And speaking of tenors with dark lower ranges—which in this Fach means about 90% of all sung notes, a full octave-and-a-third—we have Stuart Skelton as Siegmund. There’s plenty of voice here; it’s a substantial instrument of listenable quality, which he guides with some sense of line. He has an odd way of pressing out sustained higher notes (most notably, “Wälse! Wālse!“), but never sounds in actual trouble. Being a tenor (?), he does bring in some ring in that important upper 10%. But the rest of his range, like all of Goerne’s, is uninformed by any of these overtones, so the singing lacks core and sparkle.

In the opera house, one might be grateful for the sheer substance of Skelton’s voice. But here, he and Goerne suffer the most from the recording’s greatest overall drawback: the singers (and you will rarely hear this complaint here) are recorded much too close in relation to the orchestra, and sound separate from it. Though the recording is taken from live performance, there is no sense of a hall acoustic, and not a trace of audience presence—it might as well have been recorded in a rock studio. Given this unnatural situation, in many passages it’s difficult to discern what the orchestra’s up to. Still, I think I can say this much: the Hong Kong Philharmonic, whose Music Director Mr. Van Zweden has been since 2012, is a highly capable band of typically bright, modern characteristics. They can play, and it would not surprise me to find their live sound somewhat warmer than it seems here. They aren’t, however, an opera orchestra, or one steeped in Germanic musicodramatic tradition. I don’t recall ever hearing the Prelude chug along in so rote a fashion, or the extended lyrical interludes of Act 1 repeatedly come up so bland of musical profile or empty of dramatic purpose, and between this and the absurd imbalance of the recording, I was in the blackest of moods by act’s end. Matters improved somewhat in the subsequent acts, sounding best in the biggest moments, but in operatic listening terms, this just isn’t where one wants to be in relation to this great score.

The New York Philharmonic isn’t an opera orchestra, either, and it showed in their traversal of Walküre, Act 1. But let me begin with the evening’s most positive element, the Siegmund of Simon O’Neill. With respect to meatiness and span, this is not a great Heldentenor instrument. But it is clear, centered, and present throughout its well-balanced range. Its owner has his act entirely together musically, linguistically, and interpretively, and is secure in the music’s idiom. His voice has a good gathered ring around and above the passaggio, and sounds like a tenor (remember them?) up and down its compass. This was the most enjoyable Wagnerian tenor singing I’ve heard in quite some time.

Heard live, Heidi Melton’s voice confirmed its potential (attractive basic tonal quality, sufficient amplitude for this music), and her use of it the faults suggested by the recording, reinforced by her persistence in choosing an overemphasis on individual key words as opposed to incorporating them into the line of the music. It is always embarrassing to watch singers try to act under concert conditions, but her earnest efforts to work up emotion and indicate reactions were particularly disorienting, and underlined by poorly co-ordinated physical efforts. She needs to re-group and simplify. As Hunding, John Relyea made the music work for him with with a dash of pushing here, a pinch of darkening there. I doubt, though, that this repertory is quite right for his ingratiating basso cantante.