Süddeutsche Zeitung, 25.08.2008

Sängernöte weichen dem Wonnemund

The treetops gently waved over Berlin’s Waldbühne (Forest Stage), a couple of late watch birds in the distance let themselves be lured to give answer to the horn signals and flute tones of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. Nature itself on this late summer’s evening sets the scene for the first act of Die Walküre and with his first appearance on German soil Simon O’Neill has not only the rising panorama of an amphitheatre filled with 9,000 people before him, but also the German forest itself, the murmuring native country of Wagner’s Wälsung clan. Since Simon O’Neill débuted as Siegmund at London’s Covent Garden in the past season, the New Zealander counts as the new strong voice in the small circle of Wagner tenors. In the mean time he has already sung Siegmund at the Met, for the current season stand among others Walküre in the new Hamburg Ring and again in London, Parsifal in Barcelona and his first Lohengrin in Houston – if he wanted, says O’Neill, he could sing Wagner every day anywhere in the world from today until the Wagner jubilee year 2013.

Fortunately, he will not do that and prefers to carefully plan his career:  Until he makes a start with the heavyweight roles, such as Siegfried, reassures O’Neill, it may take at least another 10 years, and also Verdi’s Otello, which he should have just sung as second cast in Salzburg, he preferred to handback: “It would have still been too early.”  The New Zealander can not only sing, he can also say no – this has not in any case, thus far, damaged his career.

That opera houses are seizing upon the 36 year-old is due not only the notorious shortage of Wagner tenors:  In the Waldbühne it is immediately clear that not only does Simon O’Neill possess one of the most exciting tenor voices of his generation, but that he also knows how to manage it:  with his vocal energy and the charismatic luminous power of his sound this youthful Heldentenor unrelentingly impells not only his stage partner, Waltraud Meier, but also Daniel Barenboim and the exhausted orchestra. “Wes’ Herd dies auch sei / hier muss ich rasten” – already with his first sentence, with which the exhausted Siegmund seeks refuge in Hunding’s shack, he gives not only dark brown baritonal colours to the lower register, but allows at the same time a sense of energy and unrest, which betray that a flash of hope suffices to turn again the world-weary Wälsung into an energetic hero. And already here, at the musical ground zero of the action, O’Neill shows that he is able to do what only the greatest can:  with a couple of notes to reflect not only the current situation of a character, but also their past and the future, which is possible. Also with Siegmund’s tale of suffering is there always a good measure of seething fury as echo of battles withstood – alone in the gentle piano notes, which he dedicates to Sieglinde, the voice does not lose its electrifying powerbase. On the other hand, he clearly begins Winterstürme as almost a whispered poem, as if the hero dares himself for the first time to show the sensitive vulnerable core under his thick skin. Again and again the variety of facets and vocal colourings which O’Neill utilises fascinate without thereby losing sight of the vast expanse of the musical plot development. The notorious calls of “Wälse”, which O’Neill holds onto extra-long, become eruptions, which break new ground through potent excessive pressure. Of course there is with these “Wälse-Rufe” , he admits, always some show business but also with some superior musical meaning: “As I studied this section in London with Antonio Pappano, he taught me, that these notes must travel through the entire body. They must not in any event be sung straight, but rather they must rise up from the toes to the hair-ends, because Siegmund heaves the action onto another emotional level.”

It has always been Simon O’Neill’s fortune that he has been advised by mentors who could teach him the secrets of relaying emotion through singing. From the New Zealand Bayreuth-veteran, Donald McIntyre, for example, to his teacher at the New York Julliard School of Music, and also from advisers such as Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo, with whom he worked on Otello. “All insisted that Wagner must be sung with the means of the Italian bel canto – with plenty of legato and use of Italian vowel formations. For me Lohengrin is nothing more than three Tamino, one after the other. More a question of condition rather than another technique.” His main role models, he mentions, were Max Lorenz and Fritz Wunderlich, the bel canto singer amongst German tenors.  Surely not the most perverse of ideals.

At the moment, by the way, it looks as if O’Neill may bring his notions of Wagner bel canto to Bayreuth. The biography in the Waldbühne concert programme already identifies him as Bayreuth’s Lohengrin. It would be not entirely improbable if one was to meet him there in the foreseeable future, he words with consideration of the nondisclosure rules of the Bayreuth press office. And he beams, as if he has just won the lottery.

JÖRG KÖNIGSDORF

Translated by Martin Snell