Strauss and Wagner
NHK SymphonyNHK Hall
April 5, 2009
The conductor, Edo de Waart, was the conductor of the San Francisco Symphony for many years while I was living there and attending his concerts. So, it was a pleasure to hear him again.
The first work was Strauss' "Four Last Songs", one of my favorite pieces of music which I have heard in concert a number of times. The soloist this time was Susan Bullock. The performance was better than the last one I heard at NHK Hall with the same orchestra and sung by Anna Tomowa Sintow. But, this was just slightly better than OK. I guess I was spoiled some years back by a performance by Akiko Nakajima with the Tokyo Metropolitan symphony which was everything it should have been: rhapsodic, lush, affecting, moving, resigned. Ms. Bullock sang well, the orchestra played well, but in the end I was disappointingly unmoved.
The second half of the afternoon was "The Ring: an Orchestral Adventure" created by Henk de Vlieger. I had hoped that Wagner's music would have been re-worked. But, this was a string of major orchestral excerpts strung together with de Vlieger's orchestral transformations written in the style of Wagner. I suppose no one wants to try to one-up Wagner, but this was hardly an "adventure". Still it was good to hear an orchestral patchwork of the Ring ending with Brunhilde's immolation scene sung by Ms. Bullock.
I can think of worst ways to spend a Sunday afternoon, but I wasn't blown out of my seat by this performance.
posted by Larry Wells @ 2:22 PM
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