In its yearly Wagner offering, the Tokyo Spring Festival goes a step further in its Ring cycle conducted by Marek Janowski featuring international casts (some singers from Janowski’s Wagner series recorded live in the Philharmonie in Berlin appear here too) with two concert performances of Die Walküre. In order to add some theatrical flavor to the proceedings, video projections depicting the sets for each act are shown, although none of these images are remotely as expressive as Waltraud Meier’s face.
The German mezzo, in excellent voice this afternoon, has adapted her Sieglinde to her present lighter-voiced self, building a particularly vulnerable and touching character, especially in act III when she thanks Brünnhilde for saving her life with palpable sense of awe and fervor. Without any doubt, I would call this the best Sieglinde I’ve heard from her in recent years. It was also fortunate that Catherine Foster too was in great shape, offering here a Brünnhilde more smoothly and sensitively sung rather than either in Bayreuth or in Berlin. Elisabeth Kulman’s Fricka is a lesson in how building a dramatic performance with a lyric voice: her mezzo is ideally focused in every register; the crystal-clear diction and the rhythmic accuracy make for unfailing incisiveness; and she handles the text with imagination and intelligence. Robert Dean Smith is, as always, a light Siegmund, with ideal legato and dynamic variety, but some might miss some radiance in his high notes. Egils Silins is a vocally unproblematic yet monochromatic and not truly subtle Wotan. In Sung Sim is a powerful and dark-toned Hunding. The team of Japanese valkyries was rather irregular, especially among the lower-voiced singers.
Maestro Janowski led a forward-moving and rhythmic alert performance that responded competently to some practical problems: a fast account of Wotan’s big act II monologue to compensate for a not particularly expressive soloist, for example. He demanded everything from the NHK Symphony Orchestra, which, inspired by Rainer Küchl’s ad hoc activity as spalla, worked hard for a bright, focused sound à la Vienna Philharmonic. These musicians produced some praiseworthy passagework in the end of act I, but the strife for clarity in the Walkürenritt ultimately brought about an impression of disjointedness. At some point, one could feel a sense of exhaustion, but giving up was fortunately never an option this afternoon. This performance only confirms the NHK SO’s Wagnerian potential still to yield interesting results as this ring cycle progresses.
I HEAR VOICES 
I love reading your blog and the many different experiences you seem to have. Regarding Meier, an off and on artist these days and your reservations about her in other posts are more than justified. However for reason hard to explains I’m always willing to overlook vocal kinks with her because I’ve never seen a performance from her where she has been anything less than compelling. She just seems to have a never ending fountain of interpretive insight that is IMO unparalleled by any other artist.
Hello, Peter! Thanks for posting! I do try to keep a fresh perspective for ever performance rather than coming up with a formed opinion, even on artists that I usually connect with or on those about whom I usually have reserves about. I am glad you’ve noticed that. And, yes, I agree: Waltraud Meier’s intelligence and insight are beyond doubt. She is special.
I posted my review of this performance on my blog today. Take a look if you have some time and leave a comment.
hksounds.wordpress.com
I’m sorry it has taken me so long to read your review. I see we generally agree on our opinion.
I would observe that Wagner’s description of Brünnhilde’s reaction to the news that Wotan would concede her the magic fire is “appeased and delighted”. I would say that she is thinking less of her punishment but rather that she would finally be able to realize what she had seen between Siegmund and Sieglinde. As a matter of fact, when she wakes up she blesses the day she has finally seen Siegfried (let’s not forget that Wotan tells her she will belong to the man who passes through the fire and discovers her).
As for Fricka, I wouldn’t say that EK presented a conventional approach to Fricka. Most Frickas in my experience perform the scene with an emphasis of her being outraged and hurt that Wotan has allowed her to be humiliated etc etc. In EK I rather saw a Bill and Hillary Clinton thing: this is a power project, the love part is history by now and, frankly, she is better prepared for the job 🙂
PS I particularly liked the way she sang Die Göttin entweiht er nicht so, which did not sound as the usual “I can’t believe you let that happen” but rather as “I am telling you this is NOT going to happen”.