This part really does pose unique demands, even beyond those of sheer onstage time. Relative to that of Siegmund, it has a far higher quotient of top notes, many with a sharper quick-twitch response time (Siegmund has but a single A-natural to voice, and that one well prepared-for), and relative to Tristan, a far lower portion of long, essentially lyrical legato lines, growing up from a low-range  grounding. (Tristan’s Act 3 ravings are certainly difficult, carrying a heavy burden in emotional expression. But from an end-of-show, vocal-chops p.o.v., Siegfried’s final scene is every bit as stressful. I’m afraid Wagner set the model here for what Richard Strauss felt he could ask of his tenor gods, and with a half-step augmentation at the top.) And compared with his mature self in Götterdämmerung, the young Siegfried has the bounding-youth problem, which, as Schager implied in an NYT interview, may help to carry a temperamentally well-suited singer through on a sustained adrenaline rush, but not necessarily in full possession of his faculties.

This last observation is germane to Schager’s Act 1, wherein his bright, strong tone was firm in the frequently stressed third that lies above the passaggio but persistently a-tremble in the octave and a half below that, except in the occasional more subdued phrases. This, combined with a generalized physical energy that resulted in repeated arm-flinging and pointing on downbeats and other accented notes, made for a rather off-putting impression through the extended scenes with Mime. The instincts were right, but not dramatically disciplined. I despaired of my case for Siegfried of Siegfried as an adolescent of observable great promise, deserving of our patience. With the more foursquare rhythms and block-like vocal structure of the Forging Song, along with its defined physical tasks to fulfill, his voice and behavior gained in coherence, and he finished the act well. In Act 2, now beyond the incessant scampering, he continued to improve. The Waldweben episode was quite beautifully sung, and despite no help at all from the staging, his engagement with his inner thoughts, with Nature and the Woodbird, had warmth and even a measure of charm. He surmounted Act 3 with good command, still fresh-sounding in the final scene, conveying some personality while coping with set and staging.

The evening’s other elements did not sustain the level set by the male singers. To wit:

The Woodbird (Erin Morley): A pretty sound, and a quick, narrow vibrato isn’t necessarily amiss here. Hers, though, has an excursion wider than ideal, and this blurred some of the darting, chattery lines. Possibly her positioning was not acoustically favorable. Or, possibly, amplification was involved.

Erda: Karen Cargill’s voice lacks the deep, settled contralto timbre required by the role. It’s a watery-sounding midweight mezzo, again beset with tremulous activity too much of the time. Simply poor casting, and on the Voice-Type-101 level.

Brünnhilde: I first heard Christine Goerke in her early career phase, as Gluck’s Iphigénie (in Tauris, not Aulis) at the New York City Opera. She sang it stiffly but impressively, with a quantity and quality of soprano sound seldom heard from the State Theatre’s stage in those years. At next meeting, she was Elvira in a Met Don Giovanni. That was less happy—clumsy vocally and physically, without the technique to float the soft B-flats in “Taci, ingiusto core“—but with the instrument still showing much potential. She seemed more an Anna than an Elvira, except that one could not imagine her bringing off the Mask Trio or the allegretto of “Non mi dir.” She then wisely embarked on a period of re-study, with Diana Soviero, and re-emerged, to great acclaim, in German dramatic soprano parts. I heard her in that capacity as the Färberin in Die Frau ohne Schatten, which I enjoyed. Contrary to many reports, I didn’t hear her voice as miraculously larger. It was always large, however constrained by her roles. But it was surely freer and more malleable, with an easier top and a warmed -up timbre, and these qualities were welcome in a role originally intended not for a Heldensopran or a converted mezzo, but for the Jugendlich calibration and feminine emotionality of Lotte Lehmann. The sole blemish on her singing in Frau was a patch of uncontrolled vibrato, like a fibrillation, that came and went in the upper-middle range (E, F, F#). Subsequently, during a video viewing of some gala concert or other, I noticed a wild tongue fluttering associated with this sound—never a good sign.