Götterdämmerung
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Don Carlos
Opera North
Manchester has a long and exalted history of service to Wagner, with Hans Richter, first conductor of the Ring, the chief conductor of the Hallé from 1899-1911, and Barbirolli a great Wagnerian, though there are lamentably few records of him in this repertoire. Mark Elder has for some time been showing that he is a fully worthy successor to them, and last weekend he conducted a concert performance of Götterdämmerung over two evenings which was in many respects a triumph, and was certainly received as such. The Hallé itself was the star of the show, playing unfamiliar music with passion, enormous variety of tone and colour, and almost always with precision. The orchestral set pieces, such as Siegfried’s Rhine Journey, the black Prelude to Act II, and especially the Funeral Music, were stunning, the brass above all covering themselves with glory; only the upper strings were less full than I would sometimes have wished.
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