In the MET ©Ken Howard

Aix-en-Provence 2007

In July 2007, Die Walküre  premiered in Aix-en-Provence, an extraordinary event. Not only was it Simon Rattle’s (and Aix’s) first Ring, it also marked a truly sensational debut of ‘our’ Eva-Maria Westbroek at the festival.

Stéphane Braunschweig’s production was highly ingenious, with lots of glass and steel. And yet nowhere did he break with tradition. Wotan (a beautiful, very humane and fragile Willard White) was very much like a spectator from the very first scene, literally watching everything and everybody and sort of playing a game of Stratego with his ‘pawns’ at the beginning of the second act.

The young Mikhail Petrenko (Hunding) bore a strong resemblance to Putin, adding to the grim character of his role.

After a firm start, Rattle kept the orchestra supple and light. It gave the beautifully sung ‘Winterstürme’ by Robert Gambill an almost belcanto-like character, and the love duet that followed sounded naturally innocent.

Eva-Maria Westbroek and Robert Gambill

Westbroek’s voice – radiant, voluminous and yet very lyrical – has thousands of nuances, giving a different colour to all of her character’s feelings (love, sadness, joy, innocence and longing) (BelAir BAC 034).

Bayreuth

In 2009, Opus Arte recorded Christian Thielemann’s complete Ring in Bayreuth and released it on CD a year later (OA CD900B D). I was particularly happy with it. The sound was superb and the scoring phenomenal, with Eva-Maria Westbroek in Die Walküre as Sieglinde and Endrik Wottrich as Siegmund.

©Enrico Nawrath

Fortunately, Opus Arte released the production on CDs, because I understood from reviews, reports and excerpts that the production was a total failure. In fact, it was so bad that the audience was too tired to boo.

The circumstances were not optimal either. Lars von Trier returned the assignment to direct the Ring at the last minute, so the job ended up in the hands of Tankred Dorst. And Dorst is a renowned playwright but he is not an opera director.
Tankred_
So can anyone tell me why Opus Arte still recorded Die Walküre on DVD in 2010 (OA 1045 D)? Albert Dohmen (Wotan) and Linda Watson (Brünnhilde) are good and Thielemann conducts beautifully, but a year earlier they had also been present. Edith Haller was promoted from Helmwige to Sieglinde, which I have reservations about. Johan Botha (Siegmund) is a matter of taste.

Frankfurt 2010

On 28 April 2012, two Dutch stars sang like angels in Die Walküre at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. At the side of his wife Eva-Maria Westbroek, Frank van Aken made his unexpected debut at the famous opera house as a last-minute substitute.

Frank van Aken and Eva-Maria Westbroek in the MET ©Ken Howar

Anyone listening to BBC 3 could witness it (no, NTR was not there). There was no recording made of it, although I have every confidence in the pirates.

© Monika Rittershaus

It was not the first time that the Westbroek/Van Aken couple performed as Siegmund and Sieglinde. In 2010, they sang the roles to huge acclaim in Frankfurt. Oehms (OC 936) recorded the performance live and we should be very happy about that. Not only because our star singers were finally immortalised on CD – and then together! – but also because of the truly fantastic music and singing

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Susan Bullock was a truly irresistible Brünhilde and Terje Stensvold an impressive Hunding. Big part in the success was also conductor Sebastian Weigle.

https://www.operaonvideo.com/die-walkure-frankfurt-2012-weigle/

New York 2013

Westbroek also featured in the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of the Ring (the one with ‘the machine’). Her Siegmund was sung peerlessly by Jonas Kaufmann and Deborah Voight was a radiant Brünhilde.

Westbroek sings ‘Du bist der Lenz’:

Robert Lepage was the director and as such also responsible for the machine that occasionally faltered. (Near) accidents also happened – fortunately all with a happy ending. But just imagine… The production won the ‘classical Grammy’ in the opera category. Rightly so? Opinions are divided on that.

Plácido Domingo interviews Westbroek and Kaufmann: