Concerts of Wagner excerpts are often given the gory epithet “bleeding chunks”. Yet hacked from their respective music dramas, packaged and served up to the audience in convenient portions, it can feel like feasting on cold slices of processed meat. It takes a fine conductor who can breathe life into the butchered cuts. Fabio Luisi worked his magic with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai at the Festival de Pâques d'Aix-en-Provence, binding the various motifs in the closing scene of Götterdämmerung so deftly that you’d be convinced you were nearing the end of the 15-hour Ring Cycle rather than a two-hour concert.
Despite conducting the Metropolitan Opera’s Ring, Luisi is far more associated with Verdi than Wagner. He didn’t do any Wagner operas during his tenure as Generalmusikdirektor of Zurich Opera, although there was a double disc of preludes and overtures with its orchestra. The silver-haired Italian is a modest, no frills, no fuss conductor who gets on with the business in hand. There were no grandstanding gestures on display here, just a clear beat from his (batonless) hands and the occasional thrust of his arms to urge on his charges.
The rowdy crowd-pleasers were largely absent from Luisi’s programme – no Ride of the Valkyries or Lohengrin Act 3 prelude. What often impressed was the refined quality of the orchestral playing in Wagner’s quieter moments: the horns that launched the Tannhäuser overture sounded soft and rounded in the sympathetic concert shell of the Grand Théâtre; the sheen of the Rai strings glowed in the ethereal Act 1 Lohengrin prelude; the cellos in the Tristan und Isolde prelude were warm, without being overheated. The brass playing in the Good Friday Music from Parsifal (just a day late at this Easter festival!) was noble and reverent. Luisi has an exceptional ear for balance and blended his Torinese orchestra with great sensitivity, without it feeling micromanaged. He simply allowed the music to breathe and to sing.