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Classical-Music.com/BBC Music Magazine, 28th May 2013 |
Ivan Hewett |
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Wagner-Geburtstagskonzert, Dresden, 21. Mai 2013 |
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Dresden Festival
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Jonas Kaufmann and Christian Thielemann celebrate Wagner's
bicentenary in the historic German city |
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Teil des Artikels: Last Monday came something truly
stirring, a concert of arias from Rienzi, Tannhäuser, and Lohengrin sung by
tenor Jonas Kaufmann, interspersed with orchestral music from the same
operas from the Staatskapelle under Thielemann. It was fascinating to
witness two such different artists side-by-side. Kaufmann seems born to the
role of a knight who aspires to the good while being tempted by the flesh.
Listening to that lovely tenor sound, ringing yet too suggestive of
inwardness to be called 'heroic tenor', one knew which side would win the
battle.
How complicated Thielemann seemed in comparison. He has no
time for ideas about 'letting the music speak for itself'. He grasps and
moulds it with an imperiousness the Master himself would surely have
admired. One had a sense he wanted to wring the significance from every
passing mood, so that even Wagner's jovial bourgeois moments (as in The
Flying Dutchman overture) seemed somehow weighty, as if placed on a
pedestal. Sometimes he micro-managed, sometimes he became almost indulgently
free-and-easy, but in these latter episodes you knew that any moment he
would seize control again, not always at the moments you would expect. It
was never comfortable, and always riveting.
For an encore the
Staatskapelle's own choir appeared among us, looking festive in red sashes.
'The Entry of the Guests' from Tannhäuser rang out, and the moment it ended
a great 'bravo!' rang out. One had the rare experience of a German audience
celebrating something very German, without embarrassment. It was a touching
moment.
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