Seattle Opera's New "Wagnerian Idols"
Seattle Opera's second International Wagner Competition on Saturday night at McCaw Hall turned up a group of eight finalists with already-burgeoning careers, any one of whom I'd be happy to see back in one of the company's productions. But after a tightly-run evening (scheduled for three and 3/4 hours, we were done in three), tenor Michael Weinius and soprano Elza van den Heever took the two $15,000 prizes. Weinius chose two arias that showed off an impressive range: his tone and manner were as honeyed in the "Prize Song" from Die Meistersinger as they were intense, even edgy, in the title character's Act 2 scene from Parsifal. Van den Heever, who also took the Audience Choice award, opened the evening with a wonderfully charming and exuberant "Dich, teure Halle" from Tannhauser , and after intermission offered a dreamy, shimmering "Einsam in truben Tagen" from Lohengrin. The choice of the orchestra (led by Asher Fisch) in their informal vote was mezzo-soprano Nadine Weissmann with two gripping excerpts from the Ring: monologues by Erda and Waltraute from Das Rheingold and Gotterdammerung.
Those were my top three picks, too; I cast my vote for Weissmann, who of all the singers I felt was the most magically skillful at pulling me in, casting the storytelling spell that seems to me to be what opera is all about. The other finalists were Erin Caves, Deborah Humble, Darren Jeffery, Jason Collins, and bass Peter Lobert, my plus-one's pick. I found his bass not ideally dark and weighty enough for the role of Hagen, Gotterdammerung's villain, but he won me over with his second selection, Daland's Weber-esque aria from The Flying Dutchman, making me think of a bunch of character parts I'd love to hear him in.
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Posted On: Sunday, Aug. 16 2009 @ 11:32PM