FROM AROUND THE WORLD: AUSTIN.(Review)

Central Texas is probably the last place one would expect to discover a wonderful production of Die Walkure, but Austin Lyric Opera managed to transform the Hill Country into an Americanized version of Bayreuth's "heilige Hugel" last March for four performances (with two separate casts) of the second part of the Ring cycle. With singers who were fresh, heroic, lyrical and -- above all -- young, ALO proved that Wagner can be convincingly mounted with new talent and, even more important, that youthful singers are dramatically right for characters such as Siegmund, Sieglinde and Brunnhilde.

All the performances were good, but several singers stood out. As Sieglinde, Margaret Jane Wray produced rich, lush sounds (although her acting was pretty stolid) that persuasively rendered her passion for the Siegmund of Stephen O'Mara. He was physically attractive and dramatically alert -- and he climbed, Erroll-Flynn-like, half-way up the tree to pull out Nothung at the climax of Act I. His "Wintersturme" began slowly and lyrically, building in passion through Sieglinde's "Du bist der Lenz" and their rapturous duet.

The orchestra, conducted by Guido Ajmone-Marsan, was not quite up to the task of matching, let alone leading, the vocalists: tempos were slow and, even more damaging, the orchestral playing lacked both dynamic propulsion and a strong lower string sound to heighten the inevitability of the dramatic action. Whether it was in the nature of the ensemble or the acoustics of the hall, the strings were constantly outperformed by the brass. Still, the playing improved substantially during the evening, and by the end of Act III, Ajmone-Marsan was coaxing wonderful sounds from his musicians.

In addition to the youthful brother-sister pair, the four other lead singers sang with appropriate pathos and gusto, although their appearances often worked against their voices. Dressed like an Old Testament patriarch, Donnie Ray Albert made a ...