QUOTATIONS ABOUT TEXT PREPARATION

Excerpt from a review in the New York Times of a performance of Die Walküre at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam conducted by Kent Nagano. New York Times, March 19, 2024

This is Wagner without constant vibrato, and sometimes without traditionally operatic singing. But mostly, the difference in sound comes from the instruments themselves, both originals from the 19th century and reproductions. Historical, often temperamental winds and brasses have a milder timbre, similar to the gut strings used throughout the orchestra, which here is tuned to 435 hertz — Wagner’s preference, slightly lower than the frequency of 440 Hz used by most players today.

Nagano didn’t arrive at his approach alone. His “Ring” has an organizational arm, called Wagner-Lesarten, or Wagner Readings — now called the Wagner Cycles — which has brought together minds from music, science and history to approximate the composer’s musical world. (Much of the research and its results are or will be available to the public, through discussions, publication and, eventually, recordings.)

Fortunately, he added, Wagner was a prolific writer. (Too prolific, some might say.) He left behind his thoughts on conducting, singing, dynamics and instrumental

articulation like portamento, sliding from one note to another. “From all this,” Nagano said, “it’s clear that Wagner was very much impressed and influenced by bel canto style from Italy, but also that bel canto style combined with parlando style — highly lyrical moments, but also declamation, and screaming at times.” During Brünnhilde’s entrance in the concert “Die Walküre,” for example, she ended her “Hojotoho!” with a seemingly crass upward whip on the last syllable, like a war cry.

The question for Nagano and his team was how to apply these period touches, and how often. For voices, the goal was clarity. Wagner’s theories about music-drama — a term that puts the two forms on equal footing — called for the orchestra to support singers in ways that, Nagano found, included rubato, or slightly bent tempo, to make room for the natural flow of storytelling. Instrumental ornamentation took on dramaturgical purpose; portamento was emotional, and vibrato was no longer a given.

Training the musicians took about two years for “Das Rheingold” and a year for “Die Walküre,” unheard-of amounts of time for concert opera. But the process required some artistic rewiring. For the singers, consonants that might have been unvoiced in a modern Wagner performance would be voiced here, and drawn out. Rolled R’s, usually an interpretive choice, became standardized.

Nagano used the same rehearsal method as Wagner. The text, or what Wagner called the poem, was written before the music, so the singers approached it with a similar trajectory. When they first gathered, they spoke the libretto as if it were pure theater, Nagano said, “with a strong emphasis on punctuation marks, commas and agogic accents” — accents that also prolong a note — “and correct pronunciation of certain dialects.”

Next, the artists would again speak their lines, but with music underneath. Only at the end would they sing their notated parts. The aim is for a strict attention to the text, with performances that follow the dramatic design of Wagner’s words. By the time cast members are singing, they also know the material extremely well. It’s no surprise that at the Concertgebouw, no one relied on a score.

Joshua Barone

“When you have learned the notes, you must then speak the words to yourself to find a natural rhythm. By this, I don’t mean how the notes are written—that is set—but, rather, how they must be delivered. This is especially true of recitatives—the introductions to the arias. Recitatives are frequently very attractive in themselves and are always difficult to master, to give a proper rhythm. I learned the value of recitatives at the time of my first Norma, which I prepared with Serafin. After our first rehearsal, he said, ‘Now you go home, my dear Miss Callas, and speak these lines to yourself and let’s see what proportions, what rhythms you find. Forget that you are singing; forget what is written. Of course, respect what is written, but try to be freer, try to find a flowing rhythm for these recitatives.’”

Callas at Juilliard, the Master Classes, John Ardoin, Knopf, 1987

“She must look hard at the words and try to become familiar with Abbé Prevost’s novel (Manon Lescaut). She must declaim her part. This will be an excellent exercise for learning to phrase well, and what is more important, to recite warmly.”

Toscanini’s advice to his sister-in-law, Ida.

Harvey Sachs, Toscanini, Musician of Conscience, 2017.

“Sing the words, not the music, because in the words is the meaning, and in the meaning is the music.”

Benjamin Britten