From: conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad)
Subject: Re: Favorite Ring recordings
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 16:42:47 GMT

In article <1eL0TB2w165w@dorsai.com> shire@dorsai.com (Kenneth Shire) writes:

>I don't remember the performance, but the circumstances were well 
>documented.  

Even better than you remember.  :-)

>Solti claimed he couldn't make a loud enough noise for his 
>taste and so he had them remove part of the hood over the pit which helps 
>create the extraordinary acoustic of the Bayreuth auditorium.  

The Bayreuth people have several "extra" panels that they attach to the
hood for just this purpose, so that new conductors can order them
removed and (all unknowning) still end up with the standard Bayreuth
setup.  And by the way, Solti did not "have them remove part of the
hood" -- rather, he had some boards removed that line the hood, that are
a later addition to Wagner's design in any case.  The hood was still
there.  The same thing had happened with other conductors there in the
past, Boulez among them.

>That Solti 
>couldn't "make do" with an acoustic that had served Furtwangler, 
>Toscanini, and Wagner himself quite well, would have been enough to cause 
>more than just boos.  

Only from those who have been misinformed or misled.  In fact even
the conductors you list were not all 100% happy with the acoustic there.
It's wonderful and unique, but one loses something as well as gains
something there.  Have you ever been to Bayreuth?  When I went in 1988,
I had the same conversation with a couple dozen different festivalgoers
in the course of a week.  We all loved the unique "Bayreuth blend" of
the orchestra, but would have liked a *little* more brass audibility at
the climactic points.  (And I'm by no means someone who habitually wants
the brass to wipe out the rest.)  There isn't quite enough bite in its
sound.  I'm happy to give that up in exchange for everything else, of
course; but the idea that the acoustic is ideal in *every* possible way
seems naive.  Richard Strauss, for one, thought that half the orchestral
beauties of the RING were lost at Bayreuth, and preferred to hear it in
a medium-sized standard German opera house.

What I'm much more worried about, frankly, is the persistent report that
they are going to (already have?) install air conditioning in the
Festspeilhaus.  Lord knows I wouldn't have minded some; though it's
surprisingly well ventilated by nineteenth century means, it does get a
tad oppressive by the last 45 minutes of Meistersinger or
Goetterdaemmerung.  But to mess with such a finely tuned "instrument"
and to risk the additional noises attendard on A/C -- I'm very
apprehensive.

>A disgruntled audience member back in 1976 
>threatened to bomb the theater to prevent those "heretical" RING 
>performances directed by Chereau and conducted by Boulez.  Of course, 
>after the final performance of the "french" RING, the audience cheered 
>for something like 45 minutes. Wagner fans are nothing if not extreme.  I 
>believe they treated Solti with relative respect, given his talent, or 
>lack thereof, depending on your point of view.

They did.  They didn't cheer him, but they didn't boo him much either;
they saved their boos for the English production team.  Boos are quite
common with new opera productions in Germany, it seems.  I hope I'm not
sounding xenophobic when I say that I find the sound of a German "boo"
(I mean simply its acoustic effect) much nastier than an American or
English one.

Jon Alan Conrad
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: jon@alex.com (Jonathan Heitler)