OPERA / Backstage with Domingo: Placido Domingo has just appeared in Wagner's Ring for the first time, as Siegmund. Daniel Snowman sat in on the rehearsals

'Siegmund heiss ich, und Siegmund bin ich]'

ON 19 December, Placido Domingo sang these words in public for the first time, in the Vienna State Opera's new production of Wagner's Die Walkure - and gave notice of the arrival of the most lyrical Siegmund since Lauritz Melchior half a century before.

Domingo came to Wagner early in his career but has paced his ascent of the mountain carefully. He gave just two performances of Lohengrin in Hamburg in 1968; after that, apart from a recording of Die Meistersinger in 1976, he dropped Wagner until 1984, when he returned to Lohengrin. Since then, there have been recordings of that work and of Tannhauser, and, in 1991-2, several productions of Parsifal, among them Domingo's Bayreuth debut. For years, people had pressed him to consider the Ring - wasn't his voice ideal for the heroic music of Siegmund in Die Walkure? Finally, he said yes.

DOMINGO was in his element working hard here in Vienna on a new role and a new production. Rehearsals took place in a disused warehouse in the Messegelande, a huge, desolate exhibition park out beyond the Prater ferris wheel.

The director, Adolf Dresen, seemed to be aiming at an intimate, almost chamber style rapport between the characters. There would be little room for extravagant operatic gestures on sets, by Herbert Kapplmuller, designed to bring much of the action to within a few yards of the footlights. All the better, perhaps, for seeing and hearing singers of the calibre of Hildegard Behrens (Brunnhilde), the American bass- baritone Robert Hale (Wotan), Vienna's own Kurt Rydl as Hunding and, as Domingo's principal partner, Sieglinde, the electrifying soprano Waltraud Meier, here assaying the role for the first time. Forget the traditional demure little Nordic hausfrau in a blonde wig, this is a Sieglinde with guts (she does after all drug her husband's drink so that she can make love to the handsome stranger who has just arrived in their house). A diminutive bundle of energy, Meier almost disappears in Domingo's expansive bear-hug - or rather the wolfskin coat that he begins to sport over his shell suit as a move towards the creature of the forests he must become by opening night.

'THE more I get to know this role,' Domingo said during rehearsals, 'the more I love it.' One reason was something of a surprise: 'Because Siegmund suffers so much.' When Siegmund is asked who he is, he replies that he should be called 'Wehwalt' ('Sorrowful') and his autobiographical narration early in the opera is almost entirely devoted to the savageries he has experienced or felt the need to avenge.

Siegmund provides Domingo with many challenges: vocal, musical, dramatic and linguistic. Since most of Domingo's repertoire is in Italian or French opera, and since he is also an accomplished pianist, he normally teaches himself new roles without the need of expert coaching. But with German, a language he understands but in which he is far from fluent, a new role represents a major undertaking.

It is not so much a question of getting the right accent - he is a good mimic and his individual umlauts and glottal stops sound authentic enough. ('Mind you,' he pointed out, 'people say that my diction is very clear, so that if I make a mistake and say 'der Wonnemond' instead of 'dem' for example, everyone will hear it. Maybe I should mumble a bit more.') More seriously, it is the underlying sense of the words, the Wagnerian integration of verbal and musical meaning that is elusive. Wagner's text contains many traps for the unwary: archaic constructions or anomalies of syntax that make poetic rather than literal sense.

Vocally, too, Siegmund is far from easy. 'He is on for the whole of Act 1 without a break,' Domingo observed, 'so that, although he only appears again towards the end of Act 2 and then gets killed, the role is a very long one: almost as long as Wotan.' Domingo explains that in his first scenes Siegmund has a great deal of disjointed narration where much of the colour is provided by the orchestra rather than the vocal line. The tessitura is quite low for much of this early section, but it needs a properly tenorial timbre or Siegmund won't sound romantic enough. Domingo illustrated the point at the piano, then launched into the beginning of Siegmund's one real aria, 'Wintersturme'.

Instead of giving Siegmund his first big high notes at the end of that aria the way Verdi or Puccini would do, Wagner has already written one or two tremendous outbursts beforehand. By the time 'Wintersturme' finally arrives, it is almost lieder singing that's required. And the whole piece comes and goes almost before the audience has realised it. Dramatically and musically this structure makes perfect sense, Domingo acknowledges, but vocally it is tough on the tenor.

There are plenty more vocal heroics required after 'Wintersturme'. Indeed, the final 15 minutes of Act 1 must rank as among the most sustainedly ecstatic passages of music ever written. By now, Wagner's lustrous orchestration is off the leash, and Domingo knows it will take all the considerable vocalism at his command (and careful restraint by Christoph von Dohnanyi in the pit) if he is to ride the surging instrumental textures successfully.

Throughout his career, Domingo has been warned of the dangers of undertaking the heavier roles in the tenor repertoire. He was short of 35 when he sang his first Otello and critics predicted that the role would ruin his voice for Boheme and Ballo. 'On the contrary,' he said, 'I still find that when I undertake one of these so-called heavier roles it seems to free the upper register of my voice. A role like Siegmund, although long and demanding, has few high notes so that, while the middle register of the voice, is being used all the time, the top is being rested in a way.'

TEN DAYS to go and rehearsals are now on stage as the various elements of the production come together. In Act 1, Hunding's great white tent collapses on cue more or less noiselessly to reveal the moonlit beauty of the 'Wintersturme' scene; parallel to this, Wotan's black tent in Act 2 and the grey Valkyrie rock sanctuary in Act 3 both rise when required so that each act begins in an enclosed space and ends exposed to the elements. There is snow in each act: one of Dresen's original ideas was that each of the four Ring operas should represent one of the seasons, with Walkure as winter. And there is fire in each act, too, notably an eruption of smouldering scarlet-lit lava up and around Brunnhilde's glazed rock at the opera's end.

At the general rehearsal an audience is to be let into the house for the first time. How will they react to the dark lighting, the modern costumes and the girlish prancing of the Valkyrie girls to the music of their famous 'Ride'? What will they think of Siegmund's pigtail? Will the Act 2 fight between Rydl and Domingo look persuasive? If the invited audience at the dress rehearsal had views, they did not express them; the reaction, as is the way on these occasions, was muted but friendly . . .

Finally, on the last Saturday before Christmas, an audience variously composed of the rich, the powerful, the tenacious and the fortunate settled into their seats at the Staatsoper, or against the bar at which they were permitted to stand, as Dohnanyi came out, acknowledged the applause, and launched the Vienna Philharmonic into Wagner's epic.

What followed was a feast of superb singing. Rydl as Hunding and Uta Priew as Fricka were effortlessly commanding, while Robert Hale's Wotan, looking every inch a god, sang like one, tirelessly. And Waltraud Meier's Sieglinde was a stunning display of intensely expressive singing and acting. When she named her new lover - 'Siegmund]' - a palpable frisson of excitement swept through the audience.

For Domingo, too, the evening was a great personal triumph. From his first entry, the artistic energy never faltered. 'I'm just sorry it's so long before Siegmund reappears,' he laughed as he came offstage.

He spent Act 3 alone in his dressing room, score in hand, following the music relayed over the tannoy. And when it was time to go on stage to acknowledge the applause he and Meier were greeted like conquering heroes. As Domingo put it, whooping like a Valkyrie backstage afterwards: 'The baby is born]'

Rehearsals of 'Die Walkure' in Vienna were filmed for the BBC for the first of a series of films backstage with Domingo. 'Die Walkure' will be broadcast from Vienna on Radio 3, Saturday, 6.30pm.

Daniel Snowman is the author of 'The World of Placido Domingo' (1985)