The roles featured on this CD are, in more ways than one, truly great ones – and the vocal and interpretational demands on the artist are of an equally high calibre. The fact, as J. M. Fischer writes in the booklet text, that the term “heroic baritone” has established itself in connection with these roles is recognition of the highly technical challenges – and simultaneously an understatement. The parallels with Wagnerʼs “heroic tenor roles” can be seen in the truly supreme vocal challenges, and yet the bass-baritone protagonistʼs role in each of these works also demands even greater control of the dramatic character of the role and, therefore, a more complex musical approach.
Michael Volle
Foto: Carsten SanderThe enduring fascination of these demanding roles can also be sought in their “tragic awareness”, their undeniably “modern” broken state – something that is highly prescient in an era which sees itself as “post-heroic”.
Michael Volle is the epitome of a singer who has almost untypically by todayʼs standard continuously grown into these roles and developed them in a serious way to bring out their individual characters. Hailing from a much wider repertoire base, he now performs those great Wagner roles on the most renowned international stages – most recently as Sachs at the New York Met as well as in the highly acclaimed Herheim production in Salzburg or the new version in Bayreuth. Following on from parts like Wolfram, Amfortas and Sachs, which he tried his hand at when younger and has brought to maturity, the artist is now able to tackle Wotan and Wanderer and lastly, perhaps the most challenging Wagnerian baritone role of all – the Dutchman from the composerʼs early period.
Michael Volle receives ample support from Georg Fritzsch, a GMD with many years of opera to his credit, and conducting the highly flexible Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin, whose Wagner credentials are documented on a recent CD of all his operass