Credit for this accomplishment belongs to the industry of the young musicians, the care of their coaches, and the heroic endeavor of James Levine, who for his first major project with the Tanglewood fellows devoted nearly 30 hours of rehearsal to this improbable program -- more than two hours of some of the most demanding and rewarding music ever composed for orchestra (and singers, of course). There have been complaints in the press, justified or not, about how slow and ponderous his Wagner has become, but he was clearly energized by this challenge and by working with young players who were coming to this music for the first time. There was breadth and nobility in his reading, but also a conversational ease and urgency, vivid nature-painting, and emotional power-punches. Wagner knew how to let the voices through, but the conductor has to know this too, and Levine does.
The cast mostly featured a new generation of Wagner performers. There were two heroic tenors of complementary qualities, Clifton Forbes (Siegmund) and Christian Franz (Siegfried). Forbes had power and sturdiness; Franz had unusual imagination and lyricism. The basses were Stephen Milling (menacing, domineering, and thunderous as Hunding) and the veteran John Cheek, coming in at short notice to pour it on as Hagen. Rhinemaidens and other small parts were well-done, and a group of men from the Tanglewood Festival Chorus made a vivid crew of loutish huntsmen. As Gutrune, soprano Melanie Diener was lustrous in tone and touchingly vulnerable -- if she plays her cards right, she may become the great Wagner soprano of the next generation.
Meanwhile we have Deborah Voigt, recreating one of her signature roles, Sieglinde, with radiant, spontaneous femininity, and taking a giant stride toward her first Bruennhilde by singing the ''Immolation Scene" with dignity and passion, although the rich low notes charged a toll on some of her top tones.
The ovations for the singers were tremendous, but the real roars came for the contributions of the orchestra, and when Levine finally took a solo bow, the musicians cheered along with the audience and stomped their feet.
