BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Donald Runnicles - Sibelius/Wagner

Posted by Hannah McCloy on Friday 29 October 2010

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra opened their 2010/11 Glasgow season with a thrilling performance of Act 1 of Wagner’s Die Walkürie. Donald Runnicles, the BBC’s chief conductor is known as a worthy interpreter of Wagner’s operatic output, and has conducted them to great acclaim in Bayreuth (the spiritual home of Wagner opera); San Francisco, where he was artistic director until 2009; and the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, where he is currently Generalmusikdirektor.

As well as stellar playing from the orchestra, Runnicles had a star line-up of Wagnerian singers at his disposal. Heidi Melton sang Sieglinde with a great amount of intelligence, and her voice, which exudes a bright warmth, rang round the City Halls.  Australian, Stuart Skelton sang Siegmund in such a clear and magnetic way that the act’s conclusion seemed to come far too soon – not something that is said about Wagner very often!

The first half of the concert featured Vilde Frange playing the Sibelius Violin Concerto in place of the indisposed Janine Jansen with great dynamic contrast and vivacity. This was great opening concert for a very promising season that includes a tour of major concert venues in Germany and Austria in late October.

The only bug-bear would be the constant, loud, and very distracting, feedback from the microphones that were recording the concert for future BBC broadcast. Some members of the audience were in clear discomfort and one or two left during the Wagner as a result. The ushers said that nothing could be done, but general consensus led to rouge hearing aids to be believed as the culprit. Surely an announcement during the request to turn off mobile phone wouldn’t be too much trouble…

JM

Tags: City Centre, Classical