Canadian baritone James Milligan's is a name largely forgotten today. Following a major career break-thru - singing The Wanderer in SIEGFRIED at the Bayreuth Festival in 1961 - Milligan took up his contracted duties at the opera house in Basel, Switzerland. There, four months after his Bayreuth success, he suffered a heart attack and died. He was 33 years old.
Born in Halifax in 1928, Milligan began to emerge during the 1950s in major roles with what was to become the Canadian Opera Company; he sang at the Glyndebourse Festival in 1956 and came to the attention of Sir Malcolm Sargent who tapped Milligan as a soloist in a series of concerts including The Damnation of Faust and The Dream of Gerontius; together they recorded Walton's Belshazzar's Feast and some Gilbert & Sullivan works. Then came Bayreuth, followed by Milligan's unexpected early death.
Penelope Turing wrote of Milligan's Bayreuth Wanderer: "He had a glorious voice of ringing quality, power and range, and he used it with real musicianship. As an actor he had that indefinable quality which we call stage presence... He was the Wanderer in a way which I have never seen displayed except by singers who have had years of experience in this part. It was a thrilling occasion"
The 1961 SIEGFRIED has now become available from Opera Depot. Dmitry copied off the third act for me so I could sample Milligan's performance and it is really quite stunning: he is a real baritone with just a trace of basso underpinnings in the voice. His voice has a clear and powerful ring to it and he seems very much at home in the music though undoubtedly these were his first ventures into this taxing role. After capping off his scene with Erda with some truly vibrant Wagner singing, Milligan's encounter with the Siegfried of Hans Hopf bristles with increasing tension, well-highlighted by Rudolf Kempe's keen conducting. Once Siegfried has shattered The Wanderer's spear, Milligan adopts a broken, aged vocal quality that finishes off his portrayal of the toppled god to moving effect. One can only imagine what might have been if Milligan had lived on into his 40s and 50s: his Amfortas, Hans Sachs, Jochanaan, and Barak in FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN would surely have been formidable.
Marga Höffgen (above) sings Erda in the performance, bringing a somewhat more mezzo-soprano than contralto feel to the music without in the least shirking on the lower notes required by the role. Her scene with Milligan is truly exciting, and finely illuminated by the conducting of Maestro Kempe, who ignites the storm music that opens the act with real dramatic impetus.
Above: Birgit Nilsson
In 1962, I heard the RING Cycle for the very first time in a series of Met broadcasts which featured Birgit Nilsson as Brunnhilde and Hans Hopf as Siegfried. These singers appear together in this '61 Bayreuth SIEGFRIED and they have quite a go at the opera's climactic love duet. Birgit - who we affectionately referred to as "The Big B" or "The Great White Goddess" back in the 60s and early 70s (her vocal heyday) - sings the Awakening Scene with thrilling amplitude and considerable warmth. The voice at that point was simply a force of nature and it is so exciting to listen to her on such sensational form in this long duet.
Mr. Hopf as Siegfried is also on great form here, and he knows his way around this arduous role. His timbre will not be to all tastes but the prodigious power of his singing is all the more impressive when you consider that he'd already sung two long, strenuous acts by the time he makes the ascent to Brunnhilde's Rock and joins Nilsson in this clarion duet.
A couple of drop-outs on this 1961 recording are a minor annoyance: overall the sound quality is quite vivid.
Sample James Milligan's singing here: