BERLIN - The Mexican tenor and the Argentine conductor brought intensity
and a measure of heroism to a Staatsoper gala concert of Wagner's music
here tonight.

If you had your eyes closed, you would have heard yet another great
performance from Placido Domingo.  But if you looked (especially from
20 feet away, as I did), you would have seen a man looking ill, leaving
the stage at one point, whispering assurance to the conductor that he can
continue, flashes of pain crossing his face occasionally.  If you heard and
saw, there was no way to explain how he could have sung as gorgeously as he
did under the circumstances.  It goes beyond artistry, it takes exceptional
passion, a strong spirit to triumph so over the weak flesh - especially if
you consider that this was Domingo's first live performance as Siegfried,
a role not recommended to young men at the height of their health and
powers.

Equally remarkable was the musical and personal support Daniel Barenboim
gave to Domingo, while investing a demonic intensity in the music.  How
do you get the best out of Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin? Put
them on stage.  After this week's fair "Parsifal" and "Otello" from the
Barenboim-led Unter den Linden orchestra in the pit, they were featured
tonight at the gala (a benefit for the orchestra), and they played hell
out of the music, some of the best hit-parade numbers from the "Ring."

The program:  Act 1 of "Die Walkure" and excerpts from "Gotterdammerung."
The first half of the evening was by far the best.  The effortless, glowing
beauty of Domingo's voice was never better, the excitement he brought to
the role made the concert setting disappear.  Obviously, in this setting,
more attention is paid to the diction than otherwise, and Domingo did fine
here too, except in some phrases of "Wintersturme," when his focus on
maintaining the line relegated German to second place.  Time and again,
however, the sheer beauty of the voice, Domingo's ardor as Siegmund became
of the overwhelming importance, the only thing that mattered.

 From the orchestra came complex layers of music, coalescing even as their
separateness registered, a continuous multifaceted motion in time and
space, producing the richest performance imaginable.  Thursday night, the
brass seemed to have been on vacation; tonight, they were the brass of the
Berlin Staatskapelle in fact.  The entire cello section - treated so well
by Wagner in "Walkure" - sang with and like Domingo.  Barenboim too sang:
every line of every role, in fact (serving as an excellent prompter) and in
the music.

Jane Eaglen's Sieglinde did not disappoint:  she produced good, big
sounds, but did not sing especially well - certainly not when heard next to
Domingo.  On the other hand, the Hunding was fully in the Domingo Class:
in a rare visit to the Staatsoper, Deutsche Oper regular Matti Salminen
managed to find the best of both voices:  Eaglen's size and Domingo's
quality.

Salminen was sorely missed in the second half of the concert.  Barenboim's
pastiche - from Morgendammerung to the Siegfried-Brunnhilde duet to the
Rhine Journey to Siegfried's death (just a few lines before his death) and
the Funeral March, to the final scene - had too little of Domingo and too
much of Eaglen.  The orchestra too returned from the stratosphere to just
a decent performance.

Domingo maintained his unique beauty of tone, but the edge, the brusqueness
that sets Siegfried apart from the other roles was missing.  Domingo must
know that he could not duplicate the quality of his Lohengrin or Parsifal
in this role, not before, and certainly not now.  It is to his credit,
however, that he took on the challenge under these special circumstances,
and he met it well.  Eaglen belted out Brunnhilde, better than I have heard
her, but both diction and phrasing made it somewhat of a puzzle just what
she was singing.  It didn't matter much.  Those long blissful moments of
Domingo's Siegmund made this a gala occasion indeed.

Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
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