Wagner, Die Walküre, at La Scala under Barenboim, in Guy Cassier's Production (Toneelhuis, Antwerp)

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Nina Stemme as Brünnhilde in Die Walküre at Teatro alla Scala. Brescia e Amisano.


Teatro alla Scala, 2 January 2011

Die Walküre

by Richard Wagner

Conductor - Daniel Barenboim
Stage Director - Guy Cassiers
Scene Design - Guy Cassiers e Enrico Bagnoli
Costumes - Tim van Steenbergen
Lighting - Enrico Bagnoli
Video design - Arjen Klerkx e Kurt D’Haeseleer
Choreography - Csilla Lakatos

Cast:
Siegmund - Simon O’Neill
Hunding - John Tomlinson
Wotan - Vitalij Kowaljow
Sieglinde - Waltraud Meier
Brünnhilde - Nina Stemme
Fricka - Ekaterina Gubanova
Gerhilde - Danielle Halbwachs
Ortlinde - Carola Höhn
Waltraute - Ivonne Fuchs
Schwertleite - Anaik Morel
Helmwige - Susan Foster
Siegrune - Leann Sandel-Pantaleo
Gringerde - Nicole Piccolomini
Rossweisse - Simone Schröder
Danzatori - Guro Schia, Vebjørn Sundby

In co-production with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin and in collaboration with Toneelhuis (Antwerpen)

It is a curiosity of our times that I write this review of La Scala’s sixth and last performance of their new production of 

 several weeks after audiences around the world have seen high definition video projections of earlier performances of the same production. A friend of mine residing in the Midwest has already seen it twice, but questions remain: seeing a broadcast through the eyes of video cameras is not the same as sitting in the house, with the interventions of the television director and the videographers standing between the audience and the event at La Scala. I haven't seen a La Scala broadcast, and I have no idea of their particular style, which is hopefully more straightforward than the extremely mannered — no, gimmicky — Met broadcasts.

One has to begin with the extraordinary acoustics of La Scala. No other house, I believe, conveys the human voice in all its individual character as La Scala. The bloom of reverberation supports the tone, but stands discreetly back from the direct sound of the voice, giving the listener a vivid impression of the human voice like no other.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the Arts!

Michael Miller