![]() It's not unusual for some of the voices in a Wagner cast to be a little weaker than the others. Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke was a wily, insinuating Mime, Christopher Purves an evil, manipulative Alberich, Meredith Arwady a worldly-wise Erda, Jacqueline Woodley an innocent, free Forest Bird and Philip Ens a fearsome dragon, Fafner. And Vinke's superb Siegfried was matched by Alan Held's Wotan, the Zeus-like figure in the opera, who watches his power dissipate and eventually disappear under the influence of the new young heroic Siegfried. His tenor is clear and focused, perfectly under control and very accessible to an audience. But Vinke, who unlike Goerke, is onstage for almost the entire five hours, gave a performance not just of of great stamina, but also subtlety, drama, and nuance. Until that point, it had been primarily Stefan Vinke's Siegfried that had made the evening so thrilling – although, to be fair, every performer onstage without exception was excellent. ![]() Goerke is a great actress as well as a great singer, and she made Brunnhilde's awakening, her discovery of her mortality, her confusion about her love for Siegfried, and her eventual capitulation to that love so powerful, so real, so visceral, that an opera that had previously been partly allegorical, partly mythical, became a great human drama. What made Goerke's appearance so devastating was that, all of a sudden, one of Wagner's mythological figures stepped out of the pages of a comic book and became intensely, achingly human. She only appears in the opera at the very end, about four hours or so into the proceedings. Goerke is the world's most famous Brunnhilde at the moment, having made her role debut in Die Walkurie here last year, doing the same now in this Siegfried. And an evening that was already reaching for the stars catapulted to a whole new level. It was astonishing.Īnd then Christine Goerke started to sing. Each gesture, each line, each leitmotif, each phrase, both in the pit and on stage, was handled with care, skill, and panache. At five hours long, with literally thousands of notes to be performed, this Siegfried never makes a false musical move. He has always ensured that the best singers in the world grace the Four Seasons Stage, presenting performances of uniformly high quality.īut nothing in the COC's recent past can adequately prepare you for the almost otherworldly perfection of the COC's current production, the third opera in Wagner's Ring Cycle, Siegfried. Musical excellence has been one of the defining hallmarks of Alexander Neef's tenure as General Director of the Canadian Opera Company.
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