eMusic Review
One of Wagner's goals was to reform opera by replacing its showoff arias, static ensembles, choral interjections, and ballet interludes with a more flexible, naturalistic musical/dramatic format. But by the time he composed Götterdämmerung, the finale of his vast Ring of the Nibelungs tetralogy, he'd relented a bit, including mass choral scenes in the old grand opera tradition. Not that anyone really minds. Nicknamed Goddammitslong by orchestra-pit veterans, its six-hour span ends with a bang, as heroine Brünnhilde sets off the destruction of the gods — in conductor John McGlinn's hands, an explosive yet deeply poetic moment. Tristan und Isolde also ends with a soprano apotheosis, as the lovers'yearnings — represented innovatively by music of unprecedented harmonic restlessness — finally find resolution in death. Margaret Jane Wray and John Horton Murray are appropriately caressing and satin-voiced as the lovers.
