Number 201: APRIL 2011 - Wagner Society of England

Paul Dawson-Bowling Annual Lecture 26th January 2011
DONALD MCINTYRE: COLOSSUS FROM NEW ZEALAND
Report by Jeremy Rowe
A good crowd attended Portland Place Sixth Form Centre to hear Paul Dawson-
Bowling interview Sir Donald McIntyre. Paul and Sir Donald had chosen four extracts
from DVDs of Sir Donald’s performances, and these formed the basis of Paul’s questions.
First we saw the Dutchman’s opening scene from Sir Donald’s 1975 movie. Filmed
largely in a lake in Germany, Sir Donald had spent much of the filming wearing a wet suit
and splashing around in freezing water. Of his performance he commented: “We’re here
not because it’s easy, but because it’s difficult.” He told us that he found the character of
the Dutchman challenging: “hard to find the core of the role.” He had searched and
searched and decided the Dutchman was mad. (He used the German word verrückt.)
He said he was always very interested in the psychology of the characters, and
especially with the conflict within a character. He felt Wagner developed this more and
more over time, and this notion of inner conflict had reached its zenith with Parsifal and
Hans Sachs. In preparing a role Sir Donald looked for the two sides of each character. In
doing so he had been strongly influenced by Klemperer, who encouraged him to seek the
“Fundament”, the guts of the performance.
The second DVD extract was Wotan’s Act II monologue from Chereau’s 1976 Ring
at Bayreuth. Sir Donald continued his theme of seeking the core of a character, quoting
Glen Byam Shaw’s instruction to “look for the truth of a performance”. He paid tribute
to what he had learned from the “great team of coaching experts” at Covent Garden,
especially Reggie Goodall who had given him “hours and hours and hours”.
He told us how he had liked working with Chereau, who at only 27 had a new view
of the Ring, and brought a pedagogic approach to the staging. Constantly asking
questions, he would continuously try different moves within each scene, forcing much
rethinking of the characterisations.
The final extracts were shorter, and both from Meistersinger. First we saw
some of the 1988 production from Sydney, then some of the 1984 production from
Zurich. Sir Donald noted that the role of Hans Sachs is the most demanding of all
Wagner’s leading men – more to sing in one evening, than the whole of the Wotan part in
the Ring.
Sir Donald concluded by saying, “This job I’ve had ..... I cannot think of anything
I’d rather have done. It’s been just a thrill from beginning to end!”
Peter West, donningtonart@aol.com
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