[Met Performance] CID:43940



Siegfried
Ring Cycle [36]
Metropolitan Opera House, Thu, April 8, 1909




Siegfried (89)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Siegfried
Georg Anthes

Br?nnhilde
Johanna Gadski

Wanderer
Walter Soomer

Erda
Louise Homer

Mime
Albert Reiss

Alberich
Otto Goritz

Fafner
Robert Blass

Forest Bird
Lenora Sparkes


Conductor
Alfred Hertz


Ring Cycle [36]








Review 1:

Review of Algernon St. John-Brenon in the Telegraph

"SIEGFRIED" SUNG AT METROPOLITAN

Mme. Gadski, M. Anthes, M. Soomer, Heard in Work that Count Tolstoi Never Loved

WHY IT HAS A HOLD ON PUBLIC

Richard Wagner's "Siegfried" was performed last night at the Metropolitan Opera House. It drew a house so large that one was perforce reminded of the thrice glorious days of Anton Seidl, whose music at every performance of this melodrama drew an audience as overflowing as it was alive with an impassioned interest in this extraordinary creation of Wagner's genius.

A peculiarity of this work is that, until the last part of the last act, no woman makes her appearance. Up to the awakening of Br?nnhilde our attention is inexorably devoted to the activities of a primitive man and to the reveries of a bachelor. At no time during the progress of the work are there more than two characters on the stage and never a chorus makes its appearance. The satiric interest is supplied by a dwarf, the comic relief by a dragon. Here one would say, are the materials of an ineffable boredom, here the provocation of an irresistible tedium.

Tolstoi on Wagner.

If you turn to the works of Tolstoi, and particularly to his lunatic essay on "What Is Art?" you will find amid a deal of general raving an attack upon this very work of Wagner. A greater critic, however, than Tolstoi and a greater man than Wagner-because a richer-Mr. Alec Peacock, speaking of "Siegfried," also said "Wagner was crazy."

Many years have passed since the initial production of this work, but it has survived its critics, its interpreters and even the fearful people who lecture on it. Yesterday night, with a cast that did not contain a De Reszke, with scenery for which the ingenious Edward Seidl would readily blush, and Andreas Dippel equally readily improve, and with an orchestral interpretation of considerable dryness and severity, it fascinated some three thousand sophisticated and world-weary New Yorkers.

"Siegfried" and Imagination.

The tenacity of this work upon the imagination of its admirers may be accounted for by the musical and romantic potency of certain of its episodes, by the intoxicating vigor, for instance, of the music written for the forging of the sword, the exquisite and hyper-inspired forest music, and those glorious, blitzing sunbursts of melody that stream forth their dazzling radiance in the awakening of Br?nnhilde and the final love duet.

In view of those we can pardon the wanderer whose "Now I must go away" always falls upon the outworn ear with the sweet flavor of a verse of evangel, and that Alberich, who, though he may be a successful parody of the unscrupulous captain of industry or the high tariff protectionist, is nevertheless, with his fishwife bawling and cursing and screaming, an operatic nuisance of the first water.

A Respectable Cast.

A French author has bid us have respect for mediocrity. I have, then, the professional respect for last night's cast. The music was sung and played most respectably, but how rarely had the pedestrian interpretation of touch of other worldness, and how jejnne and meager were the opportunities to wrap one's city battered soul, even in the slightest gossamer of flitting illusion. Another strove to be a boyish, reckless, hearty Siegfried, but the strife, was apparent. He split the anvil with his sword, that triumphant, invincible sword before whose sweeping might the spear of the Father of the Gods was supposed to be of no avail, but when, after he had split the anvil, he brandished the sword about it was found that he had bent it into the shape of a scythe, so that one was compelled to cast reflections upon its invincibility and a cruel doubt upon its ancestry. Mr. Walter Soomer as Wotan never reached the heights one hoped he would after hearing his Wolfram in "Tannh?user."

Madame Gadski as Br?nnhilde.

Madame Gadski was in excellent voice as Br?nnhilde, but she would add immeasurably to the persuasiveness of her impersonation if her face were more plastic to dramatic ideal and those blue eyes of hers permitted to be more expressive. Mr. Hertz was warmly greeted after each act. This was as it should be. Without him where would Wagner be this strange, eventful season?



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