A Singer’s Guide to the Great Composers: Wagner

I was extremely lucky to discover the music of Richard Wagner at an early age, as it has given me a lifetime of pleasure and fulfilment, and I have been privileged to know and work with some of the great Wagner singers of the past and present.

Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig in 1813, and was baptized in the Thomaskirche, where Bach worked for so many years. Hundreds of books have been written about his life, his music, his politics, his love life, his megalomania, his anti-semitism, his extraordinary relationship with mad King Ludwig, his illnesses, his literary work and his death. I don’t propose in this article to venture too far into his life story, but we need to know a little about some of it to understand his music. He was a strange looking man, rather small (about 5ft 6 inches – 1.66 metres), but with a huge head, and this odd appearance led to myriad caricatures and cartoons throughout his life. He must have been overwhelmingly charismatic, as he inspired deep emotions in almost everyone he met, some good, some bad. He was a voracious reader and wrote about every subject which interested him. His views on all sorts of subjects have come down to us. If there had been Facebook in his lifetime, he would never have been off his phone!

He involved himself in 19th century revolutionary politics and lived beyond his means for many years, mixing music, politics and amorous affairs in a high-powered cocktail which saw him move all over Europe, just keeping ahead of his creditors and his political enemies. He was finally exiled from Germany after the revolutionary uprisings in 1848, and found himself in Zürich, then Venice and Paris. This period of exile lasted from 1849 until 1862, when the ban was lifted, and he settled for a time in Biebrich, near Wiesbaden. The accession to the throne of Bavaria by Ludwig II, in 1864, transformed Wagner’s life. The young king, aged 18 at his coronation, was fanatically attached to Wagner’s music, and brought the composer to Munich. At a stroke, all Wagner’s debts were paid off, and Ludwig determined that he would give much of his wealth and power to further the career and fame of the composer. The previously unperformed ‘Tristan und Isolde’ was given a premiere at the National Theatre in Munich, and money was thrown at Wagner by the young king. His influence over Ludwig was deeply resented at the court, and Wagner’s scandalous affair with Liszt’s daughter Cosima, who was married to the conductor of Tristan, Hans von Bűlow, and who gave birth to a daughter, Isolde, by Wagner not Von Bűlow, forced the king to exile the composer once more to Switzerland, where he set him up in the beautiful villa, Triebschen, on the shores of Lake Lucerne. Wagner’s estranged wife, Minna, died in 1866, and after much pleading from Cosima with her husband for a divorce (and the birth of two more children with Wagner!!), the couple finally married in August 1870. That year, at Christmas, on Cosima’s birthday, Wagner surprised his new bride with a performance of the ‘Siegfried Idyll’, a 15-instrument serenade based on the ending of the yet unperformed ‘Siegfried’.

The following year, the Wagners decided to return to Bavaria, and the project dearest to Richard’s heart, a theatre and festival dedicated to his music alone, began to take shape. At first, for various reasons, Ludwig refused to finance the enterprise, and Wagner Societies were set up all over Germany to raise funds. Eventually, Ludwig relented, and the project could go ahead, in the little town of Bayreuth, as envisaged by Wagner; a purpose-built theatre, all the time needed for rehearsal, a lovely house for the Wagners, and a festival. In 1876, the first Bayreuth Festival took place, with the world premiere of the whole Ring Cycle, an event of enormous musical importance. Wagner’s innovatory ideas for the theatre, including less than luxurious seats, every one with a perfect view and perfect acoustics, dimmed house lights for performance, and, most revolutionary of all, an orchestral pit under the stage, unseen by the audience, were revealed for the first time, and the performances (there were three full cycles that year) were attended by the great and the good from all over the world. Kings, Queens and other assorted royalty, heads of state, critics galore and a fine sprinkling of famous composers, like Grieg, Bruckner and Tchaikovsky, were all there. Opinions differed to say the least, as they still do, but no one could say it was not an extraordinary event. Wagner’s health was beginning to decline (he had severe heart problems) and he spent much of the following years in Italy, where he composed his final opera ‘Parsifal’, which was premiered at the second Bayreuth Festival in August 1882. Later that year, the family went to Venice, and it was there that Wagner suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 69. His body was taken back to Germany, and he was buried in the garden of his house, Villa Wahnfried, in Bayreuth.

I have been lucky enough over my career to sing a fair bit of Wagner. Coming to his music as an impressionable teenager, it had always been my ambition to sing some of it. Indeed, in one of my first singing lessons while still at school, I tried to sing part of Wotan’s Farewell from the end of ‘Die Walkűre’. Heaven knows what the poor singing teacher made of it, as it must have been pretty terrible, but 30 years later, I found myself singing Wotan in Longborough Festival’s inaugural Ring cycle. We used the shorter version with small orchestra, created by Jonathan Dove for the ‘Ring Saga’ which City of Birmingham Touring Opera premiered in 1990, when I sang Fafner and Hagen.

I could never have sung the whole role with full orchestra, as my voice wasn’t high enough to sustain the long pages of loud top notes, but I could sing this version, and received several great reviews. I always felt it suited me psychologically, and with a good grasp of German, I believed I could bring something special to the role. Particularly having studied with the greatest Wotan of all in Hans Hotter, I felt an affinity with the part, although in all honesty, when I worked with him, it had never seriously crossed my mind that I could sing it. Age and maturity were the principal reasons for my singing it at Longborough, along with the confidence in me of the wonderful Alan Privett and Jenny Miller, who suggested it to me. I approached singing Wotan the way I approach all my roles – work on the words and let the music flow from that beginning. The character builds from the over-confident arrogance and lust for power of the Rheingold Wotan, perfectly summed up by Wagner in the grandiose finale to the first opera, as the Gods ascend the rainbow bridge into their new home, Valhalla, in music of wonderful empty magnificence, through the tribulations and doubt of the second act of Walkűre, where his feeble attempts to thwart Fate are exposed clinically by his wife, Fricka, leading to the great monologue when he explains to Brűnnhilde how his plans for the future have been destroyed, and that Siegmund, far from being the saviour of the world, must die, at the hands of a wronged but feeble man. His wrath in Act 3 is terrible and he condemns his daughter to an ignominious fate, only for her to convince him that there is hope left, and that she can help to create the possibility of salvation. His final great aria of farewell to his daughter is one of the moments I will treasure for ever in my career, and to be able to sing it to my dear friend and colleague on stage, Jenny Miller, whom I first met as Cinderella in Guildhall in 1979 (another father/daughter opera), was a fantastic thrill.

The role of Wotan, disguised as the Wanderer, in ‘Siegfried’, also offered me life-enhancing experiences; his riddle scene with Mime, his world-weary but relaxed meeting with Alberich, all culminating in the thrilling scene at the beginning of Act 3 with Erda. There is no better feeling on stage than the pounding, surging music at the opening of the act, launching Wotan into the great peroration “Wache Wala”! Somehow, this music, although very high for a bass, seems easy, as you are apparently carried along on a magnificent bed of sound from the orchestra. By now, Wotan has come to terms with his fate and the fate of the world, and yet, Wagner reserves a twist at the end when he expects an easy conversation with the young Siegfried, but is goaded into a final rage by the reckless and fearless boy. When Siegfried shatters Wotan’s spear and passes on his way, you are left utterly drained and defeated, and can only summon up the exhausted phrase: “Go on. I cannot stop you!” The dominion of the Gods is over, and it is up to mankind to save the world. Eventually, after hours more of the most sublime music ever written, Love conquers all, but at what cost?!

It is one of the fascinating things about singing Wagner that, even if you have the right voice, some roles fit, and some do not. My first role was that of the Nightwatchman in ‘Die Meistersinger’, which I sang early in my career, with Scottish Opera, conducted by the great Sir Alexander Gibson. It is a tiny part, but quite significant as it occurs when you have the stage completely to yourself, and can allow you to stand out, even in an opera that lasts 5 plus hours. I was privileged to sing with Norman Bailey as Hans Sachs and Alberto Remedios as Walther, with Bill McCue as Pogner, and it was extraordinary to watch these fine singers in action from close up. Norman in particular had one of these voices that never seemed to tire, and he appeared as fresh at the end as he was at the beginning. Sachs is an interesting role to sing, and people often thought that I might sing it, as it requires both beauty of voice and great humanity in the acting, but I knew from that early experience that it was not for me. Although I had all the notes, the length and tessitura of the role were not right for me. Later I sang Pogner a few times, and found it suited me perfectly, while some other basses find it too high for them. Similarly, people generally thought the role of the giant Fasolt in the Ring would suit my voice, as it is quite lyrical, and yet, when I tried it, it felt all wrong, and I never pursued it. Instead, I sang the darker Fafner and Hagen, along with Hunding, which seemed to fit better. I was once asked to sing King Henry in ‘Lohengrin’, but managed to avoid it, as I knew it wasn’t for me.

My two greatest regrets are that I was never cast as either Gurnemanz in ‘Parsifal’ or King Mark in ‘Tristan und Isolde’, roles I considered perfect for myself. They just never came up, and sadly, I won’t sing them now. I have sung with Gwynne Howell as Sachs and watched him struggle with it. Readers of ‘A Singer’s Life’ will remember that I singled Gwynne out as my favourite British bass of all time, but his Sachs, for me, didn’t work. I have sung beside Bryn Terfel as Sachs, at Covent Garden, and was able to marvel at his command of the role (although tiring at the end), and yet, I saw him sing Wotan at the New York Met, and found myself sadly underwhelmed. Somehow, it seemed too easy for him. Maybe it was just slightly too low.

So my advice to any would-be Wagner singers (and this applies to all voice categories) is to be very careful which roles you choose to sing. If you are lucky enough to be able to sing this music at all, remember that some roles just fit better than others. The most important rule is this: size isn’t everything (as in life!). Simply having a big voice is not the be-all and end-all. It’s what you do with the voice that matters, in Wagner more than any other music. Remember that Hans Hotter, a man with perhaps the biggest voice I have ever heard, preferred to sing Schubert songs! A big noise can be thrilling, but over 5 hours, it can become monotonous and dull. Save the loud bits for the climaxes and use your voice sparingly. It will be most rewarding for the singer, and for the audience.

Richard Wagner was, seemingly, a deeply unpleasant man with political and moral views that would horrify modern taste. His huge ego made him an object of contempt among many contemporaries. Yet, it is clear that he had overwhelming charisma, and, despite his myriad flaws, he inspired love and devotion on an enormous scale. His music can provoke incomprehension among many listeners, but to his supporters, and I must include myself in these ranks, he was simply the greatest composer of opera ever to walk the earth, and I still find myself lost in admiration for his creations. I hope this article can inspire you to search out his music, especially in this modern world, full of contradictions and problems, as, for me, it reaches places other composers fail to find.