Recording of the Week, Matthias Goerne - The Wagner Project

Anyone who has heard Matthias Goerne singing the role of Wotan in the “Naxos Ring” cycle over the last couple of years (the third instalment of which, Siegfried, was released last week) will need no convincing regarding his Wagnerian credentials, and so it has been particularly pleasing to listen to him performing some of the great bass-baritone monologues from operas such as Parsifal, Tristan und Isolde, Der fliegende Holländer, Die Meistersinger, and others.

Of course, a potential problem when offering such excerpts is that, due to the nature of Wagner’s continuous writing, it’s relatively rare for there to be conveniently discrete chunks, but Goerne and conductor Daniel Harding circumvent this problem by expanding each monologue into a kind of mini-suite, surrounding it with orchestral music from the relevant opera. This works particularly well for Tristan und Isolde, where the Prelude and Liebestod (the latter heard in a purely orchestral version rather than with soprano) provide the bookends for a magnificent account of King Marke’s monologue from Act Two, and also for the offering from Parsifal, which places the Prelude to Act One and the Good Friday Music from Act Three either side of Amfortas’s scene from the very end of the opera (“Mein Vater! Hochgesegneter der Helden!”).

Similarly, the set begins with the Prelude to Act Three from Die Meistersinger, after which it jumps back to Hans Sachs’s ruminative monologue from Act Two (“Was duftet doch der Flieder”), as he muses on the effect that Walther’s song from Act One has had on him, but the transition is seamless, with Goerne’s first entry floating in as effortlessly and as intoxicatingly as the fragrance of the tree that he is describing.

What I found particularly impressive was how Goerne successfully conveys so many characters and varying emotions vocally. After his wistful Hans Sachs, he slips perfectly into King Marke’s expression of pained betrayal in the Tristan excerpt I mentioned earlier, as he discovers Tristan in the arms of Isolde (King Marke’s betrothed), and yet he can still find fleeting instances of tenderness, such as the moment when Marke recalls Tristan winning Isolde for him, rhapsodising about her great beauty. There’s a further moment of respite in the form of “O du, mein holder Abendstern”, Wolfram’s hymn from Tannhäuser, with Goerne showing his versatility yet again by lightening his tone as he takes comfort in the radiance of the Evening Star, the much higher-lying tessitura of this role seemingly posing no problems for him whatsoever.

His skill at expressing conflicting and changing emotions is carried through into the closing scene from Die Walküre, as Wotan says goodbye to his daughter, Brünnhilde, and punishes her disobedience by sending her to sleep and surrounding her with magic fire. Goerne is magisterial here: his reluctant acceptance of what must come to pass as he utters his tender words of farewell gives way to a steely resolve as he commands Loge to surround the rock with fire, and his final proclamation that only someone who does not fear his mighty spear may pass through the flames is both awe-inspiring and chilling.

If you’ll pardon the pun, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra are on fire here too: the shimmering strings and glittering piccolos and glockenspiel contrasting wonderfully with the ominous portent of the trombones and tuba as they warn of tragic events to come. It’s a true highlight from an album full of masterful singing and expert orchestral playing throughout.