[Met Performance] CID:155960



Siegfried
Ring Cycle [79]
Metropolitan Opera House, Wed, February 7, 1951 Matinee





Siegfried (213)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Siegfried
Set Svanholm

Br?nnhilde
Kirsten Flagstad

Wanderer
Ferdinand Frantz

Erda
Karin Branzell

Mime
Peter Klein

Alberich
Gerhard Pechner

Fafner
Dezs? Ernster

Forest Bird
Erna Berger


Conductor
Fritz Stiedry


Director
Herbert Graf

Set Designer
Lee Simonson

Costume Designer
Mary Percy Schenck


Ring Cycle [79]







Siegfried received three performances this season.

Review 1:

Jerome D. Bohm in the Herald Tribune

Season’s First “Siegfried”

 

The Metropolitan’s afternoon “Ring” series continued yesterday afternoon with a well co-ordinated and impressive presentation of “Siegfried” in which most of the principal singers were in their best form. Mr. Stiedry contributed valuably with a sumptuous sounding, effectively paced and unfailingly perceptive unfolding of the orchestral score.

It was as the young Siegfried that Mr. Svanholm made his successful Metropolitan debut, and this role continues to be the Swedish tenor’s most tellingly realized in both song and action. His portrayal remains remarkable for its youthful vitality, its suggestion of the callow and brash facets of the character as well as its ardor. Its poetry was communicated with a wealth of dramatic and vocal nuance seldom met with on the operatic stage. His voice remained fresh and strong throughout its long and exacting course, ringing out brilliantly and expressively in the closing duet with Brünnhilde.

Quite as magnificent was the Wanderer of Mr. Frantz, whose richly resonant and powerful baritone voice was heard to consistent advantage and whose delineation, not previously envisaged here, had distinction of hearing and nobility of gesture to enhance its splendid vocalism. New to this cast, too, was the Mime of Mr. Klein. His characterization of the hypocritical, malignant dwarf ranks with the best we have had, being replete with apposite details of acting and singing. As in “Das Rheingold,” Mr. Pechner’s Alberich is wanting in vocal strength to lend cogency to his intelligently planned conception of the role, and Mr. Ernster’s back-stage delivery of Fafner’s lines sounded hollow and inexpressive.

As Erda, Miss Branzell’s contralto voice seemed rather too weak to impart sufficient weight to the seeress’s pronouncements to Wotan, and Miss Berger, whose crystalline soprano voice should be a perfect medium for the Forest Bird’s instruction to Siegfried, somewhat lessened its effect by injudicious forcing.

There remains the Brünnhilde of Mme. Flagstad to be considered. This is the shortest of the three Brünnhildes, but its twenty minutes or so of singing are highly taxing with often inordinate demands made on the higher register of the soprano voice. The Norwegian cantatrice, after a somewhat unsteady “Greeting to the Sun,” sang with solid, transparent tones, including a secure high “C” in “Ewig war ich.” If too cautious to permit the music’s inherent ecstasy to pervade it, her vocalism was poised and unswervingly secure throughout. Her lowest tones did not always carry through the orchestra, nor did her voice have all of its former, seemingly unending, expansive glow; but it is still an exceptional medium for the conveyance of the heroic Wagnerian roles.



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