FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

Magic condensed yet still powerful

Magic condensed yet still powerful

Opera Siam and the Siam Sinfonietta are poised to present a 90-minute rendition of Wagner's sprawling Ring Cycle

Opera Siam is commencing its 15th season on November 7 with a feat of orchestral wizardry, compressing Richard Wagner’s 16-hour Ring Cycle into a mere 90 minutes.
Aiding the Siam Sinfonietta under Somtow Sucharitkul with this extraordinary work will be dramatic soprano Jessica Chen and one of the world’s top heroic tenors, Lars Cleveman.
Making a surprise last-minute visit to Thailand for the occasion, Cleveman has performed “Siegfried” and “Tristan und Isolde” at the New York Met, Covent Garden in London and the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, so she knows her way around Wagner’s Ring. 
An entertaining narrative by Somtow will link the mostly orchestral excerpts, but the musical highlights will include the “forging song” from “Siegfried” and “Brunnhilde’s Immolation” from “Gotterdammerung”.
The Siam Sinfonietta, the youth orchestra that has toured three continents and won numerous awards, has a special relationship with the Bayreuth Festival. 
Each year Daniel Draganov of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra helps organise a camp for Sinfonietta members, where they’re trained in the secrets of world-class musicianship by playing this, the most intense repertoire in the world. This year’s camp takes place next week, with Deutsche Oper Berlin providing experts on the trombone and bassoon. The Sinfonietta will work exclusively and intensely on the Ring Cycle until the Bangkok concert on November 7.
For conductor Somtow, this is another step in his lifelong dream of performing the entire Ring in Thailand. 
“We started in 2006 with ‘Rheingold’, which remains one of the best-selling productions the opera ever did and which got very fine reviews internationally. Our 2007 ‘Walkure’ was a mixed bag – we were going through an orchestral crisis at the time – but many aspects of the production received high praise.
“Since then we’ve had a sort of jinx on producing ‘Siegfried’, the third opera in the series. It’s been announced several times, but had a last-minute problem each time, usually because the tenor playing Siegfried became ill or had a panic attack or the like, which is not surprising since the role is perhaps the hardest in the entire repertoire.”
Somtow sees this gala concert as a way of getting the Ring back on track. “Our young orchestra is in very fine shape. They’ve just returned from a German tour that was highly successful.” In addition, some truly fine singers are featured, of a quality rarely seen in Bangkok.
The Ring Cycle is the largest musical work ever created. However, in a few years, Thailand might have a challenge for Richard Wagner: Somtow is working on a cycle of not four but 10 works of musical drama – “The Ten Lives of the Buddha”. The fourth opera in the series will debut on December 5, while No 5 will appear on Visakha Bucha Day next year.
 
WONDER OF WAGNER
- Opera Siam presents the Ring Cycle by Richard Wagner, with the Siam Sinfonietta under Somtow Sucharitkul at 7pm on Saturday at Suryadhep Music Sala at Rangsit University, Pathum Thani.
- A pre-concert lecture by Jean-Pierre Kirkland begins at 5.30pm.
- There will be shuttle buses available from Bangkok to Rangsit.
- Tickets are Bt500 and Bt1,000 (half price for students and seniors). Make reservations at goo.gl/yq2MLs or check www.ThaiTicketMajor.com. 
 - Call (02) 231 5273 or (089) 136 9981.
 
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