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The cast of Die Walküre at the Dresden Music Festival, under Kent Nagano | Photo: Oliver Killig

The Wagner Cycles - Dresden Music Festival's Ring cycle - was launched last year with Das Rheingold (ON October 2023). The idea of 'authentic' Wagner might at one point have been scoffed at; now it is a deeply important part of Wagner research and performance; Dr Kai Hinrich Müller heads a team of research academics who also provide ‘rehearsal support’ (‘wissentschaftliche Probenbegleitung’). This is musicology in dynamic action, resulting in practical results at the highest level with artistic direction from Kent Nagano and the Festival's intendant, cellist Jan Vogler.

The clarity Kent Nagano extracted from his players (the Dresden Festival Orchestra, plus members of Concerto Köln) was miraculous. Woodwind took on highly individual timbres (especially the pungent oboe) – chords were strikingly coloured and the strings exuded tensile strength. Antiphonal violins aided clarity throughout with narrow-bore brass adding power and accuracy. More than anything, though, it was the sheer modernity of Wagner’s writing that was emphasised. As with Rheingold, pitch was A = 435 Hz. 

There are many achievements here, but perhaps one aspect that stands out is the attention to text. Not just diction, but nuance. The previous evening, there had been a ‘read through’ of part of Act 1 by Marianna Linden and Peter Wagner with piano. Interestingly, although in Rheingold there had been a pronounced use of near-Sprechstimme – overtly declamatory delivery – Walküre is more overtly lyrical, and so an interpretative decision was made to minimise this in the full performance.  

The greatest achievement of the Dresden Walküre was that of conductor Kent Nagano. Speeds were fast, another aspect of performative accuracy, but not to the detriment to the overall drama. Nagano's baton technique is superb, and when he wanted maximal clarity, he certainly achieved it – the razor-sharp opening of the second act a case in point. This was an orchestra of power, but also of great subtlety.  

Kent Nagao with the cast of Die Walküre | Photo: Oliver Killig

The characterisation and interpersonal dramas between characters were finely realised throughout. The star-cross’d siblings in Act 1 were Sarah Wegener (Sieglinde) and Maximilian Schmitt (Siegmund). Schmitt is a Heldentenor with a heart, as capable of whispered intimacy as of open-hearted outbursts such as ‘Du bist der Lenz,’ or his strong yet somehow also sweet cries of 'Wälse'. Wegener was transfixing in her subtlety, her ’Der Männe sippe' a masterpiece of narration (and a passage in which Wegener proved the mettle of her lower soprano register). 

Hunding was Tobias Kehrer. That he was easy to dislike is testament to the strength of his characterisation. The role of Wotan was split in the performances in this run between Derek Welton (who impressed at the Albert Hall in Wagner chunks in the RPO's re-enactment of the 1877 ‘Grand Festival’ at the RAH in March this year) and Simon Bailey, whose performance at the Kulturpalast was powerful thanks to maximal subtlety and engagement with text. Claude Eichenberger was a chilly, formidable Fricka. Finest of all was the Brünnhilde of Åsa Jäger, a realisation of the utmost power and subtlety, reaching its climax in the ‘Todesverkündigung' (‘Siegmund, sieh auf mich ...’), the combination of Nagano’s tautness and Jäger’s rapt delivery stunning. 

Stage space was well used throughout, not least with the Valkyries in their various Walkürenritt entrances (a masterclass in Wagner’s part-writing!). Act 3, which zeroes in on the father-daughter relationship of Wotan and Brünnhilde, saw Jäger carrying the weight of the world in her announcement of presence (‘Hier bin ich, Vater’). There was true drama here; just one caveat, Jäger's 'War ich so schmählich?’ seemed curiously shorn of meaning.  

A superb performance. Inevitably, the Walküre Wotan brought poignant memories of the much-missed Keel Watson in Regent’s Opera’s recent production (ON October 2023); now there was one of the very finest farewells.  

The Wagner Cycles are providing an unforgettable experience for audiences; Siegfried, at once the scherzo of the Ring and its darkest hour(s), might well benefit from the Dresdner/Kölner translucency. 

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