Wagner opera soars at Tanglewood

LENOX - Whether he's portraying Figaro or Falstaff, Don Giovanni or Sweeney Todd, Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel cuts a commanding figure visually and vocally.

Saturday evening found the 6-foot-3-inch Terfel in the shoes of Hans Sachs, central figure in Richard Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg," as conductor Rafael Fruehbeck de Burgos led the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood Festival Chorus in an hour of excerpts from the opera.

The selections condensed the complexity of Wagner's four-hour opus into a sort of extended soliloquy for Sachs spanning the opera's three acts, illuminated by each act's Prelude, and garnished by glorious choruses, including the thrilling Entrance of the Guilds, Apprentices and Mastersingers.

De Burgos coaxed a generous outpouring of sound from the Symphony, unfurling the opera's main musical material in the Overture, or Act I Prelude, with expansive yet subtly nuanced gestures.

The Chorus, 137 strong, arranged in SATB quartets, towered behind the orchestra on soaring ranks of risers.

Their first utterance, a chorale anticipating the Feast of St. John the Baptist, flowed forth, legato as sonic honey, and a delicious foretaste of the power and visceral excitement with which they would infuse the opera's final scene.

Terfel inhabited a thoughtful, proud Sachs, at once magnanimous and mystical. In his pivotal third act musing "Wahn! Wahn! Ueberall Wahn!" he delivered a timeless text, seeking higher good in the midst of social chaos. "To guide this madness, artfully, to make some nobler work - that's rare in commonplace things, and never succeeds without some bit of madness," he sang, investing the hope with a steadfast confidence built (in the opera) on medieval German history and industry, but resonating in the rootless cultural confusion of the modern world.

The selections gave Terfel an opportunity to fully realize Sachs, from the romantic dreamer who sings "Was duftet doch der Flieder" after hearing Walther's song to the pillar of the community who leads in boldly hailing "die heil'ge deutsche Kunst" (the holy German art).

Though holding his score, Terfel was virtually off-book and deeply immersed in his character, suggesting that he might one day add Sachs to his repertoire of Wagnerian roles, which will soon include Wotan in productions of "Das Rheingold" and "Die Walkuere" for the Royal Opera House.

Four Chorus tenors (Andrew Crain, Henry Lussier, Mark Mulligan and Martin S. Thomson) singing in unison covered the few lines sung in the chosen excerpts by Sachs' apprentice David. The part of David's romantic interest Magdalene was similarly served by four chorus mezzo-sopranos (Betty B. Blume, Gale Livingston, Louise-Marie Mennier and Rachel Shetler).

The choral excerpts were brilliant and fiercely stirring. The power and point of their clarion "Wach' auf," commencing Sachs' chorale in the third act could have cracked the limestone bluffs of Monument Mountain many miles down the valley.

De Burgos conducted without score throughout the evening. He was clearly held in high esteem by the musicians, who played earnestly and elegantly for him. Following up on his memorable reading last summer of Beethoven's 7th Symphony, he opened Saturday's concert with a pithy and rambunctious account of the German master's 8th Symphony.

A perfect blend of angularity and buoyancy pointed up the score's wit and the composer's structural ingenuity. In a symphony where the double basses play such a key melodic and contrapuntal role, it was gratifying to hear nine of them in full, gruff glory. BSO principal clarinetist William R. Hudgins also turned in some excellent solo work.

De Burgos acknowledged the audience's boisterous approval with a beaming smile, as if to embrace the entire population of the Koussevitzky Music Shed and surrounding lawns in the uncontainable joy of superb music-making.