To me, it sounded perfect: two actors, one the finest dramatic soprano of her generation, with seemingly perfect chemistry, breathlessly declaring their love after he's roused her from her magically-induced sleep. (You didn't think Disney came up with that, did you?) The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, under the baton of Fabio Luisi, was lush, energetic, and pitch perfect. They seem to have taken to Maestro James Levine's absence rather well.
Yet, I could be completely wrong. I'm not an expert in these matters. I don't know that Morris, singing one of the most utterly difficult heldentenor parts in the entire catalogue of opera, hit all the right notes, had the perfect color in his voice at a certain point, or looked convincing as Siegfried. The same goes for Ms. Voigt. She might be all wrong (though I doubt it) and I wouldn't know the difference from this end of my computer speakers.
I sometimes wonder what it takes to be a music critic.
It's certainly not for lack of sources to research that I don't, as such, know better about these things. I have two full audio Ring Cycles, one conducted by Georg Solti with the Wiener Philharmoniker, the other with Herbert von Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker. Tack onto that Das Rheingold and Die Walkure, recorded in concert by The Cleveland Orchestra in the 1990s. I also own three Ring DVD sets: Patrice Chereau's 1976 centenary Bayreuth Festspielhaus production with Pierre Boulez conducting, the mid-1980s Otto Schenk production of the Metropolitan Opera ring with James Levine at the helm, and the Harry Kupfer 1991 Bayreuth version with Daniel Barenboim conducting.
Obsessive, perhaps, but it's certainly enough to keep me listening a while.
Perhaps it goes hand in hand with my being a terribly un-critical English student/teacher. I like my poetry straightforwardly read, not given the microscope and scalpel treatment. If it sounds good, dammit, it's good enough for me. But that's not what it means to be a critic. While I manage to see fault rather too often in the real world, when comfortably enveloped in a concert hall, theatre, or opera house, I tend to be more forgiving, even willing to overlook sonic errors or dramatic incongruities that may arise.
In a lot of ways, that's what brings joy to me in the world of music. In my collection, I have eight recordings of the Mahler 6th Symphony, my favorite of his works. I have favorite moments in a few and likely couldn't tell you much about a couple of the others. In short, I know what I like and can point out why. And while I know a lot about a few pieces, having that rather encyclopedic knowledge of opera, choral, and orchestral music needed to be a critic is almost tough to fathom.
I'd hate to have to sit there, in the case of Siegfried for five hours - including a couple intermissions - and listen for the flaws. That doesn't seem like much fun to me and really almost negates the entertaining value of dramatic opera. New Ring Cycles come around once a generation. They're both incredibly expensive to produce and to attend. Truly, there is no more Herculean undertaking in four-plus centuries of Western opera than these four operas that line up at around eighteen total hours of performance time across four nights.
As I sat here in front of my computer listening to the online live broadcast, I enjoyed what I heard. And for me, at least for tonight, that was plenty good enough.
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