New press reviews of the recording of Die Walküre

The renowned British music historian, music critic and writer Norman Lebrecht, the author of the book Who Killed Classical Music?, music reviewer for The Daily Telegraph and The Evening Standard and presenter of BBC Radio’s programme Lebrecht.live as well as his own internet blog was thrilled with the Russian interpretation of Die Walküre, the first recording from Wagner’s grandiose tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen. The absolutely stellar cast and the depth of Valery Gergiev’s interpretation of Die Walküre have created, in his opinion, a recording unparalleled in our time.
“Over the past week I have been test-driving the first segment of the St Petersburg Wagner Ring to come out on record. It’s sound years ahead of the dull Met compilation that won a Grammy last night.
“In what may be the first Ring ever recorded in Russia, music director Valery Gergiev gathers the hottest cast on earth. Jonas Kaufmann is a stress-free Siegmund. Nina Stemme mitigates power with beauty as Brünnhilde, René Pape is a strident Wotan and Anja Kampe an affecting Sieglinde. The remainder of the cast is Russian, though you would hardly know it from the crispness of their German diction and the tightness of the ensemble.
“Gergiev here has pasted a layer of international glitz over an indigenous orchestra that plays with an intermittent roughness. Over four hours, the faint orchestral rasp adds a brutal undertone to the godly negotiations, a husky reminder of life’s fragility and a Dostoyevskian twist to the tale.
“Gergiev is magisterial in Wagner, a rampaging pagan among the gods. Ex-Decca producer James Mallinson rules the sound decks and the result in this, the first of four releases, is as gripping as any Wagner recording of recent times, a box to sit unblushing beside Solti’s everlasting benchmark.”

Pierre Flinois, the reviewer of France’s Classica magazine, also commented on the disc’s release, saying “Valery Gergiev has been performing Der Ring des Nibelungen with the Mariinsky Opera all over the world for almost ten years now. This Russian orchestra and opera company are often phenomenal, and the maestro’s almost physical sense of the score ensures the dramatic and musical essence of the tragedy is at the fore.
“This recording features the same orchestra but an international cast of soloists. Under the exemplary conducting of Gergiev the Russian musicians demonstrate luxury, sensitivity and an abundance of sound colours. Jonas Kaufmann as Siegmund, gloomy and mournful, perturbed and touching, is an example, so rare today, of vocal embodiment. The vivid image of Mikhail Petrenko’s Hunding lacked a little depth of timbre. Gubanova, a magnificent Fricka, has a majestic and overwhelming voice, the likes of which we have not heard since the times of Christa Ludwig. Brünnhilde, the regal Nina Stemme whose voice in this role acquires a darker colour in comparison with Isolde and sounds bold is initially cool and determined with vocal majesty. One of the highlights of the recording is when she predicts Siegmund’s death in Act II.”

American newspaper The Washington Post writes that “This new version (of Die Walküre) – the first instalment of a projected complete Ring cycle from the historic Mariinsky Theatre in Russia – is a worthy addition, thanks to the rapturous sweep that conductor Valery Gergiev achieves with the orchestra and to the deluxe cast, headed by today’s reigning Brünnhilde, Swedish soprano Nina Stemme. She has the warmth as well as the steely strength to embody the warrior goddess who learns compassion at the cost of her immortality. Bass René Pape brings his trademark silken smoothness to the role of Wotan, and if one or two high notes sound effortful, he more than compensates with his deeply felt interpretation as an unusually brooding and introspective god. Tenor Jonas Kaufmann and soprano Anja Kampe are just about ideal as the twins Siegmund and Sieglinde, while mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova is a plush-voiced Fricka who sounds at times uncannily like the great Christa Ludwig.”

Sabine Lang, reviewer of Norddeutscher Rundfunk, named the recording “Disc of the week”: “Wagner’s Die Walküre is frequently interpreted as celebratory music. Conductor Valery Gergiev consciously opts not to do this – with the exception of the grandiose finale. In Act I when Siegmund (Jonas Kaufmann) and Sieglinde (Anja Kampe) meet as lovers, Gergiev does not depict a bellicose hero. He goes for soft, very quiet sounds. 
“He shows us abandoned and utterly lonely people whose traumatised souls are reflected in the empathetic sound of the strings. That night, when the winter storms succeeded to the May bliss of spring, here everything is decided by just one thing: poetry.”