Wagnerians in Concert: Rehearsal

Sopranos Christine Goerke and Elza van den Heever, tenor Andreas Schager, baritone Michael Volle, and pianist Craig Terry rehearse for their May 8 Met Stars Live in Concert program, transmitted from Wiesbaden, Germany. Tickets on sale now.

[@voxhumana3522]

wow - they actually START with a clip that sounds like it was chosen to prove that nobody can sing Wagner anymore. Or even made as a parody. Unbelievable.

[@aarondimoff5180]

My first thought as well. My wife across the room said "WOW what a wobble!"

[@WolfgangAPalm-ju9er]

Schager does not now anymore how to cover and innervate a simple g flat and then it comes to a simple g...He wants to make the drama by opening already the g flat, Thats a no go, we can hear the result...For Volle I have no words 🙈

[@Shahrdad]

The problem is that almost no one SINGS Wagner any more. They yell Wagner, or they scream Wagner, or they bark Wagner. He wanted his music sung as if it Bellini's Norma. You'll have to go back to Frida Leider to truly hear his music.

[@aarondimoff5180]

@@Shahrdad You're perfectly correct of course, and the irony of that, as any old-school proper Wagnerian, as my teacher's were, will tell you that screaming, or shouting Wagner will in fact make your voice smaller, and carry poorer. You sing Wagner elegantly, with beauty of tone, and if you possess an instrument with enough carrying power and heft, it will be heard perfectly fine without you "making" yourself heard. Truth be told, Verdian singers have the same delusion nowadays. It's all gone to shit, and I think nobody is more upset about that than the next generation of up and coming singers.

[@goscinnydyrygent]

@@aarondimoff5180 that last comment is actually a ray of hope. if "the next generation of up-and-coming singers" realizes that they need to overthrow the system, not conform to it, then maybe opera can revive.

[@BLOP888]

Well, the pianist is doing a good job

[@sebthi7890]

yes, i thought exactly the same Wagner opera as pantomime, how about that?

[@sebthi7890]

Florence Foster Jenkins Memorial Concert

[@djmotise]

Lmao. Good one

[@kyrarnsugr7844]

What is the point of this? Is this supposed to win fans for opera? These singers make exactly the kinds of noises that drive people away from the art form, and perhaps classical music in general. It would be best to put Wagner's operas on the shelf until we once again have singers capable of singing them.

[@mikaelb7735]

So rightly written!!!

[@napoleonicwarfare4621]

Imagine a wobble so bad it sounds like a trill.

[@jermainejr11]

This comment took me out!!!

[@musiktranen]

IKR

[@loboestepario2424]

Joan Sutherland saw this and is laughing from beyond.

[@draganvidic2039]

Goerke has a wide fluttery vibrato like a bad trill...

[@ricardosantos6925]

😂😂😂

[@gerhardrohne2361]

Wobblewobblewobble...

[@sebthi7890]

wir wobblen wieder wilden Wälsenwahn wo Walsen wehen

[@corneliuswhite5139]

The Met used to be known for the best of the best. Now it's just whoever can get through it.

[@timothymcnair1417]

Well and they’re racist as shit. There’s a lot of young Black singers who could sing the hell out of this rep way better than anyone featured here. And yes overall they’ve just gone down. I mean just awful horrible singing. Did you see the tenor taking shoulder breaths and forcing? Yeah great thing to show a beginner. It’s like 101 on how not to sing Wagner.

[@alanhowe1455]

The tenor has no business singing Siegmund. How can this travesty bring credit to the Met? The baritone's a 'big name', but doesn't have the voice either. Absolutely dreadful.

[@crazyorganist1609]

Awful. That tenor is off pitch. Im a professionally trained organist and accompanist wnd this is some of the worst singing ive ever heard in my 20 years of accompanying

[@Pianocatcat]

They are not Wagnerians

[@francobarzelatto6599]

And you sell tickets for this? This a SCAM.

[@timothymcnair1417]

It is they suck. Folks support artists in your local communities who literally do much harder work and make consistent products.

[@francobarzelatto6599]

This is so terrible. What even is that tenor’s vibrato. Wobbly and horrible. The Met is everyday getting worse. You are killing Wagner.

[@timothymcnair1417]

All of these damn light lyrics pushing their voices into rep by screaming because the met won’t recruit anyone outside of nepotism and oftentimes there’s an element of racism going on.

[@hrbooksmusic7878]

Wow, the first thing I hear is a terrible wobble... I‘m not sure whether I want to continue listening or not...

[@walterharper79]

Oh my God what happened to OPERA

[@timothymcnair1417]

This is all they do then Peter Gelb gets up and says Anna netrebko is a treasure. The woman howls all day and night that is not singing. Oh my god. And there are leagues of amazing singers waiting tables who could beast this rep like no other.

[@ransomcoates546]

Oh Lord, what torture at the very start. Every vocal fault known to history in one clip. What was that pitch , Christine?

[@timothymcnair1417]

Honey idk Christine like can’t phonate anymore she was messing with my throat tension.

[@Susanne0815]

Not Walse!!!! WÄLSE!!! 🙈

[@WolfgangAPalm-ju9er]

Will sie oder will sie nicht? 🤭 😅

[@Susanne0815]

@@WolfgangAPalm-ju9er 😂🙈

[@Ruffiello]

Yes, distorting the vowel to try to produce a bigger sound. Ugh!

[@jermainejr11]

Shameful! It’s more pitiful if he DOESN’T KNOW IF he’s singing the right vowel!!!!!

[@Ruffiello]

@@jermainejr11 He probably did it on purpose. However, a coach should have corrected him.

[@partituravid]

The tenor has a perfect 16th-note wobble. And his 1st "Wälse!" Is [a].... but it's nice to hear 'live' performance...

[@omar505]

Wow that was awful. It started off bad and ended horribly. Clearly no one in the room knows anything about how a Wagnerian voice should sound. This is the state of opera, sad days indeed.

[@squilloshoppe1038]

This is everything that is wrong with the opera world today. No disrespect to the singers, they are just trying to survive in a crazy industry. But jeez. Pretty halls and shiny dresses is not what the artform is about.

[@davidbastardo4154]

Especially not Wagner. He hated that pomposity and nonsense.

[@Hocra]

Yeah, I guess this is what it's come to.

[@zomgisha]

I don't think there is a better way to sum this video up.

[@sirdicaudore]

Pitiful screaming out of tune....

[@na_baegeen]

Who greenlit uploading this?

[@lordanychdressince2408]

So Wagner is now synonymous with a wobble?

[@melisandedebussy]

What happened to the met? This is not artistic, this is not good quality! Noooooo why are they killing the opera, i don't understand!!

[@JimSuperNova]

This is absolutely shameful. You’ve abandoned one of the greatest orchestras in the world and you will pay for this disgusting betrayal for decades. Shame on the Met management.

[@WolfgangAPalm-ju9er]

Never before I heard such a big shit 😅

[@brucekuehn4031]

“Oh, you mean Wagner wrote music for orchestra too?” he typed derisively.

[@sebthi7890]

Did the pianist weeped after the show?

[@donaldkane1714]

Wagner with piano accompaniment is hopeless, but I loved Christine Goerke as Elsa in the scene from LOHENGRIN.

[@judithdemers9352]

truly lovely opera

[@davidbastardo4154]

I don't know why Schager sounds so bad here. He was fairly good in the Parsifal which Barenboim conducted at Berlin in 2015. I know people who saw him recently as Siegfried in Madrid, and they were very impressed by him. Although, honestly, I didn't like him in that Ring which Jordan conducted for the Paris radio last December either. The same wobble as here.

[@wlclarkeson7357]

Embarrassing. Just embarrassing in every sense.

[@WolfgangAPalm-ju9er]

I Never listened to such a pain in the ass for quite a long time 🤣🤣🤣

[@greatmomentsofopera7170]

What on earth?

[@Buike_98]

Too much wobble😣

[@davy91101]

Who was he tenor? The wobble was not incipient but utterly manifest. To hear this passage sung as it should listen to Jon Vickers on either the Leinsdorf of HvK recording. I assume it was Schager. Pitiful.

[@nathanschafer6420]

I have nothing nice to say

[@ryankantor6607]

More bad singing from the met. Yikes. What’s the point of this company again?

[@herrbrucvald6376]

If you want to hear some really great baritone/bass voices after this, go to my YT playlist "Donizetti arias for baritone". Wagner wanted his singers to have Italianately beautiful, supported, unforced, 'open' sound. Not this. The reason they're bawling is because their natural instruments lack intrinsic power. Schager is...I'll leave it be.

[@yashin1669]

Nice to see them back but I didn't like the way Schager was holding onto the note in Walse. Didn't see a need for it

[@angryjalapeno]

Also without the dramatic orchestral part afterwards, it doesn't have quite the punch.

[@emanuelschweikert]

The mixed voices piece at the end, wath it was from ?

[@stevenmathers6661]

Die frau ohne schatten

[@dawson03]

Vraiment tragique

[@ricardosantos6925]

[@pump066]

Not very promising.

[@kipaihalainen6146]

Uu mamma mua I like this Song

[@jaykeyz9094]

I liked the baritone!

[@stezstezic4450]

Good lord, what a travesty!

[@Brindisi860]

Yikes.

[@WolfgangAPalm-ju9er]

„Walse“? Es ist ja nur noch grauenhaft 🤭😅🙈

[@noblesetsentimentales]

Por esta razón una gran parte del público de hoy desprecia a Wagner. Qué pena.

[@timothymcnair1417]

Last comment why in the hell did they post this? This is awful!!!!!!!!!!! There are literally upper undergrads and first level masters degree students who could out-sing everyone on this clip.

[@taylorjones2705]

Man. Sounds really good with no orchestra! Too bad you guys don’t have one... 🙄

[@loboestepario2424]

The whole Gibichung clan and their horses passed through that wide wobble. Yikes.

[@onigbajamo]

Not y'all flaming them 😭

[@draganvidic2039]

The small voiced soprano is ok. The rest are not. So sad. Really. Poor people paying to hear voiceless ”stars”…

[@michaeltortora8563]

Horrible!!! Sub standard singing. Absolutely shameful. Done with the Met.

[@chaserooface]

Why does anyone want to listen to Wagner on piano? Both singer and pianist seem exhausted, everytime.

[@RealRyanWorkman]

Tragedarians

[@aliciaflorez4825]

If Wagner were alive he would state his wish is to prevent Madame Goerke from singing his works ever again and may she service her administration role much better then her terrible singing for which she was never equipped to perform. Two of these voices are repugnant. This is what is quality? Shame on the MET for flying these "entertainers" here. Your orchestra could have been paid and you could have employed your own country's people. Instead you give us disgust which covers the only worthwhile instrument, a piano.

[@davidbastardo4154]

I thought three of the voices were repugnant: Schager, van den Heever and Goerke. Volle himself is not terrible, but he has a weak timbre. Not enough potency to be a Wagnerian baritone, I'm afraid.

[@barryb.foldin5655]

🤦🏻

[@user-sp5ki3qb5o]

I want the all of the opera singers in the all of the world are could be able to spoke, speak, chat, and a sing with a dominant of the introvert, chipper, tinkling, squeak, chirrup, snuffle, unique, warble, clatter, twang, jangle, cheep, tweet, nasal, clang, tinkle, clank, jingle, chirp, peep, clink, ring, and a pip.

[@mikaelb7735]

May i say : AWFUL!! This should never have been made. But......on the other hand we do not have to worry about a new generation of Opera goers/ Wagner lovers. And is it not any, if even slight, self criticism among these four singers? Can of course be seen as a fantastic example in wobbling .......

[@timothymcnair1417]

The staging is just so arrogant that best of luck to opera making it the next 10 years. All white singers per usual. And technique was just poor except for the woman in the blue dress who sang lyrically. Wagner isn’t about screaming no music is. Wagner is about line not volume hell all music is.

[@timothymcnair1417]

Woman in the blue dress is a damn singer. The rest as stated below sound like caricatures of a bugs bunny cartoon

[@alleviation91]

Opera and classical music are predominately consumed, and participated in by white people, so all-white singers is an expectation, not a hurdle. Different cultures practice different cultural events, who knew. The singing is beyond ghastly, true enough. That's probably where our agreement both starts and stops.

[@antigonetsarapatsanis1882]

ΜΠΡΑΒΟ

[@oswaldcoppelpot2543]

👀, why all this disrespectful hate '??... 🐧, loved it... thanks to the singers & the met ✨🎼✨ (&just in case if someone tries to convince, got ears)

[@gummypusswatterson1322]

would you honestly say that the sounds you hear these singers producing are pleasant and that you enjoy them? listen to birgit nillson, kirsten flagstad, mario del Monaco (just to name a few) to hear actually great singers with big voices, big voices that should be cast in wagner's operas

[@oswaldcoppelpot2543]

@@gummypusswatterson1322 yes, it is & the little old 🐧prefers nilsson as a wagner soprano on cd for sure, but as you know she is sadly passed away & those singers can bring you joy in an opera house these days, cause they are living & bring the greatness of opera music to new generations of listeners ✨🙌🏻✨

[@gummypusswatterson1322]

@@oswaldcoppelpot2543 that's the problem though; these singers aren't bringing glory to opera, if anything, this is the stuff that drives people away from it. it's not even entirely their fault though, this is the result of decades of bad teaching being passed down, inexperienced conductors who don't know how to work with opera, and directors casting people based on their looks rather than their voice

[@alleviation91]

@@oswaldcoppelpot2543 I'm really not trying to rain on your parade, but you don't necessarily need to praise and enjoy all extant versions of art. It's okay to say that the singers are bad, and still attend live performances. I do it frequently, terrible singing, ghoulish staging, and all.

[@deanrantz1112]

......Well.... It's a *Rehearsal*