Wagner - Siegfried

The Guardian 80

O’Neill/Goerne/Cangelosi/Van Mechelen/Melton/Hong Kong PO/Van Zweden
(Naxos, four CDs)

The Naxos Ring cycle continues on schedule. As with the Rheingold released in 2015 and last year’s Die Walküre, this Siegfried is based on concert performances – which Jaap van Zweden conducted in Hong Kong earlier this year. And the qualities that made the previous instalments such recommendable bargains are mostly maintained, though the standard of the singing is less consistently high.

What is utterly consistent is the excellence of the Hong Kong Philharmonic’s playing. Even if it lacks the tonal depth and individual character that might be expected from one of the great European orchestras with a long Wagner pedigree, it is always utterly secure and ever responsive to Van Zweden’s fine-grained control. There’s never a shortage of lustre or refinement – the flood of tone at the opening of the third-act duet between Brünnhilde and Siegfried is thrilling evidence of that – while Van Zweden’s mastery of the huge dramatic arcs in all three acts of Siegfried never falters.