United Kingdom The London Opera Company’s Siegfried: Soloists, The London Opera Company Orchestra / Peter Selwyn (conductor). Sinfonia Smith Square, 2.11.2025. (KB)
Cast:
Siegfried – Brad Cooper
Mime – Colin Judson
The Wanderer – Simon Thorpe
Alberich – Stephan Loges
Fafner – Thomas D Hopkinson
Woodbird – Louise Fuller
Erda – Harriet Williams
Brϋnnhilde – Cara McHardy
Since its modest beginnings in 2020, in a Waterloo studio performing Tristan und Isolde to an audience of 60, The London Opera Company has established itself as a significant player on London’s operatic scene, with annual high quality Wagnerian performances, now accompanied by its own orchestra. At present the company is moving through the Ring cycle, and this year’s Siegfried was one of its most memorable occasions yet.
The company scored a coup by securing the London debut of Brad Cooper, who has already been announced as Grange Park Opera’s Siegfried-elect. He is a force to be reckoned with. As a pupil of Siegfried Jerusalem and having worked with Anthony Negus on the Ring in Ballerat, Australia, he could scarcely come with a better pedigree. The subtlety and nuance he brought to this frequently unsubtle role were astonishing. Siegfried’s relationship with Mime became so much more than master and punchbag. Beneath the banter, bluster and antagonism, there was always genuine concern. Mime was the only person that Siegfried had ever known, and while they might irritate the hell out of each other, there was real depth and even a hint of grudging affection between them. The discovery of Mime’s betrayal hit Siegfried very hard and made his stroppy treatment of the Wanderer understandable: having just been betrayed by someone he thought he knew well, Siegfried was not inclined to trust a complete stranger. Only with Brünnhilde could he at last find someone whom he could truly trust and love. And Cooper’s singing was at one with the detail of his characterisation. Rarely, if ever, have I heard this role sung with so much light and shade, such grace and delicacy, and when power was required, it came naturally, without forcing. After the performance, I had a most illuminating conversation with him, in which he said that two years ago, he was singing Nemorino, and that Jerusalem had advised him to sing Siegfried like Nemorino. Which is precisely what he has done.
Colin Judson is one of those pocket tenors who was born to play Mime. His partnership with Cooper was a joy, with his nervous eyes constantly darting above the top of his score, just in case Siegfried was about to attack him unawares, and his interplay with the Wanderer and with Alberich was something to treasure. His strong, characterful voice made him an equal partner in opera’s longest duet for two tenors, and he really sang it, with no barking or screeching. I would love to see him play Mime on the stage. Simon Thorpe’s Wanderer, sung in a gorgeous, nut-brown baritone, gave the sorrowing god a deep warmth and a surface geniality which could not conceal the layers of pain beneath. Stephan Loges was luxury casting as a forbidding Alberich: he is a master Lieder singer, and he gave the Nibelung’s rages enormous power and dignity but also a Lieder-like precision, control and elegance. Thomas D Hopkinson was a mighty-voiced Fafner.
Is there another opera, with the obvious exception of Billy Budd, which waits so long before introducing a single female voice? Louise Fuller sang her beguiling Woodbird from the balcony, out of sight of many of the audience, and it was not until she joined the final lineup that many of us could see that she wore a delicious, and highly appropriate, feathered hat. The first woman on the platform was Harriet Williams’s remarkable Erda, all in black, who sat motionless, her hands in her lap, her eyes closed, while the Wanderer sang his invocations above her. When she stirred, it was not simply an awakening. It was as though she were slowly returning to life from the immobility of death, and her voice was, like her, rooted deep beneath the ground. But when she was fully conscious, and understood the drift of the Wanderer’s narrative, her fury and indignation were lively. Unable to fight him, her return to endless sleep was the only solution. By contrast, Cara McHardy’s divine Brünnhilde was only asleep, curled up against the chair where her mother had sat, and when she awakened, her ‘Heil dir, Sonne!’ was like the sunrise itself. She sounds better every time I hear her. At the end of this amazing performance, she was a complete knockout, with that amazing voice soaring to the sky, and her singing blended most beautifully with Cooper’s.
One of The London Opera Company’s most valuable services to the musical scene is their creation of their orchestra, hand-picked and developed over the past two years, consisting of a core body of experienced professionals, post-graduate students and first-rate amateur musicians. Many of them must have been performing this music for the first time, and, as always, there was a wonderful sense of discovery in their playing. Seventy-five strong, including four Wagner tubas, under Peter Selwyn’s masterly direction they made a glorious sound and overcame the venue’s variable acoustics to create a fine balance between singers and orchestra.
The LOC plan to conclude their Ring cycle with Götterdämmerung at the same venue on 19 October. I cannot wait.
I was deeply moved to learn from a note in the programme that the performance was dedicated to the memory of Ben Thapa, last year’s sensational Siegmund, whose tragically early death has robbed us all of a fine singer and a wonderful man.
Katie Barnes
For more about The London Opera Company click here.
Featured Image: The London Opera Company’s Siegfried at Sinfonia Smith Square