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RECORDINGS
Recital
STIG ANDERSEN: "WAGNER ARIAS"
 Arias from Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. With Pavlovski; Fosser; Ruse Philharmonic Orchestra, Borksand. CD Klassik 1011
The Dane Stig Andersen, now fifty-eight, stands among today's most accomplished and reliable Wagner tenors. This live CD, made at Bulgaria's Ruse Festival in 2008, provides a convincing sampler of his endeavors in the heroic-tenor repertory. Andersen did not come to his Fach as an ascended baritone (like his most famous Wagner-tenor countryman, Lauritz Melchior) but in the same manner as his main contemporary competition for heavyweight Wagner roles, Robert Gambill and Peter Seiffert — by working up from lyric roles. Starting as a Bayreuth chorister, Andersen made a 1978 solo debut as Le Nozze di Figaro's Don Curzio in Aarhus and made his way in Copenhagen through Almaviva and Tamino to heavier repertory such as Florestan. Within five years, he had sung Lohengrin, his first Wagner lead. His spring 2000 Met appearances (a pair each of Siegfried and Götterdämmerung) did not reflect his best form; a Siegfried in Lyon in 2007 showed a fine "middleweight Heldentenor" at the peak of his powers. Andersen returned to the U.S. in August 2009 for three Ring cycles in Seattle (see In Review, p. 50).
As heard on this disc, his voice, occasionally a little dry but retaining some lyric flexibility, is more akin to such singers as Set Svanholm and Wolfgang Windgassen than to Melchior or Max Lorenz. Attractive onstage, Andersen is a fine actor who has undertaken roles such as Peter Grimes and Otello and begun to direct. His appealing looks don't help on disc, but one can hear how intelligently he varies his tone between the lust-sated Tannhäuser in "Dir, töne Lob" and the bitter returnee from Rome, plus the very specific expressive weight he gives to words.
The selections here are "bleeding chunks," but the Tannhäuser scenes and Lohengrin's farewell are placed in context. Walther's Preislied, no longer ideal tessitura for Andersen, betrays a bit of a beat. As Venus and briefly as Elsa, Danish–Russian soprano Nina Pavlovski makes some decent, expressive sounds when not under pressure but proves unpleasant to hear most of the time: her shredded tone is frequently sharp, her German subpar. By contrast, Lars Fosser is very solid and always on pitch, his dark baritone a better dramatic match for the bluff Kurwenal than for the poetic Wolfram. Niels Borksand paces the not first-rate orchestra and chorus with reasonable style; hearty audience applause follows some selections.
DAVID SHENGOLD
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