Exterior the Richard Wagner Museum in Lucerne an indication reads: “Welcome to Wagner’s Idyll,” with a picture of the composer together with his son Siegfried as an toddler. As soon as inside, a brochure entices guests with “a journey into Wagner’s time.” But does getting into Wagner’s biography via a curated recreation present such a metaphorical “idyll” for modern-day audiences, or does it reveal one thing extra sophisticated in regards to the nature of authenticity and historic recreation? In different phrases, the praxis—in structure, inside design, music, and so on.—concerned in recreating points of Wagner’s time inherently runs into a number of methodological points. Is such musical and socio-political exploration more practical in a live performance corridor or opera stage in comparison with a museum show? Some efforts are extra convincing than others: Concerto Köln and the Dresden Pageant Orchestra’s traditionally knowledgeable efficiency of Die Walküre on the Lucerne Pageant had been noteworthy on this regard.
Wagner had necessary biographical connections to the Swiss metropolis. Sponsored by King Ludwig II of Bavaria, Wagner lived within the lakeside dwelling Tribschen from 1866 to 1872, one in all his most efficient intervals. Two of his kids had been born there throughout his affair with Cosima. The out of doors “Idyll” signal refers back to the 1869 premiere of his Siegfried Idyll, carried out within the stairwell of the home as a birthday current to Cosima, whom he married within the metropolis the next yr. Wagner wrote a lot of the Ring cycle music whereas in Tribschen and lived there when Die Walküre was premiered in Munich in 1870.
The museum has undergone in depth renovations and reopened in spring 2023, putting a larger emphasis on historic authenticity and matching the home’s design from the 1860s. Not like its earlier exhibit layouts on the museum, the redesign of the bottom ground is an try to recreate how the home appeared in Wagner’s time. Repainted partitions with correct darkish crimson and inexperienced fake wallpaper, a mixture of imitation and authentic furnishings, and show objects from Wagner’s personal assortment are all a part of the curatorial group’s effort to look at what life appeared like for the Wagner household again then.
Given this hyperlink between the composer and town, Concerto Köln and the Dresden Pageant Orchestra’s efficiency was further particular, the final efficiency of a multi-city tour which premiered in Prague in March and included Köln, Dresden, Hamburg, and Amsterdam. The mission started with Kent Nagano and Concerto Köln performing Das Rheingold in November 2021 after which, in cooperation with the Dresdner Musikfestspiele, tackling the entire Der Ring des Nibelungen tetralogy from 2023 till 2026. Requiring a number of years of preparation together with historic analysis, vocal teaching, and instrument constructing, this Ring cycle is a powerful feat.
Not like extra surface-level traditionally knowledgeable follow which has grow to be the norm in early music ensembles, this mission stands out in its surprisingly deep engagements with the moral and sensible challenges posed by “recreating” Wagner’s sound. The brand new Ring cycle examines the query of historic authenticity and affords new views on the larger-than-life composer, all whereas cautioning that such an method is definitely not the one or most right manner in approaching the operas. As Richard Taruskin defined in Textual content and Act, “historic reconstructionist performances […] are quintessentially trendy performances.” The mission is conscious of such caveat, utilizing it as a possibility to reassess Wagner’s legacy within the present-day.
Whereas any staging of the tetralogy is already a mammoth monetary and logistical endeavor, the 2 orchestras—along with a big group of researchers led by Dr. Kai Hinrich Müller—heighten the stakes via their use of interval devices and methods. Because the mission web site states, the performances present not solely a complete engagement with Wagner’s musical imaginative and prescient, but additionally take a deeper take a look at the concepts that knowledgeable it.
This Ring cycle has supplemented its performances with lectures and momentary displays which traveled to many of the live shows. A show within the foyer of the KKL Luzern not solely defined the historic efficiency follow used, but additionally Wagner’s personal philosophy behind his music and the way Die Walküre was obtained by critics and audiences on the time. For instance, it talked about how Dr. Friederike Wissmann carried out workshops on understanding Wagner’s remedy of girls and the ideology offered via the characters of Brünnhilde and Sieglinde. In contrast, whereas the renovated Tribschen seeks to intently recreate Wagner’s life in Switzerland, the brand new exhibit on the Richard Wagner Museum doesn’t essentially dig deeper into what made Wagner revolutionary and controversial. The show case in Wagner’s former research exhibits a duplicate of the notorious “Judaism in Music” alongside different essays on Beethoven and conducting, but it supplies little context.
The traditionally knowledgeable efficiency was multifaceted: tuning to the 19th century-standard 435 Hz moderately than the fashionable 440 Hz, a powerful deal with clear diction and enunciation of punctuation, and reconstructed mid-1800s devices. From the very first notes, conductor Kent Nagano and his orchestra demonstrated the variations to the fashionable Wagner sound via an total darker, leaner sound. Aided by a brisk tempo, the grumbling double basses’ intestine strings sounded subdued but menacing. The solo cello within the first scene showcased how a surprisingly minimal vibrato can nonetheless have a powerful emotional impression whereas the oboe, English horn, and bass clarinet stood out of their readability all through the efficiency. The lyrical melody performed by the strings within the last “magic hearth music” used noticeable portamenti, and the general softer sound allowed the six harps to shine within the closing bars. As soon as once more, Nagano selected to not linger in lugubrious sentimentality and led the ultimate bars at a fast tempo, wrapping up the night in (solely) 4.5 hours.
But, even with an total softer sound, the orchestra might nonetheless let rip within the dramatic moments. The trombones had been significantly thunderous portray Wotan’s rage in Act III and the trumpets relished the sword Nothung’s calls in Act II. Whereas the “trip of the Valkyries” was maybe not as ear-splitting as in Apocalypse Now, it was nonetheless a spectacle when the eight sisters entered down the auditorium aisles, utilizing period-accurate megaphones to mission their voices.
The live performance corridor setting can however show particularly difficult for Wagner’s work by way of protecting the singers and orchestra balanced. Sarah Wegener’s Sieglinde and Claude Eichenberger’s Fricka had been nearly pushed to their limits with the power of the orchestra behind them. Maximilian Schmitt additionally had a lighter voice, however sung a delicate portrayal of Siegmund, whereas Patrick Zielke supplied a menacing Hunding. Even on interval devices, the brass’s potential to blast via the music meant that Nagano needed to steadily implore them to play softer with out dropping depth to keep away from drowning out the singers.
As a live performance staging, one apparent facet of recreating Wagner’s operatic imaginative and prescient that was lacking was the Gesamtkunstwerk, the entire murals incorporating theater, textual content, music, and visible imagery. But even with no theater stage and full costumes, the efficiency featured delicate, good performing. Not one of the singers learn from scores and all appeared to relish a specific amount of theatricality of their performances. Simon Bailey’s Wotan particularly shone on this facet, carrying an eyepatch and carrying a spear—two issues not often seen these days within the European Regietheater panorama. He dramatically fell to the bottom whereas recounting to Brünnhilde the story of the cursed Rheingold, startling a couple of viewers members. In act one, Schmitt and Wegener stood on reverse sides of the conductor’s podium for all of Act I, till within the last swells after they reached out for one another. Åsa Jäger’s Brünnhilde employed a extra restrained performing model, evident furiously at Bailey and Schmitt. On the finish of Act II, Hunding and Siegmund stood on reverse sides of the choir seats, accompanied by a interval correct steerhorn (a bugle comprised of cow horn).
Diction and punctuation had been additionally a key a part of the historic efficiency follow. A number of instances all through the work, the singers burdened the ends of phrases, like Sieglinde’s “laß mich der Stimme lauschen: mich dünkt, ihren Klang hört’ ich als Sort” and Wotan’s “Auf geb’ ich mein Werk; nur Eines will ich noch: das Ende, das Ende!” Such declamation meant the listener might recognize extra these key phrases that play necessary roles in remainder of the Niebelung saga. Just like the minimal however good staging, this efficiency follow allowed the music and textual content to actually communicate for themselves in a manner typically misplaced in current notorious Ring cycles like Dimitri Tcherniakov’s on the Staatsoper Berlin or Valentin Schwarz’s in Bayreuth.
In his essay “What’s Artwork?”, Leo Tolstoy famously supplied a damning evaluation of the Ring cycle: “all that is so silly, and such an inexpensive present that one solely marvels how folks of greater than seven years of age can severely attend such a efficiency; however hundreds of quasi-cultivate folks sit and hear attentively, and look, and are delighted.” Even within the live performance corridor, Wagner’s music had an identical intoxicating impact which had so irritated the Russian creator. In a much less polemical manner, this mission’s rigorous analysis seeks to reconstruct each the attraction and issues which captivated audiences 150 years in the past. The performances are being filmed and recorded; Siegfried in 2025 and Götterdämmerung in 2026 are to not be missed. It is a milestone mission and an informative effort to critically reassess the revolutionary points of Wagner’s music.
Photographs: Patrick Hürlimann / Lucerne Pageant and Elmar Bossar
