Siegfried Wagner

* Der Baerenhaeuter Op.1

Volker Horn (Hans Kraft), Henry Kiichili (Melchior Froelich),
Theresa Koon (Gunda), Lars Huebel (Pfarrer Wippenbeck)
Elisabeth Johanning (Louise), Kerstin Quandt (Anna),
Ksenija Likic (Lene), Alfred Feilhaber (Nicholas Spitz),
Nikolai Barowski (Oberst Muffel), Roland Hartmann (Capsar Wild),
Andre Wenhold (The Stranger), Adalbert Waller (The Devil) a.o.

Chor der Thueringer Landestheater Rudolstadt
Thueringer Sinfonien-Orchester Saalfeld-Rudolstadt/Konrad Bach

Marco Polo 8.223713-4 [2CD] (DDD) TT: 139:32

Summary for the busy executive: Half Vulture, half Phoenix.

Richard Wagner had a composing son; Siegfried (1869-1930) but he is
seldom played (although his "Baerenhaeuter" was the most successful opera
i his time, measured in number of performences).  That should not be
strange when his father was so great that hardly anything could grow in
his shadow.  As all Richards biographies starts with dealing upon whom his
father was, for Siegfried, the biographers may as first thing conclude that
he knew extremely well whom his father was.  With his fathers genes, his
legacy, and his teaching, and all other peoples expectations on him, I
think he did not just fairly well in finding his own road.  And that people
turns his music off with "A great mans son is at best an arschloch", does
not depend on him.

Siegfried takes up tale thems, like his father, he is romantic in language
as his father, but Siegfried is the Richard that had been if Engelbert
Humperdinck had been his father instead of...yes, whom of them it now was.
Where Richard is deadly seriuos, Siegfried kick his claques, just like he
laughed at the culture of Bayreuth, where Richard takes up the myth,
Siegfried takes up the fairy tale.  Still they have important things in
common.  They had something general-humanic to say, and they showed much
interest in German culture, and their operas handeled about themself as a
first preference.  This opera is a wonderful fairy-tale story, meanwhile
engaging in the debate of the German culture.

Let me first supply the plot of the opera:

The action takes place in the region of Bayreuth during the 30 years War.

AKT 1: A Village in Hummelgau; Hell

The war is over.  The soldier Hans returns home.  He has no family and
can find no work.  No-one wants him.  The devil seeks him up and offer
him employment.  In hell he is to heat and tend the seething cauldron
that holds human souls.  A mysterious stranger comes and persuades him
to gamble.  The condition is:  If Hans wins, he wins all the souls in the
cauldron.  If he looses, his soul will be the devils in hell.  As one can
figure out, Hans looses.  The souls in the cauldron are overjoyed, and The
Devil is not late to take his revenge.  However the devil is not so cruel
that he steals Hans soul for all eternity.  He puts the spell upon Hans
that he must make his way through the world, stinking and dirty, in the
skin of a bear.  Release, so that he can once again be like all other, can
only come from one condition:  he must remain unwashed and find a woman to
stay true to him for three years.

AKT 2: An inn near Kulmbach

Hans, with his bear-skin, is, not surprisingly, regarded with suspicion
in the village.  He is repulsive and filthy; he is a stranger, a foreginer,
but he has money, it is rumoured.  Finally he helps the major in economical
difficulties.  The agreement looks perfect:  Hans gives money, and he has
in exchange one of the three daugthers of the mayor as his wife.  Two of
them refuse, but the third youngest, Louise, stands by him.  She discoveres
under the filthy exterior the sensetive soul of an outcast.  She defends
him against everyone, although he had seemed before the very Devil
incarnate.

Lets us stop here for reflexions:
Hans Kraft is the main role of the opera - a German, at least in Wagners
time, would identify him with Hans, as the German Culture, and Kraft for
male strength.  Hans Kraft also represents the composer (All Wagners seemed
to have the odd habit of writing Fliegende Hollaender-Operas which handeled
about themselves solely), returning home from the war to find his mother
dead, a release from his dependancy on the mother, with the search for
a friend and companion, inherent from the story, a reflect of Siegfrieds
own search.  The second meeting with the stranger is the rousing of the
sleepers of Plassenburg coincided with Siegfried Wagners final parting with
his friend Clement Harris.  The Thirty Years War, the background to the
action, serves as a methapher for the horrors of war, and against this
back-cloth is set the fairy-tale story of the conflict of good and evil.

Siegfried Wagners opera deals with forces which with mighty strength
can break into the small humans life, but he paint his story overflowing
with humour and a positive attitude.  The orchestral Vorspiel of 9 minutes
set the mood of the storytelling with its Hansel-und-Gretl style, bombast
fanfares and toetapper-marches surrounded by the loveliest sweetcakes of
music.  Although the music changes to a troubled mood in parts of the
opera, the approacheble style is always there, foehning the ears.
Siegfried Wagner wrote his texts himself and certainly he had humour; for
example when the Devil tells Hans Kraft about his punishment for loosing
the bet, Kraft bursts out:  "Bist Du toll?".

The Devil is an expressive voice, which is expressively sung by Adalbert
Waller, almost sounding as locking and fierceful as the ghost in the
Schuberts "Erlkoenig".  Volker Horn is a very good Kraft, who lives into
the role he is singing with love for it.  The vocal deklamation serves the
needs of a troubled man, as well as a man in the humostitic/angry mood of
"rage over the lost penny",a s well as heartfelt in his pray for freedom
from the spell and seek for a woman.  The bear is a disguisting apperance
and Ksenija Likic as the mayors first daughter Lene and Theresa Koon as the
second dauther Gunda, soon tell him to go hide.  But the third daugther
Louise, given by Elisabeth Johanning, is a kind creature who stands his
disguisting appearance in three years, and defends him against anyone who
challence him.  The orchestra playing is spicy and does well for the
special fairy-tale stimmung that the music inholds, without being any
top-notch orchestra.  None of the vocal solosts is actually downright bad,
and at many times even very "small" roles are supplied with much love and
affinity.

The end of the story?

AKT 3: Forest: District near Plassenburg.

Three years have passed.  If Louise remains true to Bear-Hans, then he will
be released by the Devil.  Thanks to Louises efforts he is also released
from his punishment and regains his normal appearance.  However, on the way
home to his beloved bride, he achieves, with help from a stranger, a deed
of war-like heroism.  This time his great fame goes before him.  The tricky
thing is just that it now needs Louise to be able to recognize her beloved
and humble Hans in the superhero.....

A Happy End?

Mats Norrman
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