From a Whimper to a Bang: Wagner with the BSO

March 19, Symphony Hall; Prelude to Lohengrin; Wesendonck Lieder, sung by Waltraud Meier; and the Ring, an orchestral adventure, arr. Henk de Vlieger; conducted by Edo de Waart

The Boston Symphony Orchestra, which often sounds like a provincial orchestra when it comes to Wagner, redeemed itself over the course of the evening on March 19 at an all-Wagner concert conducted by Edo de Waart (see “A Conversation with Waltraud Meier and Edo de Waart”). The concert began inauspiciously, with yet another prosaic, lackadaisical, and mundane rendition of a Prelude (Lohengrin), which was neither shimmery nor inspiring.

Waltraud Meier’s Wesendonck Lieder, however, more than made up for the BSO’s clunkiness. Meier produced terrific vocal modulations. She glided over the notes of the five songs with a rare and refined smoothness, despite occasionally being drowned out by the orchestra. Her “Träume” was a veritable dream, subtle and buttery.

Before the evening’s concert, I had grave reservations about listening to a condensed version of the Ring cycle, but de Waart elicited such fabulous sounds from the BSO, especially the trumpets in the entry into Valhalla, that I became a quick convert. The dwarves’ anvils (from behind a curtain) were a marvel. Later on, the exhilarating sound of the Ride of the Valkyries filled the hall. It seemed that the focus of this condensed Ring was more on Siegfried than on Die Walküre, which unfortunately got short shrift. During a spellbinding rendition of Siegfried’s Funeral March (Götterdämmerung), the cellos played with great depth and heft. The transition to the finale, however, was somewhat abrupt, and the last few bars of the Immolation Scene sounded a bit muddy.

–Dalia Geffen