, and it is a sad commentary on Wagnerian standards that I should have to single this as a rare virtue.
Another memorable performance was that of George London. Not since Friedrich Schorr have we had a Wanderer who brought to this role such majesty of bearing, beauty of voice and diction, and dramatic profundity.
Paul Kuen was an ideal Mime and managed to sing the role, instead of barking it, and he combined grotesque malevolence with a sort of cringing pathos in his portrait of a creature that was neither all man nor all monster. His facial expressions alone were marvels of distortion and characterization.
Gottlob Frick, great artist that he is brought out the sleepy heaviness of the rather lovable dragon and the marvelous irony of "ich schlafe and besitze" ("I sleep and I own"). And Martina Arroyo sang the exquisite music of the Forest Bird with startling volume but saving agility and gracefulness.
Miss Madeira had the right kind of voice for Erda, but she had her troubles with placement and phrasing at this performance. Mr. Herbert helped to make the quarrel between Alberich and Mime (one of the wittiest things in all music) one of the highlights of a generally eloquent performance.