Strangely Shrunken ‘Siegfried’: Niall Hoskin is unimpressed by an ill-judged selection of bleeding chunks from the third act

Review of Siegfried, Act III (abridged), conducted Inkinen, Saarbrücken (SWR Music, 1 CD)

March 2020, Volume 14, Number 1, 75–7.

The choice of Pietari Inkinen as conductor of the 2020 Ring in Bayreuth came as a surprise to some: he has hitherto been active largely outside Europe, as chief conductor of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and now of the Japan Philharmonic and the Prague Symphony Orchestra. In 2013 he stepped in to conduct Opera Australia’s Ring and returned for the 2016 cycle, and for a production of Meistersinger. The 2016 Ring featured both the singers on this disc. Vinke has sung Siegfried at the Met, Covent Garden, Bayreuth and elsewhere, while Lindstrom’s Brünnhilde has been heard in Hamburg and Leipzig. This recording may be meant as a glance back to the Opera Australia production or a kind of calling card for Bayreuth. Either way, it is a strange choice of material, compromised by major shortcomings.