A Memorable Concert From Tanglewood

Above: tenor Jon Vickers

It seems everything is on YouTube these days; I was especially glad to come upon this concert which I was fortunate enough to have attended. The performance of Act I of Wagner’s DIE WALKURE took place at Tanglewood in 1979; Jessye Norman was Sieglinde, Jon Vickers sang Siegmund and Gwynne Howell was Hunding. Seiji Ozawa conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It seems to have been the only time that Norman and Vickers sang this music together.

The concert has held its prominent place in my memory mainly because of Jon Vickers’ singing as Siegmund. While listening to the YouTube recording, I decided to dig out my opera diary write-up of the concert and see if the impressions I registered in the diary the morning after the concert held true upon listening to it again, almost 35 years later.

Of course any broadcast in going to create a very different sonic impression from when you are sitting in the concert space, and that’s especially true in a vast setting such as Tanglewood.

My diary entry reflects my admiration for Ozawa’s conducting and for Gwynne Howell’s singing as Hunding, and that holds true on listening to the recording. Jon Vickers is as sensational as I remember him being.

At the time of the concert, my Sieglinde was Leonie Rysanek. I thought she was the only one and so I had compared the impact of Jessye Norman’s performance to Leonie’s and found it wanting. This was my first time experiencing Jessye live and depite so many admirable aspects in her singing, I did not think she was as thrilling in the role as Leonie was. Of course, they are totally different types of singers and listening to Jessye on the recording there is just so much to enjoy. At the time, I praised her lower register especially, and her dynamics and her persuasive way with the text; but I found her a bit too restrained and lady-like overall, and also noted that her top register did not really bloom (the top was Leonie’s glory at the time). And to me it seems on the recording a couple of Jessye’s highest notes are just a hair’s breadth below pitch.

Norman went on to become a great favorite of mine, though I always thought she was really a mezzo-soprano. (By far the grandest singing I ever heard from her came in a concert performance of Act II of SAMSON ET DALILA at Carnegie Hall in 1983 where I thought to myself… ‘this is Jessye!’)

Listening now to the Tanglewood recording makes me think more highly of Norman’s performance; of course over the ensuing years I have enjoyed many types of Sieglindes since those incredible Rysanek-evenings. My perspective has broadened and Norman’s interpretation seems pretty grand to me now.

Vickers bowled me over at Tanglewood and he does so again on the recording. In his white sport coat  he reminded me of “…a wrestler dressed for the prom.” Siegmund’s music was “…offered with unstinting vocal generosity (as well as unbelievable subtlety!). Vickers, with that rough-beautiful timbre, gave his all. His command and artistry were dazzling. The great moments – the whole Sword monolog with its unearthly cries of ‘Wälse! Wälse!’;…his gorgeous ‘Winterstürme’; the enthralling build-up to pulling out the sword; his impassioned presentation of Notung to Sieglinde, and his stentorian final lines – were just the pinnacles of a truly magnificent performance.”

“As Ozawa and the orchestra crashed thru the heart-stopping pages and drove the act to its glorious conclusion, the whole audience leapt up with a massive shout. The soloists and conductor were called out many times, to frantic ovations…”

So nice to have this souvenir of a wonderful memory.