Thank you very much for posting this performance, despite its technical defects and incompleteness. Thomas Stewart is outstanding Wotan. So much subtler and more emotionally stirring, and with so much finer diction than than the venerable Hotter on Solti's Ring. I have never seen James Dean on the screen but I too find the combination with Wagner's music quite moving, if a bit strange and unexpected. Thank you very much again for posting this treasure.
yes, i'll never forget the first time i heard and saw it on a new york metropolitan video: the scene, the unexpected plot, wotan and his daughter, the goodbye and the love between them- and the way wagner's music and the baritone's voice so utterly transcended the mundane!
@thetuxguy5 Me too! I remember the first time I heard it. I was watching a video of the Met doing Die Walkure, and I had no idea what to expect, and when Wotan sang his goodbye to Brunhilde, I was floored. So beautiful, so full of feeling.
This is great way to keep Thomas Stewart's work before the public..Its too bad this excertpt of Walkure is just a bit too long for a RU-vid video. I like this combination BTW..an appropriate lament.
@parsifal3142 I remember the first time I heard/saw this goodbye, on the videotape of the Metropolian Opera. I hadn't read the libretto, didn't know what was coming, and I was moved beyond words, truly awed.
@parsifal3142 I like your interpretation. Consciously, I was responding emotionally to the goodbye music, but your insight into the plot/history parallels works very nicely. I also like what you say about the opera leading up to this goodbye just as Beethoven's sympthony leads up to the Ode to Joy. I must listen to the 9th again!
You are very perceptive! Some reviewers at the time might have commented on the size of his voice - and that the Met is a 3800 seat house. Though he wasn't a George London, he did not have a problem being heard anywhere in that house. Additionally, Karajan took a decidedly non-traditional turn with parts of his Ring which was cause for some reviewers to comment negatively.
This video is my way of saying goodbye to James Dean, even though he went long ago. I find Wotan's farewell to Brunehilde particularly affecting, which is why I used it. Dean's soulfulness and the music seem to complement one another.
THANK YOU. Third Act of Ring II! I was exposed to this monumental music when I was a teenager. Have never quite recovered! I love this as it is - without sounding ungrateful, any chance the two breaks in the beginning can be fixed?
Do you have the very end from this (the last several minutes with the fire music and Wotan's last phrase)? Id love to hear it, I enjoy what Stewart is doing with Wotan.
@dadasopher I feel the whole opera has been a build up to this, just as the whole Ninth is a build up to the Ode to Joy. Don't know if this is what was on your mind but: 1 Wotan putting Brunhilde 'to sleep' and her waking up un-aged as a metaphor for James Dean's early death or 2 (simply) beautiful music / beautiful actor?
I was rehearsing this earlier today. On the ride home, with it still in my head, Lady GaGa came on the radio. It was like brushing my teeth then drinking a beer - was really awful. I immediately turned the stereo off.
I had the privilege of seeing Thomas Stewart as Wotan in both Karajan's Salzburg and Met productions in the late 1960's. He was by far the most "erudite" Wotan I ever experienced!
I saw Thomas Stewart at Bayreuth: my first Walkure Wotan and certainly my favourite. It wasn't only the singing, I will never forget his walk off stage at the end!!! It seemed to sum up all Wotan's failings and regrets.
@olivleonardo That the person who posted it is a gay man? Still, I appreciate him posting, & it was far more interesting that just posting a publicity still of whoever's singing.
I was a dean aholic years ago--but don't understandt he connection you are making here with Wagner....Dean actually preferred Bartok and STravinsky. Play the "miraculous mandarin"--THAT Jimmy would have liked!
