West-Eastern Divan Orchestra / Barenboim / Meier / O'Neill / Pape - Salle Pleyel, Paris, 25 August 2008

Schoenberg Variations for Orchestra, Op.31
Wagner Die Walküre, Act I
Just a few days after the Barenboim/Divan Proms, I was in Paris for second helpings - quite literally in the case of the Schoenberg Orchestral Variations, a repeat of the lush, expansive London performance.
The Parisian audience, totally starved of music for the last month (when they say everything shuts down in Paris in August, they mean it), lapped it up. Despite charging double the regular Salle Pleyel prices (and ouch, that rampant Euro really hurts these days), the concert was a sell-out. A long and over-optimistic returns queue snaked across the entrance as I arrived. A few enterprising punters even waved banknotes hopefully at the incoming ticket holders. Was it really just because there was nothing else on that night? Or had it become, despite low-key publicity, a bit of an Occasion? It was reported that Barenboim had paid Sarko a visit earlier in the day, an encouraging sign. Can you imagine Gordon 'Arctic Monkeys' Brown owning up to having even heard of Daniel Barenboim?
Barenboim's Wagner is of course legendary, and I'm sure Die Walküre and its starry trio of soloists were the main attraction of the evening for many.
Although this was a concert performance, there were no seats and no scores for the singers.
Of the three, Waltraud Meier proved most able to take advantage of this, ignore the surroundings and throw herself into her role, despite the conductor's podium separating her from her Siegmund, Simon O'Neill. Her ever-unpredictable intonation firmed up as she progressed, and her voice seemed as agelessly smooth as her forehead (compare and contrast if you will with a violinist half her age, left).
O'Neill's sound, clean and hard-edged, is not the biggest voice, but it cut through the orchestra like a laser. A long-breathed "Wälse!" that left him purple-faced was one of several moments that tested his limits, and he looked less at ease with the compromises of the concert format than Meier. Good Wagnerian tenors are in short supply, and he's definitely in the top drawer. But I find the voice simply efficient, like bleach scouring a blocked drain, and hard to warm to.
Rene Pape was his usual laconic self. Added to this, the part of Hunding lies a little low for him, so it was a less than jaw-dropping performance, but the natural beauty of his voice shone through.
Almost inevitably though, Barenboim was the real star, teasing a thrilling performance from the orchestra, even if it lacked a little of the weight and refinement customary in his Wagner.
I don't think I've ever heard applause quite as shattering and prolonged as what followed. There was an almost instant standing ovation, and few audience members left, even though Barenboim took his time going round each orchestra member thanking them individually. He hugged, he kissed, he shook hands. Another first - I've never seen him smile so genuinely or respond so warmly as he did to the young musicians of the orchestra.
There was to be no encore though - just a speech (in perfect French).
Barenboim started by explaining his extended individual congratulations - it was because it was their "last concert". Leader Michael Barenboim almost jumped out of his seat, then sank back as his father corrected himself "that is, the last concert of the summer".
He went on to say that each musician had shown enormous courage in coming to play in the orchestra.
"It's not a political project, but a third way. We think only that there's no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We want to learn to live together".
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