Wotan
Saturday 3 March
I've thought about it for a week and I still don't like Bryn Terfel as Wotan in the BBC TV version from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Bryn may sing like a god, but opera isn't only about singing, and he doesn't act Wagner's Wotan, though I don't know whether this is his failing or that of the production. Bryn plays Wotan as a seedy, shabby, shambling incompetent, who fumbles with his robe like a hungover used car salesman who's lost the cord of his dressing-gown. What's happened to Wagner's tragic hero, lover of goddesses and mortal women, powerful warrior god and dreamer of an impossible dream? Instead of being passionate and wrathful in his defeat by Fricka and then by Brunnhilde, this Wotan is simply petulant and vindictive, a petty domestic tyrant. And it matters, because unless I'm listening with my eyes tight shut (and I, for one, still need the English subtitles) I, the audience, fail to be torn apart as I should be by the clash of conflicting values, because this Wotan fails, visually, to seduce my sympathies to his side.
We've had Rheingold and Walkure; there's Siegfried to come, next week: perhaps he's better in that, but I'm not holding my breath.
I've thought about it for a week and I still don't like Bryn Terfel as Wotan in the BBC TV version from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Bryn may sing like a god, but opera isn't only about singing, and he doesn't act Wagner's Wotan, though I don't know whether this is his failing or that of the production. Bryn plays Wotan as a seedy, shabby, shambling incompetent, who fumbles with his robe like a hungover used car salesman who's lost the cord of his dressing-gown. What's happened to Wagner's tragic hero, lover of goddesses and mortal women, powerful warrior god and dreamer of an impossible dream? Instead of being passionate and wrathful in his defeat by Fricka and then by Brunnhilde, this Wotan is simply petulant and vindictive, a petty domestic tyrant. And it matters, because unless I'm listening with my eyes tight shut (and I, for one, still need the English subtitles) I, the audience, fail to be torn apart as I should be by the clash of conflicting values, because this Wotan fails, visually, to seduce my sympathies to his side.
We've had Rheingold and Walkure; there's Siegfried to come, next week: perhaps he's better in that, but I'm not holding my breath.