Ring cycle day three: Siegfried's growing pains sound wonderful
Wagner's music continues to work its subtle magic, and we meet
the teenager from hell. Prom 18 - Siegfried Lance Ryan as
Siegfried and Nina Stemme as Brünnhilde in Wagner?s Siegfried at
the BBC Proms  Three days have passed since we left Brünnhilde
on a mountain-top, fast asleep in a circle of fire. In that
time, two miracles have happened. The first is that Siegfried, a
mere twinkle in his mother's eye on Tuesday, is now a strapping
lad with a fearless heart and growing pains. The other is that
the music of the first two operas in Wagner's Ring Cycle (Das
Rheingold and Die Walküre) has had time to marinate in me, and
the experience of last night's Siegfried at the BBC Proms was
all the richer, more flavoursome for it.  Wagner's music is
really beginning to get under my skin. It's doing it in a way
I'm not used to. Most music, after a while, worms in through the
ear and lodges there, unabashed; but this (leitmotifs aside) is
not music I can sing