I am well aware that most people go running in the other direction at the mere mention of the word “opera” – and if the opera at hand happens to be by Richard Wagner, their running is apt to be accompanied by desperate screaming. That’s because the operas of Wagner are among the longest and most intimidating operas ever written – with some of them over five hours long – so they are not for a faint-hearted or tender-bottomed opera-goer. On the other hand, for those of us who have developed a taste for Wagner’s operas, they yield mountaintop experiences that are impossible to beat. Especially exciting is Wagner’s monumental Ring Cycle, which consists of four operas telling one sprawling story- sort of like The Lord of the Rings (on steroids.) These are the operas which you often see parodied on television and film with ample women wearing horned helmets, carrying spears, and rattling the roof with their screamed high notes. But if you’re willing to get past all that and the overwhelming scope of these works, one is rewarded with some of the most incredible music that ever flowed from a composer’s pen. In fact, when I teach my opera class at Carthage, I always include a fairly generous helping of Wagner- not because I’m mean (although I suppose I am) but because Wagner’s orchestral music is so similar to the rich, dramatic music that one hears in a lot of film scores. (The Star Wars movies especially come to mind.) But for me, the great glory of Wagner’s operas is in the music he writes for the voice. It’s as though he knew that the human voice was capable of things that no other composer had ever conceived. And when you’re hearing this music sung by a singer fully equal to its considerable demands, it’s positively thrilling. . . at least for an Opera Nerd like me.
It was such a pleasure last week to head down to Ravinia for a night of excerpts from the aforementioned Ring Cycle – the sort of event that any Wagner lover within a hundred miles would be crazy to miss. My wife was busy packing for our big trip out west so she couldn’t join me, although I’m pretty sure that she would have broken her own foot if that’s what it had taken to excuse herself from a night of Wagner. (She enjoys opera to a limited extent- and in limited amounts – and there is nothing limited about a night of Wagner.) But I did get to enjoy the evening with two good friends- One was Marshall Anderson, who was already an opera fan as a young teenager when I was still interested in Star Trek and the Justice League of America. The other was Trevor Parker, a former student of mine at Carthage who is light years ahead of where I was at his age when it comes to truly understanding and appreciating the world of opera. We rendezvoused at Fuddrucker’s for a delicious dinner beforehand (we could have eaten on the Ravinia grounds, but would have had to mortgage our respective houses to do so) . . . and then made our way to that famous open-air pavilion where so many splendid performances have taken place over the years.
I have heard some incredible things at Ravinia over the years- including sensational non-operatic performances by James Taylor, Audra McDonald, and Bernadette Peters – and some opera performances that absolutely blew the roof off the place. But none of those memorable performances holds a candle to that incredible night last week when we were treated to a feast of excerpts from the Ring Cycle. At the heart of the evening was the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, one of the greatest orchestras in the world, energetically led by James Conlon. Tenor John Treleaven delivered some heroic moments as Siegfried. But the star of the show, hands down, was soprano Christine Brewer, whose voice is magnificent both in its beauty and sheer size. (She follows in the footsteps of singers like Kirsten Flagstad, Helen Traubel, and Eileen Farrell – who like Ms. Brewer possessed voices that were just the right combination of steel and velvet to allow them to sing Wagner’s music so successfully.) Brewer’s story is a heartwarming one. She started out as a music teacher before scoring some great successes as an aspiring opera singer (including winning the Met auditions over twenty years ago) but then chose to pull back from those exciting possibilities and center her career in St. Louis so she could devote plenty of time to being a mom. In recent years, she has found it possible to widen the scope of her professional life again, and it may very well be that those years of somewhat limited activity helped her to preserve the extraordinary beauty and strength of her voice. What Marshall and Trevor and I heard the other night was a singer capable of unleashing thunderbolts – something essential when singing Wagner – and also capable of caressing long, gentle, flowing melodies – which is equally essential in Wagner. This lady can do it all, and being in her presence was the thrill of a lifetime. What made me especially happy was that when the concert finished with those transcendently beautiful final chords from Gotterdammerung, there was this sense of electricity in the place. . . where we all knew that we had experienced something very special. For ten seconds there was a hushed silence. And then that audience exploded in a tidal wave of applause and cheers (I almost used the word “riot” but didn’t want to overstate the matter) that seemed to go on and on.
What really made this a perfect night was that I got to share it with Marshall and Trevor. There is something to be said for experiencing an event on your own, and some of the neatest things I’ve attended. . . like “Doubt” on Broadway. . . were wonderful experiences. But each time I’ve walked out of such a performance by myself, I’ve had the sensation of almost exploding from pleasure because I was in a sea of strangers, with no one to talk to. I loved sharing the other night with Marshall and Trevor- just as I loved sharing the Brian Stokes Mitchell concert with Kathy a few nights earlier. Music can be a comforting and inspiring companion when we are entirely on our own – both in the making music and in the hearing of it – but for me music will always be most wonderful when in its delights are shared.
pictured above: me, Marshall, and Trevor – during intermission. We were actually seated apart for the first part of the concert, but there were empty seats next to Trevor, so we were side by side for part two of this memorable night.