“Boston Symphony Orchestra music director Andris Nelsons finished his monthlong Tanglewood residency with a bang: Just as the conductor raised his baton to begin Act 3 of Richard Wagner’s ‘Die Walküre’ in concert on Sunday evening, a sudden clap of thunder rattled the Koussevitzky Music Shed,” writes Zoë Madonna in Monday’s (7/29) Boston Globe. “Nelsons was unshaken. He led the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra soaring through the famous ‘Ride of the Valkyries,’ and when the Valkyries united in their war cries, the sky unleashed a downpour that sent lawn-sitters sprinting for shelter…. Thunder and rain persisted through scenes of the approach and arrival of the furious storm god Wotan, and gradually abated along with his anger. It was an unforgettable moment…. The TMC Orchestra … applied themselves heroically under Nelsons’s direction, doing everything a Wagner orchestra needs to do.… Soprano Amber Wagner as Sieglinde was the performance’s MVP…. As Brünnhilde [soprano Christine Goerke’s] energetic magnetism in both voice and stage presence made up for the [Shed’s] sonic pitfalls. As Wotan, bass-baritone James Rutherford’s verbal spar with [Stephanie] Blythe’s Fricka was electric.… Portraying Siegmund, Simon O’Neill unleashed a gleaming, live-steel tenor, and Franz-Josef Selig’s plutonic bass made for an imposing Hunding.”
Posted July 30, 2019
