Newsletter Vol 7 No 2 April 2003

Editorial

A great enterprise such as a production of Der Ring des Nibelungen is an heroic challenge to any opera company. We can all share Scottish Opera's pride in the completion of their task and look forward to the various cycles in the late summer and autumn. Two very striking aspects of this Ring have been the excellence of the orchestral playing and the fact that most of the principal singers were entirely new to their roles. The latter aspect has allowed us to hear how these singers have risen to the great demands expected of them. Those who attended one of the 3 Edinburgh Götterdämmerungs earlier this month will have heard one of three very different Siegfrieds. The opening night had an understudy take the role; the second performance had Graham Sanders valiantly attempting to overcome the effects of his recent cold; in the final performance he proved his worth quite splendidly. This is real theatre and we are blessed to have it on our doorsteps. Mr Sanders is the next to join us in our continuing series featuring artists involved in the Ring production. Indeed all our events until August are Ring-related: I cordially invite you to them all!

Forthcoming Events

Monday 19th May: An Evening with Graham Sanders

Walther von Stolzing, Siegmund, Erik, Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos, and Siegfried are Heldentenor roles undertaken by Graham in Bremen, Chemnitz, Brunswick, Kiel, Dresden, Darmstadt, Graz, Chicago, and now Scotland. Along the lines of our recent meeting with Alberich, Scottish Opera's Siegfried will tell us about his singing career. He will also sing for us!: we are delighted to welcome Richard Pierson as his accompanist for this event.

Edinburgh Society of Musicians, 3 Belford Road at 7.30pm; members £5; guests £6

Please note this is a MONDAY event!

Sunday 22nd June: An Evening with Elizabeth Byrne

Scottish Opera's Brünnhilde has also performed with the company as Tosca, and Blanca in Ines de Castro. Her Wagner roles include Gutrune for the Chicago Lyric Opera and the Walküre Brünnhilde for Austin Lyric Opera. At the Met she's been the Duchess of Parma in Busoni's Dr Faust; other frequently performed roles include Amelia, Aïda and Turandot. We much look forward to hearing about her career, her favourite music and about being Wotan's rebellious and revolutionary daughter.

Edinburgh Society of Musicians, 3 Belford Road at 7.30pm; members £5; guests £6

Sunday 29th June: An Evening with Peter Savidge

Scottish Opera's Gunther has brought to Götterdämmerung a bel canto style and the skills of fine acting he has displayed with Don Alfonso for Scottish, Macheath in Philip Prowse's Threepenny Opera for Opera North and Figaro in Giles Havergal's Barber of Seville for that company. Peter has been much praised for his Lescaut (Manon Lescaut, Royal Opera); Papageno, Danilo, and the Count in Marriage of Figaro (Welsh National Opera) as well as roles in several contemporary operas. Please come along and hear about how he feels about making the transition to Wagner.

Edinburgh Society of Musicians, 3 Belford Road at 7.30pm; members £5; guests £6

Saturday 5th to Tuesday 8th July: Residential Study Days on Götterdämmerung

At the University of Stirling (open also to non-residents) Tutor: Derek Watson
Last chance to book for the few places left on this course! (A brochure was enclosed with the last Newsletter.) Contact John Holcombe (address below) if you can come!

Sunday 20th July: Afternoon Tea With Mime

The distinguished Scottish tenor Alasdair Elliot has graced many stages in the world of international opera with his vocal fidelity, skill and tremendous commitment to all his roles. Remember the eponymous one in Life With An Idiot? Rarely has vocal beauty and lack of false caricature enhanced a Ring cycle than with his present Mime. Find out Alasdair's opinion of that role and about his rich career and musical tastes.

Edinburgh Society of Musicians, 3 Belford Road at 3.00pm; members £5; guests £6

Please note this is an AFTERNOON event!

Festival Receptions

Wednesday 13th August 5pm-8pm
Friday 29th August 5pm-8pm

At the Edinburgh Society of Musicians, 3 Belford Road

The Society wishes to welcome to Scotland the many visitors from international Wagner Societies who will be attending both Ring cycles during the Edinburgh Festival. Accordingly we are throwing two parties! There will be a bar, finger buffet, tea and coffee, music, a Ring-related bookstall. Invitations will be issued at the International Richard Wagner Congress in Copenhagen in late May and sent to the presidents of all Wagner Societies around the world.

We hope that our own members who are in or near Edinburgh at Festival-time will come along too! You can drop in for just as long as you feel like, and help to make our friends from abroad welcome. Such events mounted for our own members in places as far flung as California, Finland and Australia have always proved very enjoyable and a good way of making friends who love Wagner and opera from across the globe. Do please come along to either reception: we suggest a minimum donation of £5 from each person attending.

CD Offers

Naxos continues to issue an amazing wealth of magnificently re-mastered transfers in its historical series - all of course at bargain prices. With this Newsletter we enclose a list of all their Wagner issues to date. And members who send us the attached order form will receive further discounts as shown! New in the last weeks is:

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg 4 CDs. 8.110872-75. Bayreuth Festival, 1951
Conductor: Herbert von Karajan; chorus master Wilhelm Pitz

Elizabeth Schwarzkopf is Eva, Hans Hopf - Walther, Otto Edelmann - Sachs, Gerhard Unger - David. At the time it was the largest work ever issued on 78rpm discs, totalling 68 sides; now it will fit your pocket! RRP is £19.99; our price - £17.

On the enclosed list we would also draw attention to the Ring des Nibelungen cycle compiled from Met broadcasts 1936-41. Sound quality is as may be expected from broadcasts of that era and some cuts are undesirable. But the legendary casts more than compensate. The Die Walküre is a truly historic document, recording the day that Astrid Varnay replaced an ailing Lotte Lehmann as Sieglinde and so, as vividly described in her recent memoirs, began a legendary career.

The complete Der fliegende Holländer listed at the end is in fact a modern recording recommended in the 2002 Penguin guide to compact discs; it was a Gramophone editor's choice and won top ratings in 2 leading French record magazine ratings.

Bayreuth Casts 2003

Der fliegende Holländer is this year's new production, conducted by Marc Albrecht, directed by Claus Guth, designed by Christian Schmidt and with John Tomlinson in the title role, Jaakko Ryhänen (Daland), Adrienne Dugger (Senta), Endrik Wottrich (Erik) & Uta Priew (Mary). Tannhäuser has the same cast as last year, as does Lohengrin with the exceptions of Reinhard Hagen as a new King Heinrich, John Wegner is Telramund and Judit Nemeth Ortrud. The Ring cast is unchanged except for Arnold Bezuyen (Loge), Daniela Sindram (Wellgunde) & Peter Klaveness (Hagen).

As we previously announced, Boulez will conduct next year's new offering of Parsifal and the Festival have given preliminary details of a new Tristan for 2005, to be conducted by Eiji Oue, directed by Christoph Marthaler, & designed by Anna Viebrock. You can find out all about the Festival at www.bayreuther-festspiele.de

Edinburgh Festival Study Days

The EIF brochure gives details of two study days on the Ring cycle which can be booked through the Festival ticket office. The first will be led by Lucy Beckett and John Warrack on Saturday 9th August, and the second by Derek Watson on Saturday 23rd August. www.eif.co.uk

News in Brief

  • Scottish Opera's Ring cycles were not the only British Wagner performances to be sold out within days of booking. Glyndebourne at last fulfils the wish of its original founder, Sir John Christie, by mounting Wagner for the first time: Tristan und Isolde on 19, 23, 27 May; 5, 9, 13, 19, 25, 29 June and 4 July. Those fortunate enough to have secured tickets will hear Nina Stemme, Yvonne Weidstruck, Robert Gambill, Richard Decker, Bo Skovhus and René Pape in Nikolaus Lehnhoff's production, designed by Roland Aeschlimann and Andrea Schmidt-Futterer; Ji_i Behlohlávek conducts. Return tickets try tel 01273 813813 or www.glyndebourne.com
  • The Wagner Society of London mounts a Gala 50th Anniversary Celebration at the Duke's Hall of the Royal Academy of Music, Marylebone Road, NW11, on Sunday 18th May from 11am. Celebrities participating include John Tomlinson, Anne Evans, Susan Bullock, Anne Collins, Miriam Murphy, Neil Howlett, Donald Maxwell, Malcolm Rivers, Anthony Legge, Lionel Friend, John Deathridge, Mike Ashman and Keith Warner. For tickets @ £20 and for the evening buffet reception £15 - contact tel. 01462 675638.
  • Our member Dr James Pritchard (who chaired the above Society for many years) sends a warm invitation to join the Gustav Mahler Society UK. For information about its events, quarterly magazine, aims and membership advantages please write to GMS UK, PO Box 39209, London SE3 9WD or tel 0208 201 9472 or contact info@mahlersociety.org
  • On the same theme, Derek Watson's official Edinburgh Festival lecture this year is on the Mahler Symphonies: Royal Museum Lecture Theatre, 1.20pm 19th August. Neil Mackay will lecture on Lohengrin, same time, same place, 15th August.
  • Lohengrin also features at this year's Spoleto Festival (late June-July) in a production directed by Gian Carlo Menotti who was of course our memorable guest-of-honour at one of our recent fund-raising Christmas events. www.spoletofestival.it
  • Graham Sanders will sing solos by Wagner, Bizet, Stainer and Verdi in a Jubilo choral concert at St Stephen's Church, St Stephen's Street, Edinburgh on Sunday 25th May at 7.30pm. Choral works by Handel, Parry, Rachmaninov, Kalinikof, and many other rare & popular pieces will be featured too. Tickets at the door £7 (£5 concessions) can also be had at our event with Graham on 19th May.

Our Web Site

Net-users will have been frustrated at not getting through to our website address recently. Apologies! - it has been down. However in this important year for Wagner in Scotland it will return to cyberspace very soon. Details in the next Newsletter of a new address for a colourful and news-packed site that will be regularly updated with information!

Were you there?

  • Piers Maxim, Scottish Opera's chorus master gave us an engrossing talk in February about his career and about the challenges facing his singers in the Götterdämmerung choruses. All who heard the results in Edinburgh's Festival Theatre will concur that our chorus is in good hands and fine shape. The use of individual voices and small groups of men within the choral sections (which as Piers explained to us was Wagner's intention) came off very effectively.
  • Our recital at Greyfriars Kirk to celebrate the 75th birthday of Ronald Stevenson was generally agreed to be one of the happiest and most satisfying events ever mounted by the Society. An audience of 200 or so, which comprised many distinguished figures from the world of the arts, joined the composer in enjoying his own music and works by Wagner and Liszt. Stevenson's Tristan & Isolde Triptych was given its world premiere by organist Jonathan Scott and vocalists Phillida Bannister and Christopher Ovenden.
  • Peter Sidolm, Alberich in the Scottish Ring, joined us for an afternoon in March and entertained us with the story of his career and his journey from being a renowned singer of the Italian and French repertoire to embracing Wagner roles as well. He has given Alberich and Telramund around the world, and Klingsor and Orsini are also in his repertory. No one present will forget his singing for us of Alberich's Fluch!
  • On April 9th a group of more than 30 of us attended Götterdämmerung in Edinburgh.

In our next Newsletter…

… we'll have a report on the Copenhagen Congress and news of some events later in the year including the dates for our Annual General Meeting and our Christmas Party. Meanwhile, if you require more information about anything mentioned above, or have suggestions, comments, letters for publication, or names of potential new members then please contact:

Chairman and Newsletter editor: Derek Watson, Deanfoot House, West Linton, Peeblesshire EH46 7EA Tel 01968 660339 Fax 01968 661701; e-mail derek@lintonbooks.plus.com

Secretary: W S Scott, 83 East Claremont Street, Edinburgh EH7 4HU; Tel 0131-556 2617; Fax 0870 0568159; e-mail will@elgar1.plus.com

Treasurer: John Holcombe, 4 Galleon Court, Lamer Street, Dunbar, East Lothian, EH42 1GX; e-mail john@holc.wanadoo.co.uk